| College Board Attends EDGE Conference in New Delhi |
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| (Left to right) Peter Magrath, Janine Farhat and Jim Montoya of the College Board, P.J. Lavakare, director emeritus of the U.S. Educational Foundation in India, Drew Wiley and Clay Hensley of the College Board, and Jim Meyers, senior evaluator for Educational Credential Evaluators, Inc, led the workshop “Harmonizing Education.” |
| Several College Board staff members traveled to New Delhi, India, for the inaugural Emerging Directions in Global Education conference at the India Habitat Centre. Led by C. Peter Magrath, senior presidential advisor at the College Board, the delegation joined education leaders from both the public and private sector in India to discuss new directions for the burgeoning Indian education arena. As collaboration among the public and private within India's education sphere has been rare, this conference was a groundbreaking effort.
With higher education developing into an international service, increased emphasis is being placed on quality standards, world-class assessments, international recognition and global scope. The College Board’s membership and programs are beginning to play an important role in emerging dialogues about education concerns that reach beyond the borders of the United States. Magrath, president emeritus of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, who has a long history of leadership in U.S. and international education, served as a member of the Vision Group for the EDGE conference, chaired by Indian Parliament (Rajya Sabha) member K. Kasturirangan, director of the National Institute of Advanced Studies.
Shri Arjun Singh, Honorable Union Minister for Human Resource Development, kicked off the three-day conference with an address in which he acknowledged that “innovative thinking is needed for financing of higher education in India, which needs massive investment in
academic infrastructure.”
India experienced a threefold increase in the number of universities between 1971 and 2007, with more than 18,000 higher education institutions in the country today. The number of students enrolled at higher education institutions in India reached 11 million in 2006. However, only 11 percent of its population moves past secondary-level education. India’s government has recognized the importance of education for the country’s growth and is working to expand the number of higher education institutions. They have set the ambitious targets of having 15.5 percent of the population enrolled in college by 2012 and 20 percent by 2015. To add perspective to these numbers, the United Nations projects that the Indian college-age population (18-23 years of age) is 125 million today and will grow to 139 million by 2015. Also by 2015, the projected number of teenagers in India will be 550 million. Students in India will soon far outnumber the entire population of North America.
The conference aimed to prepare Indian educators for the challenges of connecting greater numbers of students to higher education; the event also provided a platform for education leaders and experts from governmental, public, private and international organizations to convene. Leaders from other international organizations in attendance included the Institute of International Education, the China Scholarship Council, the German Academic Exchange Service, the British Council and the Ford International Fellowship Fund.
In addition to Magrath, the College Board's delegation to the conference included James M. Montoya, vice president for higher education relationship development; Andrew Wiley, executive director, research and analysis; Janine M. Farhat, special projects manager, office of international education; and Clay Hensley, associate director of international services. The delegation organized a preconference event entitled “Harmonizing Education.” More than 60 university and secondary school leaders based in India explored the aspects of transition from secondary school to university within the United States in relation to India's current national goals of expanding capacity, outreach and excellence. Magrath served as a key speaker, while Montoya and colleagues served on panels. Topics included trends in student mobility and exchange between Asia and the United States, strategies for attracting international students to Indian universities, the history of holistic admissions processes among U.S. institutions, the role of programs such as the SAT® and the Advanced Placement Program®, the development of college readiness standards, and test equity and
accessibility issues.
More information about India's EDGE conference may be found at: http://www.edge2008.in/
College Board President Gaston Caperton also traveled to New Delhi in March to present at the Asia Society conference, Asia Pacific Leaders Forum on Secondary Education.
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| A Note from VP Jim Montoya |
VP Jim Montoya
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When I was in India recently, I was struck by the nation's diverse, dynamic and mobile student population. For
six years running, India has sent more students to U.S. universities than any other country: 83,833 students were enrolled in U.S. higher education institutions in 2006-07,
a 10 percent increase over 2005-06.
The United States now boasts 582,984 international students at all academic levels. Many of the College Board's U.S. member institutions are included among
the top recipients. The University of Southern California received the most international students: 7,115 (21
percent of USC's total enrollment); our Manhattan neighbors, Columbia University and New York University, followed USC in terms of the number of international students enrolled. Three Big Ten universities, the University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign, Purdue University–Main Campus and the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor, are not far behind, with increasing numbers
of international students finding their way to U.S.
public institutions.
However, when we look more deeply into these figures, what also stands out is the diversity of the institutions our international students attend in the United States. For example, more than a quarter of international undergraduates studying in the United States attend community colleges. The Houston Community College System, a College Board member since 1992, serves 3,378 international students alone. Community colleges offer an affordable gateway to U.S. higher education for international students. We also see many liberal arts colleges enrolling significant numbers of international students; Mount Holyoke College, for example, enrolls more than 400 international students (more than 18 percent of its enrollment).
The College Board's international offices support students with a wide swath of interests and needs; for this group of students, it is important to provide valuable preparation and information to assist them in locating the right matches among higher ed institutions. Ultimately, this support can contribute to these international students achieving success in college. The professional development training that the College Board provides to international secondary school counselors and to EducationUSA advisers in the U.S. Department of State's global network represents two key initiatives that give international students access to information and resources to learn about U.S. higher education institutions.
These counselors and advisers are our essential partners in guiding students seeking to identify the colleges that best match what they are looking for. We are pleased that the field of career counseling is drawing great interest outside the United States as international students look beyond the traditional academic choices of medicine, engineering and law. Use of College Board programs—especially the SAT®, AP® and PSAT/NMSQT®—has expanded significantly outside the United States, far outpacing the respective rates of growth for these programs domestically.
More than 275,000 students from outside the United States visited collegeboard.com last month to search for institutions with the College Search tool and to utilize College Board information on majors, careers and academic programs. These students represent almost a million visits by international constituents; in fact, approximately one tenth of all traffic to our site originates outside the United States. The widespread, global use of collegeboard.com's world-class online resources is a clear sign that international students are drawn to the educational opportunities our higher education members offer. We are striving to improve these resources and will soon reach to you, our members, to provide feedback on what we can do better to support your students.
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| Qatar Hosts First International College Fair |
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| Carol Blythe, interim director of the office of international education at the College Board (right) with Nahid Lawson, EducationUSA adviser, U.S. Embassy, Qatar, discuss the SAT® with a Qatari high school student (left). |
The College Board participated in the first Qatar International College Fair hosted by the Qatar Higher Education Institute, Feb. 26-28, in Doha. Carol Blythe, interim director of the Office of International Education, was among the representatives of universities and organizations from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States who greeted several thousand administrators, faculty, students and parents from throughout the Persian Gulf region.
The Higher Education Institute in Qatar is a governmental body that deals with all aspects of higher education. The government provides scholarships to its students to study at more than 360 international universities, 250 of which are U.S. institutions.
A side trip of the exhibit was an excursion to the developing Education City that currently houses campuses of six American universities (Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, Northwestern, Texas A&M, Virginia Commonwealth University and Weill Cornell Medical College) as well
as Qatar Academy, an international school.
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| East Asia/Pacific Regional Conference Provides Professional Development on Advising International Students |
About 50 EducationUSA advisers in the U.S. Department of State overseas network gathered in Bangkok, Thailand, Feb. 24-27
for the triennial East Asia/Pacific Regional Conference. They represented more than
20 countries and territories ranging from Micronesia to China. Janine Farhat,
special projects manager in the College Board’s Office of International Education, presented at the conference, which provides professional skills development for advisers who counsel prospective international applicants to U.S. colleges and universities. Advisers received updates on accreditation, testing, admissions and financial aid, the
visa process and career counseling, as
well as how to market U.S. higher education and use technology in advising. More than
30 U.S. institutions joined the accompanying college fair that was open to local students
in central Thailand. The East Asia Pacific
region sends the majority of international students to the United States, according
to the annual Open Doors survey
sponsored by the State Department
and the Institute of International Education.
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Janine Farhat of the College Board office of
international education, EducationUSA advisers Erica Sjarif and Umiata Jawas from Indonesia and U.S. Department of State program officer Dorothy Mora, learn about Thai culture at the Royal Palace complex
in Bangkok. |
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AP® World History Workshop World History
Association Conference
London, England
June 26, 2008
Read more
Summer Institutes in China
Dates and Locations: Various
Scheduled sessions include: AP® Chinese Language and Culture and Pre-AP Strategies for Chinese Language and Culture, AP World History
Read more
AP® Summer Institute in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
St. Clement’s School
June 30–July 4, 2008
Scheduled Sessions: Various
Read More
AP® Summer Institute in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada St. Michaels
University School
July 7–11, 2008
Scheduled Sessions: Various
Read more
AP® International
Summer Institute in
Honolulu, Hawaii
Kamehameha Schools
July 21–25, 2008
Scheduled Sessions: Various
Read more
AP® Summer Institute
in Seoul, South Korea
Yongsan
International School
July 28 – August 1, 2008
Scheduled Sessions: Calculus, Economics, English Language and Literature, Science,
Social Science
Read more
More AP
Summer Institutes
The 9th Annual Summer Institute for International Admissions
for international school counselors
Washington, D.C.
June 16-20, 2008
New Counselor Workshop:
June 15-16
College Fair: June 18
Read more
E-mail us your announcements.
Be sure to include your region in the subject line. |
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For secondary-school related
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Grades:
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