Lessons from Building an Admissions Company in China

There is a saying: "You don't know what you don't know," and in China there is a saying 井底之蛙, the frog at the bottom of a well looking up at the sky, which demonstrates how unaware we can be of how narrow our worldview is.

I had so many misconceptions before I enrolled at Peking University, had conversations with some of the smartest people in China in Chinese, and travelled around China.

I was invited to speak at China Education Conference in Beijing

One of the things I didn't know was just how much learning a new language would change how I think and see the world.

This is a foundational lesson I learnt first by coming to China, and then by building a company in China. The more I learn, the more I realise that there is more to learn. This is one of the foundational principles of studying abroad and why I think it's so important, and why I built a company around it.

I see this increasingly playing out in the international admissions and recruitment industry too.

The rise of invisible students

Many universities are not aware of the students who are contemplating multiple options and then decide based on the university that accepts them the fastest.

They can't see those who were very nearly going to convert, but didn't.

They can't evaluate which marketing methods made the difference - was it the webinar, or the article, or the chat with an ambassador?

And as students use the internet more, and increasingly do research with AI, there is a rise in what I call "The Invisible Students".

The traditional recruitment funnel was that students would sign up, reach out and send questions, or use agents to apply, but more and more students are doing all the research themselves and then completing the full application without ever engaging, seemingly out of nowhere.

Or not.

A 2026 EAB survey found that 46% of high school students now use AI tools like ChatGPT during their college search, nearly double the 26% who reported the same just six months earlier. They are everywhere in the application data, and nowhere in the CRM.

I also see this challenge pushing the market in a worse direction. Many universities are missing out on potential students because they are stabbing in the dark, and the increased use of agents means many campuses are becoming less diverse.

The blind spot in the agent model

Agents are prominently located in larger markets like China, India, and Indonesia. Panama, Lithuania, Fiji, and Rwanda just don't have the agent networks. Agents concentrate in a relatively small set of well-trodden source markets, leaving most of the world's 193 countries, many with high study-abroad propensity per capita, thinly served or invisible.

China and India alone now account for more than 50% of international students in the US, and nearly half of UK sponsored study visas.

This is a blind spot in the agent model. It concentrates recruitment in a few large markets, quietly works against diversity, and increases dependence risk. The internet and platforms like Global Admissions counteract that.

Many universities are becoming more dependent on China, Indonesia, and India, and missing out on quality students from smaller countries because they don't have the agent networks.

That's why I see universities investing more in developing their direct-to-student brand, and that is one of the things we help universities solve.

Giving visibility to the "invisible students", reaching the more independent students in the smaller markets, and also reaching the growing number of independent students in larger markets.

A hedge against the concentration risk, access to visibility, and a push towards an increase in diversity, and also quality.