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We welcome your feedback

The Immigration & International Student Advice (IISA) team very much welcomes your feedback. Acting on feedback from you helps us to improve the service that we provide. We receive feedback on the services that we offer in a variety of formats:

The University also invites their students to take part in the International Student Barometer Survey. This survey asks international students to share their own experiences and rate their University's services. This information is then used to benchmark and grade international student provision in education against other participating institutions across the world. Immigration & International Student Advice continue to be delighted to be judged consistently above 93% satisfaction in the International Student Barometer.

Action taken as a result of feedback

  • During the Student Visa workshop, advisers used to try and complete the Tier 4 (General) form with groups of students. However, due to the number of students with different immigration situations, this led to students getting confused and the workshop becoming overly long and tiring. IISA put in place a new system where advisers help the students create an online account on the Home Office website and help the students start the form on a visit to H102. Students can also come to H102 during our drop-in hours if they have any specific questions about the form prior to their appointment, when the adviser will then check through the whole form.
  • We previously received multiple requests for letters for student's employers regarding information about working whilst a visa and passport are with the Home Office. Due to this feedback, we now include this information on every receipt given to students who submit a visa extension via the IISA team.
  • Due to feedback received regarding our Arrival Services, we now offer a free year round taxi service from Cardiff Wales International Airport to our campuses or halls of residence, which is available to all new international students.
  • Due to student's feedback received about the International Welcome Programme, the IISA team now arrange for a catering outlet to be open for breakfast over the initial arrival weekend.

Positive feedback

International Welcome Programme

Feedback gathered from previous September International Welcome Programme (IWP) attendees show that 99.4% of attendees consider the IWP of benefit and would recommend to others.

Feedback cards

In the latest round, the feedback cards received by the IISA team showed that students were:

  • Very satisfied 72 %
  • Satisfied    27 %
  • Neither satisfied nor unsatisfied 1 %
  • Unsatisfied 0 %
  • Very unsatisfied 0 %

Some comments from the students are listed below:

"The service is great." (Business student)

"Very nice service and fast service." (Engineering student)

"The staff really very friendly" (course not stated)

"Through the student service the whole (visa) application was easy and didn't take long" (MSc student)

"The service I received it's excellent." (Year 1 student)

"Great service/Outstanding/Mind blowing." (MSc student)

"It has been a clear and well organised procedure (for a visa application) and I am grateful to the staff who provided these services" (Year 1 Business student)

Comments Book

The IISA team encourage people to come to H102 and leave a message in their Comments Book which is open to everyone to look at in H102. Each message is read and actioned if there is something that needs to be looked at as a result.
The latest message in the Comments Book reads:
"Sat in the office for an hour while my partner had her meeting.  I witnessed many students being served with their complex enquiries. Every single one of them was served in an amazingly friendly and professional manner.  They all left happy and seemed satisfied.  To me, this morning's experience is an example of ideal customer service.  Keep it up!"

A previous message reads:
"I'm happy to have such a team in USW. Very kind and helpful and I'm very grateful for this service!" (Lebanese student)

Exemplary message from December 11
"I would just like to share my story with you all.  It's been a great journey and a great time here in South Wales. I love all the facilities and services and I like to appreciate the efforts of faculty members and of course the International Advice team who gave me useful information and made my journey easy.  Once again, I would like to thank all of you for the support." (Advanced Technology student)

Unsolicited feedback
It is possible for the team to sometimes receive unsolicited (voluntary) feedback. In February the IISA team were made aware of the following message that had been left about them via the Unilife team who asked USW students Why are you happy?

"The staff in the International office are LEGENDS! Their excitement of sharing the beauty of Welsh culture makes me excited to be here, no matter how long I have been here already. They are some of the hardest working team I've met and they will always find time to lend a hand, an ear, or a shoulder."
"As an international student, it's good to know there is a team with the enthusiasm of wanting to make sure I am taken care of and that everything is going smoothly. Because studies are only one thing on the list of difficult challenges. But they help share the load and it's a huge sigh of relief to have them around."

How to offer feedback

If you would like to offer some feedback, be it praise or constructive criticism, then the IISA team would like to hear from you.

Just come to H102 and ask for a feedback card, write a note and drop it into the feedback box, put a message in the Comment Book or email [email protected]