“Emergent” hierarchisation in access to international higher education: A study of Chinese agent-user students’ overseas university application experiences

The international higher education sector has become intensely marketised, where international student recruitment has become an important campaign. Concomitantly, the use of education agents has become popular among both universities overseas and prospective international students. However, there remains a significant void in the literature that examines the norms of international student admission and how students perceive these norms through engagement with education agents. This paper draws on a longitudinal empirical study with interview data sets from 10 Chinese agent-user students and aims to explore how Chinese agent-user students perceive admission to UK postgraduate taught programmes through engagement with education agents. This paper suggests UK universities tend to use the first-degree awarding university and Three Dimensions “三维” to categorise and stratify Chinese student applicants, which is seen as unfair and exclusive. Three Dimensions “三维” as current shorthand among Chinese agent-user students, refers to GPAs, standard language test scores, and GRE/GMAT scores. Chinese agent-user students tend to internalise this hierarchisation process and hierarchise themselves. In this process, education agents function as rationalising the hierarchisation of Chinese students, fostering cross-border alliances among students and institutions, and thus contributing to consolidating the hierarchy of the international higher education sector. It draws attention to educational inequities in access to international higher education and the need for improvements in international student recruitment. Copyright © 2025 The Author(s).