“We were surprised by the peer pressure”

On year basis, we use to send over 2.000 students to study abroad.

That is a great number due to the fact that we were working merely on Portugal.

This type of service could be defined as one of the longest type of sales in every industry : from the moment they get to know us until they enroll in an university. In some cases can take over an year.

A lot can be said with regards how to improve and nurture the student journey all along the way , but what I want to talk about it the relevance of the peer pressure.

Some stats have shown that one of the mosteffective ways to convince other students to study abroad was through peer pressure.

If a student had came to us through word of mouth or recommendation, the chances of he/she to enroll increased by 35%.

That is something logic. Having someone suggesting and sharing with you what worked for him/her increase the chances of any of us trusting this is the right choice, you have already someone over there to support on your arrival.

On the other way, there was also other decision that surprisingly was affected by peer pressure that we never though about.

When we started to provide our services of academic consulting, one, if not the most important thing we did for the students, was to help them to choose the best course for them. This could be a process that could take up to 2 weeks.

Of course their likes, professional ambitions were taking into account. And the vast majority of them had their choice pretty clear from the very beginning.

Around 20% of our students would go the business//management courses, while the others 80% were divided in a different range of areas from arts to science.

But as the year progress these numbers started to shift.

As we created a bigger community, students started to share what they will study amongst the group.

On that moment the peer pressure started. Students who came to us with a clear intention of what to study were changing their minds to move on to business courses.

In some cases from veterinary or arts to business. That is insane. The power that a small majority of likes can have on others choice. This was not about buy a different clothes or choose a different movie. This was the type of decision that could change lifes forever.

For it was clear from that moment onwards that peer pressure is everywhere, even if you don’t foster it.

By Vasco de Matos Ramos