Rethinking International Student Success

For many years, colleges and universities have measured international student success through familiar metrics like retention, graduation, and academic performance. But international student and scholar services (ISSS) professionals say those measures only tell part of the story. 

Today, institutions are taking a broader view. International student success now includes everything from academic adjustment and career readiness to well-being, belonging, and knowing how to navigate life on a U.S. campus. Supporting those needs means moving beyond one-time orientation sessions or services housed solely within the international office. Instead, it requires a campus-wide effort that begins before students arrive and continues through graduation.

Define What Success Means

Before institutions can improve international student success, they first need to decide what success should look like on their campuses.

Syracuse University has intentionally shifted to holistic support after conversations about defining what international student success should look like. “International student success is defined as integration of academic persistence, career readiness, well-being, and belonging,” says Ling LeBeau, director of international student success. “We focused primarily on academic persistence in the beginning and started to integrate other elements in recent years.”

The university built a model that connects academic advising and international education through five key areas: pre-arrival academic coaching, peer mentoring, advisor training, academic intervention, and communication.

“The model collaboratively guides and empowers students in an inclusive environment to realize their potential and discover their purpose as they successfully transition into university life,” LeBeau says. The goal is to provide support before students struggle, not after problems arise.

“The model collaboratively guides and empowers students in an inclusive environment to realize their potential and discover their purpose as they successfully transition into university life.” —Ling LeBeau

Ball State University came to a similar conclusion by listening closely to its students. “When I started, we looked at the typical metrics of graduation and retention,” says Vanessa Lanning, director of international student success at Ball State. “But I learned in my academic research as well as my discussions with students that those metrics are often already high for international students. They are academically and professionally successful.”

Instead, international students described a different set of challenges, many of which were sociocultural, she explains. “How are peer-to-peer connections going? Are they connecting with their faculty? Do they know how to navigate university systems?”

Those conversations led Ball State to rethink what success looks like. Today, the university focuses on three measures of student success: belonging, retention, and graduation. Belonging includes students’ connections with peers, faculty, and the institution itself.

Washington State University (WSU) has also broadened how it defines success. “Success is measured by more than just retention and degree program completion,” says Kate Hellmann, director of international student and scholar services. “It also includes developing intercultural skills and being prepared for the job market and related opportunities post-graduation.” The university’s definition, she adds, has shifted to place greater emphasis on career preparation and mental well-being alongside academics.

Student Success Doesn’t Start—or End—at Orientation

One of the biggest misconceptions around international student success is that orientation alone can prepare students for life at a U.S. university. “Simply offering an international student orientation is too often seen as the solution to helping students adjust to studying in a new culture,” says Melissa Hawkins, associate director for internationalization and COIL initiative coordinator at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

The reality, Hawkins says, is that students can’t absorb everything they’re expected to learn in a few days. “No student—international or domestic—can take in and implement the abundance of information they receive in orientation.” Even when students remember what they heard, they may not fully understand it until they experience it themselves.

At Syracuse, that support begins long before students arrive. “The international student success model provides sustainable, structured, and systematic support to students from before they arrive on campus until they graduate,” LeBeau says.

“Help your campus think beyond what information they are required to provide at orientation in order to tick off boxes.” —Melissa Hawkins

The university’s Catapult Program is an online course that introduces students to U.S. academic culture before they arrive. Students also participate in weekly pre-arrival academic coaching sessions, helping them begin their transition well before move-in day.

What happens after orientation matters just as much. Rather than asking what information belongs in orientation, Hawkins encourages institutions to think about when students actually need certain information.

“Help your campus think beyond what information they are required to provide at orientation in order to tick off boxes,” she encourages. “Instead, help your campus think through when receiving certain information would be most helpful to students.”

Make Student Success Everyone’s Job

International student success isn’t something the international office can accomplish on its own, and “engaged faculty are the most important factor in guiding students towards gradual academic adjustment and ultimate success,” Hawkins says. 

At UAB, that belief has shaped the university’s approach to faculty training. Through the Center for Teaching and Learning, faculty participate in workshops and learning communities that help them better understand the international student experience and explore ways to better support students in their classrooms.

“I have seen faculty members transformed and spurred into action through the training,” Hawkins says. “It is that kind of informed, caring engagement that makes an incredible impact at the level of classroom experience, as well as among their fellow faculty colleagues.” 

Faculty are only one piece of the student success puzzle. International students interact with many offices across campus—including academic advising, counseling services, student health, and libraries—often encountering roles or services that may not exist in their home countries. “Campuses need to consider where students commonly interact with individuals in [those] roles,” she says. Staff members in these offices, she adds, should understand “the learning curves that international students often face” and learn strategies for effective cross-cultural communication.

“We provide [campus partners] the information that students have told us, and we serve as a thinking partner on how or if we can solve those challenges.” —Vanessa Lanning

Building that support network also means bringing people together. At UAB, what started as informational meetings evolved into an annual International Student Academic Success Retreat. People from across campus gather to share what’s working, discuss challenges, and brainstorm solutions together. “We hope that this is helping with communication and coordination across campus,” Hawkins says.

Ball State takes a similar approach by starting with student voices. “We provide [campus partners] the information that students have told us, and we serve as a thinking partner on how or if we can solve those challenges,” Lanning says.

The university has even begun inviting campus stakeholders to international student town halls so they can hear directly from students about their experiences rather than relying on secondhand feedback.

Cultivate Relationships Before Students Need Help

When it comes to many aspects of student success, strong support systems matter—but experts say relationships are often what determine whether students ask for help in the first place.

“International students will often talk to a peer about a problem they are facing before they will talk to an authority figure in an official capacity,” Hawkins says. Students from more hierarchical cultures, she adds, “are particularly more likely to talk to a peer who is a year or two ahead of them—a ‘senior’ peer—than they are any campus employee.”

These cultural considerations are one reason UAB assigns every incoming international undergraduate student a trained peer mentor and offers peer mentors to graduate students.  Several academic units are now investigating or piloting peer mentoring designed to help students adjust academically to the demands of specific graduate programs.

“International students will often talk to a peer about a problem they are facing before they will talk to an authority figure in an official capacity.” —Melissa Hawkins

WSU also relies heavily on what Hellmann calls “near peers” to help new students adjust. Upper-level students share their own experiences and help “demystify the campus culture and make WSU feel like home,” she says. Using near peers to normalize the challenges students may experience, she adds, can also reduce the stigma around asking for academic or personal help.

At Syracuse, peer mentoring is part of a broader network of support that also includes faculty mentors, weekly student forums, one-on-one advising, newsletters, and communication through platforms like WhatsApp and WeChat.

For Lanning, though, this aspect of student success starts with something much simpler. “We have to show up [and] build the relationships,” she says.

That mindset shapes much of Ball State’s work. When students begin struggling academically, the international student success team reaches out to check in. When a natural disaster or tragedy affects students’ home countries, the team sends a personal message letting those students know they’re thinking about them and reminding them of campus resources that may help.

Lanning also makes it a priority to attend student presentations, performances, and cultural events whenever possible. “We actually need to care that they are on our campus,” she says. 

Many of Ball State’s signature programs grew out of the same philosophy. Benny Buddies pairs international and domestic students in cross-cultural friendships. International grocery trips introduce students to markets in nearby Indianapolis. Cultural exchanges give international students and study abroad returnees an opportunity to share their experiences, while events like the university’s “Jollof-off” celebrate culture through food and friendly competition.

Just as important, Lanning says, is helping students get to know the people behind campus resources before they need them. “If [international students] don’t know the people in the Learning Center, it may be a bigger social lift to utilize their resources,” she says. “Let’s create low-stakes opportunities for people to meet. Knowing someone in an office, even if superficially, can make it easier to show up.”

Listen to Students, Then Build

As institutions look for new ways to support international students, all three experts point to the same starting place: listen. “If you aren’t doing it already, listen to the students,” Lanning says. “Our best ideas have come directly from them.”

One example is a refrigerator magnet every new international student receives during orientation. A QR code links students to a live resource guide with campus and community services, information about what each office can help with, and contact information.

“This way, they always have the code visible, and they don’t have to go searching on Google or university webpages to see what to do,” Lanning says.

Student feedback also helps shape larger conversations across campus. Ball State regularly surveys international students and hosts town halls for them, then shares what students say with campus partners to identify ways to improve services. The university has even started inviting those partners to attend the town halls so they can hear directly from students.

At WSU, an annual International Student Needs Assessment looks at the student experience from pre-arrival through graduation, including students’ experiences in the classroom, on campus, in the community, and navigating unfamiliar systems. “From that data, we identify key elements of challenge and then work to address those key challenges each year,” Hellmann says. 

“If you aren’t doing it already, listen to the students. Our best ideas have come directly from them.” —Vanessa Lanning

Sometimes the response is surprisingly practical. Student feedback has led WSU to partner with Student Affairs to add a prayer room in a campus building and rethink how the university explains and supports students as they navigate the U.S. health insurance system.

Syracuse follows a similar approach, using annual surveys, focus groups, and regular conversations with students to improve its programs. The university also tracks student outcomes over time to better understand which initiatives are making the biggest difference.

For Hawkins, listening also means thinking carefully about when students need support, not just what information institutions want to provide. “You want to minimize information overload,” she says. “You want to have information ready for them when they actually need it.”

Doing that well requires more people across campus to get involved, but Hawkins sees that as a strength. “Naturally this means that you’ll need to involve more people in the puzzle,” she notes. “But that’s what you want—international student support that truly surrounds the student experience on your campus.”

A Student Success Mindset

Though international student success is a core responsibility of the ISSS office, it isn’t theirs alone. It’s a campus-wide effort built through the everyday interactions students have with advisors, faculty, classmates, and staff.

For Lanning, that starts with a simple question every institution can ask, regardless of its size or resources.

“I recognize that not every university has a team—or even one individual—whose sole responsibility is the success of international students,” she says. “But I would argue that we can all look at our work through the lens of student success. If we do that, what are the ways that we can change our approach to the specific work that we do to show the students we care, we are listening, and we are cheering them on? We can all do that.”  •