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You already know that BridgeU helps international school counsellors manage their entire university and careers guidance programmes from one place.
But did you know that we currently provide over 100,000 students with the information they need to independently explore and research universities around the world?
In today’s blog, we’ll be taking you through the five stages of the student journey using BridgeU, all the way from exploration to application.
This will give you some new ideas on how to engage your students in their university applications. Plus, we’ll show you how BridgeU’s flexible curriculum can easily be weaved into your existing plans so you can achieve the best results for your students.
Once your school has been onboarded onto BridgeU, you’ll be assigned a Customer Success Manager, and your students will be able to set up their personal BridgeU accounts.
Your dedicated Customer Success Manager is there to provide you and your students with continued professional training and product support, meaning your students can work independently to become more familiar with our tools and resources.
In addition, we provide all BridgeU counsellors with free teaching resources and lesson plans to help you work with your students in the classroom.
“BridgeU makes the guidance process more individual, allows the students to be independent, but lets us manage things without being too intrusive.”
Louise Brown, University Guidance Counsellor, Nord Anglia School of Dubai
Many students have their higher education all figured out from a young age; they know exactly what they want to study and where they want to apply. However, a lot of students have no clue what they want to study, and figuring out how to start can be daunting.
To accommodate every student at your school, BridgeU covers every aspect of university preparation and applications. This also means many of your students, younger and older, will start in what we call the ‘Explore’ phase.
To help students figure out where to begin with their university research, we want to help them take a look inward and discover some of their strengths, as well as look at previous accomplishments that they can tie in.
These students can begin using BridgeU to do some self-exploration and learn which careers and courses will be the best fit for them academically and personally.
They can do this on BridgeU through the KTS Assessments and Strategy Advisor. BridgeU partners with Human eSources to help students learn more about themselves and the different career pathways available.
Then the strategy advisor helps students reflect on the results of their assessments by recording their extracurricular activities and personal achievements. Students can use both of these to start forming their application strategy and even map out areas for improvement.
Counsellor tip: The strategy advisor keeps records of students’ achievements and experiences throughout their time on the platform in a strategy report. When it’s time, you can access this to help you easily prepare references, recommendation letters, and more!
If your students still need some extra guidance, they can also use BridgeU’s Careers tool to explore job and labour market trends using the KTS Assessments as an aid. Once their assessments have told them the different types of jobs that are best suited for them, they can look through them to see what degrees and skills they would need to get there.
In addition, you can even use the lesson plans we provide to work through some exploration with your students in the classroom as a group.
“It helped us to align guidance from middle years to higher years…students don’t see guidance as two isolated processes, it’s one journey.”
Pragati Pandey, University Counsellor, Aga Khan School, Hyderabad
Find out more about how BridgeU helps your students explore a wider range of global universities.
Now that your students have a better idea of what and where they would like to study, it’s time to fill out BridgeU’s Profile Builder and get instantly matched with their best-fit universities!
The Profile Builder asks students questions in four sections to gain a better understanding of which universities they’re best suited for…
After this, BridgeU’s Profile Builder and Intelligent Matching use data on over 26,000 global universities to give students recommendations based on their personal preferences and target grades. This helps them to explore a wide range of international study destinations, including many they might not have considered before.
After they’ve found some courses and institutions they’re interested in, students can move over to researching the universities they’ve been matched with using university profiles on Explore and the Resource Center.
Counsellor tip: Keep students on track during this stage by assigning them customised tasks with deadlines in less than a minute through BridgeU, such as ‘Complete Strategy Advisor.’
So your students have used BridgeU to find some courses and institutions that they’re excited about. Now it’s time to work with your students and build a shortlist so they can make sure they’re prepared for applications.
Students can shortlist universities inside the platform and start performing in-depth university and course research using BridgeU’s shortlisting function and student content.
Students can use the Explore tab in the Universities section to research universities and courses. Filtering by popularity, location, and subject helps students thoroughly research their choices so that they can tailor their shortlist to their interests.
They can also take control of their guidance journey with their BridgeU newsfeed and the Resource Center, where they can explore advice, articles, and events based on their age and the subjects, careers, and universities they’ve expressed interest in.
We also know that counsellors play a big role in helping students create their shortlists. BridgeU’s Strategy Adviser, Writing Builder, and task management tools can be used to help you guide your students in preparing their applications.
Read more about how your students can create their perfect shortlist with BridgeU!
Once your students have their finalised shortlist, they can move on to preparing and submitting their university applications.
Students can now work with their counsellors to finalise their shortlists and begin applying to their shortlisted universities through BridgeU. For this stage, they’ll want to utilise the writing builder, strategy reports, and recommendation tools.
BridgeU’s Writing Builder provides students with a space to write their personal statement or application essays, complete with resources and information to help with any writing block. Plus, they can submit any work they complete to their counsellors through BridgeU for review.
“For students, this is the best guidance counselling experience they’ve ever had, and BridgeU has helped with that.”
Michael Francis, Assistant Head of Sixth Form, British International School of Cairo
Their strategy report will also come into play here. They can filter through their experiences and achievements to see how they can be used in their application. This helps students ensure they’re covering everything they need for each application.
And if your student needs a letter of recommendation or reference, they can use BridgeU’s Recommendations tool to easily send requests.
And then, finally, they’ll make a decision about where they will attend.
Counsellor tip: BridgeU’s Recommendations tool helps you stay on top of your students’ applications in one place and easily keep track of what stage each student is at.
We’ve only scratched the surface of what BridgeU can do for your students and guidance programme!
We’ve been working with international school students worldwide through their university and career journeys for 10 years. We offer students a comprehensive range of tools and resources designed to empower them when navigating the complexities of higher education.
“This isn’t just another platform, this is integral to our students’ education”
Simon Finnigan, University Guidance Counsellor, British International School of Ho Chi Minh City
Are you ready to transform your university guidance programme?
Book a demo below to discover firsthand how we can elevate your students’ journeys towards successful university applications.
Learn how BridgeU can help deliver better outcomes for your students and improved results for your school
