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60,000 Members & Counting!

21/04/2013

VA logo

No, I’ m not referring to the number of subscribers to my humble blog but to members of VietAbroader (VA), a student-run, non-profit organization that empowers Vietnamese youth to contribute to the sustainable development of Vietnam.  It was founded by a small group of Vietnamese students studying in the US at the time.  Congratulations to them and the many young leaders they have inspired, who have transformed VA from an online forum to Vietnam’s most famous and highly respected student organization. 

In addition to the online forum, VietAbroader is known for its annual summer study abroad conferences, VApedia, a wikipedia of information, advice and guidance covering admission, financial aid, life abroad, visas, and the VietAbroader Club, which initiates workshops and projects that help other high school students develop critical skills and make meaningful contributions to their local community.

According to SimilarWeb, which measures and analyzes web traffic, VA ranked 582,356 worldwide and 7,223 in Vietnam last month.  Those statistics are wildly impressive when you consider that there over 600 million websites in the world and that Vietnam has an Internet penetration rate of about 35%.     

Disclosure:  I am proud to be one of two VietAbroader advisers, a position I have held almost since the organization’s founding.  My company, Capstone Vietnam, has been a proud corporate sponsor of the VA’s summer study abroad conference the last few years. 

MAA

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VietAbroader Summer 2013 “Passing of the Torch” Conferences

17/02/2013
 
Here’s a note I recently sent to US higher education colleagues about the 2013 VietAbroader summer study abroad conferences and related institutional sponsorship opportunities: 
 
With staff & interns at the 2011 VAC in Hanoi.

With staff & interns at the 2011 VAC in Hanoi.

Warm greetings from Vietnam!  I am writing to let you know about an outstanding sponsorship opportunity:  the 2013 VietAbroader (VA) Passing of the Torch Summer Study Abroad Conferences.  This is a great chance to gain maximum exposure both at the conferences and in the media.  I am honored to serve as one of two VietAbroader advisers, a position I have held almost since the founding of the organization in 2004.  Capstone Vietnam has been a proud corporate sponsor in recent years. 

VietAbroader is a student-run, nonprofit that provides Vietnamese students with training and guidance to encourage them to study abroad, primarily in the United States.  The VA Study Abroad Conferences (VAC), the organization’s flagship program, were launched in 2005.  I had the honor of speaking at the first Hanoi conference.Every year, I help VA’s leadership reach out to potential institutional sponsors.  Why should US colleges and universities that welcome Vietnamese students to their campuses consider becoming a sponsor of the VAC?  Because it’s one of the hottest and most widely publicized events of its kind, and will help you brand and market your school to a very targeted audience.
 

Then US Ambassador to Vietnam, Michael Michalak, and I after delivering introductory remarks at the 2009 VAC in Hanoi.

Then US Ambassador to Vietnam, Michael Michalak, and I after delivering introductory remarks at the 2009 VAC in Hanoi.

The conferences include morning seminars that provide prescreened attendees with general information about U.S. education, and fairs in the afternoon that are free and open to the public, where students and parents can meet face-to-face with students, alumni and official representatives of more than 80 top U.S. schools.  This year, the conferences will be held on Saturday, July 20th in Ho Chi Minh City and Sunday, July 21st in Hanoi.

There is always a lot of interest in these events, so please let me know as soon as possible if you’d like to become an institutional sponsor.  I’d be happy to send you PDF copies of the conference proposal and an overview of institutional benefits, as well as introduce you to the conference organizers.  For your information, there are five levels of sponsorship, including Diamond (maximum of 3 sponsors), Platinum (4), Gold (5), Silver (N/A) and Bronze (N/A).

MAA 

Note:  To access information about the summer 2012 VACs, including sponsors and a list of fair participants, follow this link. 
 
P.S.:  When I joined the VietAbroader forum in March 2004, there were a few hundred members.  As of 7 February, there were 56,520 (!). 

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Determining Financial Need: Lessons from Vietnam

15/10/2012

Many US colleges and universities, especially those with healthy endowments (i.e., highly selective liberal arts colleges but also some visionary state universities that are able to offer scholarships to international students, including by charging in-state tuition), award millions of dollars worth of merit- and need-based scholarships every year to international students.  They do this for the usual reasons:  1)  to diversify their international student populations; and 2) to brand their institutions in markets that they’ve identified as strategically important.  Vietnamese students, especially with the assistance of organizations such as VietAbroader and USGuide, among others, have become very adept in recent years at identifying and spreading the word about these opportunities.  In fact , you could say it’s become something of an exact science.

So how do institutions determine financial need in a country like Vietnam?  It’s not easy.  Unlike the US, which has many official paper trails that give schools a pretty accurate indication of a family’s ability to pay, “paper” and actual income and wealth in a country at Vietnam’s stage of development  are usually two very different things.  Like other countries, everyone wants a scholarship, including the sons and daughters of the nation’s über rich.  (To put this in context, when I say “über rich,” I’m referring, for example, to people who own cars that are worth as much as or more than your home.)  Scholarships are prestigious, confer bragging rights and, of course, save money along the way.  What’s not to like?

Here’s an example that proves my point that schools need help distinguishing between actual and faux need.  A young Vietnamese woman received a very generous (merit- and need-based) scholarship from a well-known and highly selective East Coast liberals arts college.  Once she arrived on campus, other Vietnamese students knew immediately that the school had been had.  She was in fact the daughter of a man who worked in ministry X, whose paper salary was quite low (in the hundreds per month), but whose family was, in reality, very wealthy.  If the college in question had worked with a reliable and trustworthy partner on the ground, it could have determined in short order that the family had  no need for a scholarship of that magnitude.

Stay tuned for part II in which I describe exactly how to screen those who actually deserve these types of scholarships, according to the institutions’ criteria; how to separate the deserving from the posers.  You can bullshit an admissions officer sitting in an office 13,000 kilometers away but you can’t do it to people on the ground who know all the angles and ways to skin the proverbial cat.

MAA

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VietAbroader Study Abroad Conferences: Be There or Be Square!

27/06/2012

VietAbroader (VA) is a student-run, nonprofit that provides Vietnamese students with training and guidance to encourage them to study abroad, primarily in the U.S.  The VA Study Abroad Conferences (VAC), the organization’s flagship program, were launched in 2005.  (I had the honor of speaking at the first Hanoi conference.) 

The VACs include a seminar in the morning, which provides prescreened attendees with general information about U.S. education, and a fair in the afternoon that is free and open to the public, where students and parents can meet face-to-face with students, alumni and official representatives of more than 80 top U.S. schools. This year, the conferences will be held on July 21 and July 22 in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, respectively. 

Capstone Vietnam, of which I’m managing director,  is proud to be a corporate sponsor of the VACs.  I’m also proud to be one of two advisers to VietAbroader, a role I assumed shortly after the organization was founded in 2004 as an online forum by Khoa and Trang, both undergraduates at Bates College at the time.  I remember when VA had 400 members; it now has over 40,000. 

Every year, I help VA’s leadership reach out to potential institutional sponsors, including some of you reading this post.  Why should US colleges and universities that welcome Vietnamese students to their campuses consider becoming a sponsor of the VACs?  Because it’s one of the hottest and most widely publicized events of its kind, and will help you brand and market your school to a very targeted audience. 

1:  Former US Ambassador Michael Michalak and I at the 2009 VAC in Hanoi after delivering our opening remarks (Photo courtesy of Kenh14.vn)
2:  Capstone staff, interns and yours truly at the 2011 VAC in Hanoi

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VietAbroader Summer Study Abroad Conferences: Passing of the Torch

02/07/2011

Capstone Vietnam, of which I’m managing director, is pleased and proud to be a corporate sponsor of the 2011 VietAbroader Study Abroad Conferences (VAC) on 15 and 16 July in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) and Hanoi, respectively.  VAC, the flagship program of VietAbroader (VA), was first organized in the summer of 2005.  (I had the privilege of speaking at the Hanoi conference.)  In addition to general information about U.S. education using a highly interactive format (e.g., students learning from peers in whose foosteps they hope to follow) participants can learn about specific schools and scholarship programs through the school fair in the afternoon.  Some colleges also offer on-site interviews and info sessions for students.  Check out this VA press release for more information. 

Last year, each conference attracted about 250 participants in the morning.  They were selected from among 1,600 applicants.  More than 1,000 people attended each of the afternoon school fairs in which 50 top U.S. colleges and universities were represented. 

As one of two VA advisers, I have been involved with this outstanding student-run, non-profit organization almost since its founding.  In my opinion, VA, which now boasts over 30,000 members, has done more than any other entity in Vietnam to educate young people and their parents about study opportunities in the US and other countries.  From its humble beginnings as an online forum to its current status as a full-fledged organization, VietAbroader has helped thousands of young Vietnamese through a breathtaking array of activities in the virtual and physical worlds in both Vietnam and the US.  VA and its team of student/alumni volunteers are always looking for new and innovative ways to fulfill its mission of empowering Vietnamese youth to contribute to the sustainable development of Vietnam. 

Postscript:  I would like to thank my US higher education colleagues for their generous institutional sponsorship and support of these exciting, high-quality, and truly worthwhile conferences. 

MAA

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VietAbroader Conference 2011: Passing of the Torch

29/03/2011

 

Mark your calendars!  VietAbroader’s annual summer study abroad conferences will take place this year in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) on Friday, 15 July and in Hanoi on Saturday, 16 July. 

In the spirit of mentorship and social responsibility,  the VietAbroader Study Abroad Conference (VAC), entitled “Passing of the Torch,” was first launched in 2005 to empower high potential Vietnamese students to realize their dreams of overseas study.  The conference comprises different workshops regarding the US university application process and college life, together with a College Fair attended by more than fifty US colleges and universities. Following the successes of VAC 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, and 2010, this year VAC 2011 strives to carry on the tradition, to build the bridge between Vietnamese students and American colleges and universities.

Memo to US Higher Education Colleagues:  This is one of the marquee events for Vietnamese students and parents with an interest in studying in the USA organized by the premier student-run organization in the field.  In addition to all of the benefits for the attendees, the conferences offer unparalleled sponsorship opportunities for US colleges and universities.  There are also sponsorship opportunities for companies.  For more information, check out these PDF files: 

VietAbroader Study Abroad Conference 2010 Post-Conference Report (1.43 Mb)

VAC 2011 Institutional Sponsor Proposal (7.42 Mb)

VAC 2011 Institutional Benefits (179 Kb)

VAC 2011 Corporate Benefits (182 Kb)

Below are some excerpts from the participants’ response section of the 2010 post-conference report… 

VietAbroader’s strongest asset has always been its close-knit and dedicated student community. VAC 2010 continued to build on this tradition. We attracted more than 1600 applications to attend our conferences, and 500 participants from over 30 high schools in Viet Nam were selected based on their strong academic foundations, leadership potential, and openness to learning.

In order to find out areas for improvement, so that successive conferences will be better run, more relevant, and more engaging, we prepared an online survey form to sent out to all participants. Of more than 500 participants who attend the conferences, 417 replied.

We asked them to score our conference on a rank of 100, breaking into 10 sections. The average score is 79 – with a lowest score of 70 and highest 91.

Participants registered high satisfaction with our staffs and guest speakers, with an average score of 8.3 for helpfulness of the organizers and 8.2 for knowledge of the guest speakers. Participants were impressed with the new changes in this year’s conferences, especially the new mentor-mentee system, the community college talk show, and the new room for those who have had basic information about studying in the U.S.

Most remarkably, almost all participants responded that VAC 2010 helped inspired them to pursue higher education in the U.S., with a score of 8.8 in that section. A record high of 96.3% of participants indicated that they would recommend next year’s VAC for their friends.

Below are some feedbacks from our participants in the survey:

“The organizers are very approachable and friendly. Even though the conference was behind schedule, the organizers’ enthusiasm more than made up for it.”

“I really like VietAbroader Conference because it is by far the most interactive of all study abroad conferences I have attended. The new room for students who have had basic information about studying abroad is particularly helpful, especially the essay counseling session. Thanks to it I now have the answers for writing essays which I have had for so long.”

“I like how the organizers have extended the community college talk show to those who cannot attend the first one. It showed their dedication and care for the participants. All of the guest speakers are great!”

Disclosure:  I’m one of VietAbroader’s advisers. 

Please feel free to email me at markashwill(AT)capstonevietnam.com for more information.

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VietAbroader Study Abroad Conference 2010

23/06/2010

Vietabroader Conference, first launched in 2005, has been one of the most indispensable educational events in promoting higher education in the United States among Vietnamese students.  Not only will high school students be provided with information regarding college applications, they will also benefit from a high level of interaction with current college students in the US during the conference’s college fair in the afternoon.  In 2009, over 400 students (after a rigorous application process) attended the conference, in addition to more than 1000 participants in the college fair.

  • Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC):  July 16th
  • Hanoi:  July 17th

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VietAbroader Organizes Career Conference in New York

22/04/2010

VietAbroader, in conjunction with New York University School of Law’s Asia Law Society, will organize the VietAbroader Career Conference (VACC). The conference will take place on Saturday and Sunday, April 24-25, 2010 at the New York University School of Law. 

VACC marks the first offshore project implemented by VietAbroader, and is a pioneering career conference organized in the U.S. focusing on a wide range of professional opportunities in Vietnam.  VACC provides a venue for leading companies and organizations in Vietnam to discuss career opportunities with top-notch students and young professionals in the U.S.

Check out this trailer…

VietAbroader is a student-run organization whose mission is to empower Vietnamese youth to contribute to the sustainable development of Vietnam.  It organizes educational and professional programs designed to equip Vietnamese youth with knowledge and provide them with a support network for their academic and professional development.  VietAbroader is the largest network of Vietnamese students and alumni in the U.S. with more than 23,000 members.  

For more information about the VACC follow this link to a 18 April article by Huong Le, a U.S.-educated reporter for Thanh Nien News.  

Full disclosure:  I am one of two VietAbroader advisers;  the other is Henry B. Nguyen, who is the Managing General Partner of IDG Ventures Vietnam.  

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