Am I going to have to give up my dream?

What international students really think about the university admissions journey...

At EnrolyCon, a room full of Higher Education leaders went unusually quiet.

• Not during a policy update.
• Not during a compliance discussion.
• Not during a product demo.

During a student panel

Hosted by Yinbo Yu, “The Student Review” handed international students the microphone to openly review the UK admissions journey, from application and offers through to visas, CAS and pre-arrival preparation.

And the feedback was uncomfortable in places.

Because while universities often talk about admissions in terms of systems, workflows and compliance, students experience something very different: stress, uncertainty, silence and life-changing decisions.

One student summed it up with a question that visibly landed across the room:

“Do the university know that I even exist?”

The silence students remember most

One of the strongest themes throughout the session was not speed. It was communication or more specifically, the emotional impact of silence.

Students spoke openly about waiting weeks for replies, struggling to find information across multiple webpages and feeling overwhelmed trying to navigate unfamiliar processes alone.

As one student explained:

“The process was very stressful and emotionally exhausting.”

Another described how difficult it was trying to understand requirements while also juggling scholarship deadlines and English language testing.

What stood out was not that students expected perfection. They expected clarity.

They wanted reassurance that:

• someone was actually reviewing their application
• they had not missed something important
• delays did not mean rejection
• their future was still on track

For universities, queues and delays are operational realities.

For students, silence feels deeply personal.

CAS and visa stress hits far harder than institutions realise

The visa and compliance section shifted the tone of the room even further.

Students repeatedly described the process as:

“Isolating, stressful and bureaucratic.”

One student shared the anxiety of fluctuating exchange rates affecting financial evidence requirements. Another described watching other students receive their CAS while hearing nothing themselves:

“Am I not going to get my CAS? Am I going to have to give up my dream to study?”

That quote captured something many institutions are increasingly recognising.

For admissions teams, CAS issuance may be one process among thousands.

For students, it represents whether years of planning, saving and hoping are about to become reality or disappear completely.

The panel reinforced a critical point, students do not simply want faster processing. They want visibility, reassurance and confidence that someone understands the stakes for them personally.

Universities are still underestimating pre-arrival pressure

Perhaps the most emotional part of the discussion came during the conversation around pre-arrival support.

Students spoke candidly about financial pressure, loneliness, housing uncertainty and wellbeing concerns before even arriving in the UK.

One student explained that despite disclosing a disability during application, they arrived with little understanding of what support would actually be available:

“I had no clue what support would be there.”

Another described the reality of trying to secure accommodation internationally:

“You don’t know what is legit.”

The message was clear. Many universities invest heavily in support after enrolment, but students often need reassurance much earlier in the journey.

Pre-arrival is not simply administrative preparation, it is emotional preparation too.

“These are human beings.”

One of the standout moments of the panel came from a student now working within a Students’ Union:

“Oftentimes we call students data points or markets… but these are human beings.”

That line visibly resonated across the audience.

Especially at a time when the sector is increasingly focused on automation, AI and operational efficiency, the session acted as an important reminder that improving processes should reduce student anxiety, not simply reduce institutional workload.

The universities students remembered most positively were not necessarily the most technologically advanced.

They were the ones that made students feel:

• informed
• reassured
• listened to
• supported
• included

And critically, students made it clear they want institutions to involve them more directly in shaping these experiences.

As one student put it:

“We can co-create with international students.”

The universities that reduce anxiety will stand out

International student expectations are changing rapidly. Students increasingly expect clear communication, joined-up information, proactive updates and support that feels human, not transactional.

And perhaps the biggest takeaway from the session was this, international students do not experience admissions as a process.

They experience it as one of the biggest, most expensive and emotionally risky decisions of their lives.
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