The Boarding School Experience: Preparation for College and for Life

14/10/201114/10/2011 Mark A. Ashwill Commentary boarding schools, high school students

This guest post was written by Nguyen Xuan Toan, a student from Hanoi who attended Hanoi-Amsterdam High School and graduated from Phillips Academy Andover in 2010. He is currently a student at Amherst College. -------------------- I often joke that boarding schools are basically colleges for high school students. In some ways they are. The boarding school experience resembles … Continue reading The Boarding School Experience: Preparation for College and for Life

StudyUSA Community College Fairs: Making Connections

13/10/2011 Mark A. Ashwill Commentary community colleges, high school students, higher education fairs

Fair week is over. The fall 2011 StudyUSA Community College Fair series started on a Sunday in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) and ended on a Saturday in Hanoi with stops and high school visits in between in Nha Trang (first time ever) and Danang. These US community college-only fairs are unique in Vietnam, a wise choice … Continue reading StudyUSA Community College Fairs: Making Connections

Fall 2011 Update: U.S. Businesses Are Discovering the “V” in CIVETS

12/10/2011 Mark A. Ashwill Updates emerging economies, knowledge-based economy, vietnam, vietnam development

This fall 2011 update is from Vietnomics, a global sourcing consultancy that links US and Vietnamese investors and companies. Thanks, Jeff! Summary The Vietnam opportunity in the 3rd quarter attracted more attention from global investors, who now have a catchy acronym to go with their enthusiasm: CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, and South Africa) is replacing … Continue reading Fall 2011 Update: U.S. Businesses Are Discovering the “V” in CIVETS

A Hole in the Dike?

10/10/201110/10/2011 Mark A. Ashwill Commentary higher education fairs, international student recruitment, national accreditation

Much to my chagrin, I noticed that IIE permitted Jose Maria Vargas University, a nationally accredited (NA) school based in Florida, to join its US higher education fairs in Hanoi, Danang and Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). This in spite of the fact that IIE guidelines state that "Only regionally accredited (RA) two-year, four-year and … Continue reading A Hole in the Dike?

Point/Counterpoint

07/10/2011 Mark A. Ashwill Articles, Commentary agency-based recruitment, EducationUSA, international student recruitment

This is an exchange of comments that appeared in response to a late July article entitled SUNY Bets Big on Agents that appeared in Inside Higher Ed. The article is about “an ambitious agency-based recruitment strategy, with the goal of increasing its total foreign student enrollment by more than 13,000 over five years. A portion … Continue reading Point/Counterpoint

Caveat Emptor! US Rogue Providers Discover Vietnam

24/09/2011 Mark A. Ashwill Articles academic partnerships, accreditation, corruption, diploma mills, regional accreditation, rogue providers, unaccredited schools

If you're interested in reading a rather lengthy(6-page) treatment of this issue in a Vietnamese context, check out this article I wrote for the August 2011 issue of wRAP-Up Newsletter. As I've mentioned in a number of settings, most recently in this June 2011 essay entitled Letting in the Fresh Air and the Flies: The Mixed … Continue reading Caveat Emptor! US Rogue Providers Discover Vietnam

Hey AIESEC! What’s Up? (A lot!)

23/09/2011 Mark A. Ashwill Events, Organization AIESEC, knowledge-based economy, university-industry cooperation, vietnam development

AIESEC, originally an acronym for Association Internationale des Étudiants en Sciences Économiques et Commerciales, is the world's largest student-run organization with a presence in over 107 countries and territories and a membership of over 50,000. "Focused on providing a platform for youth leadership development, AIESEC offers young people the opportunity to be global citizens, to … Continue reading Hey AIESEC! What’s Up? (A lot!)

Community College Draws Foreign Students by Serving as a Gateway to Universities

22/09/2011 Mark A. Ashwill Articles, Events community colleges, high school students, higher education fairs, international student recruitment

This is the title of a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article that begins with this sentence: When American community colleges attend student-recruitment fairs abroad, they are often greeted with blank looks. This is true in a lot of countries but not in Vietnam, where many students and parents have recently discovered the benefits of … Continue reading Community College Draws Foreign Students by Serving as a Gateway to Universities

CMU’s Ubiquitous Online Presence

21/09/201121/09/2011 Mark A. Ashwill Commentary, Updates distance learning, marketing, national accreditation

u·biq·ui·tous/Adjective: Present, appearing, or found everywhere: "his ubiquitous influence". It seems that everywhere you look (online), you'll see a California Miramar University (CMU) banner ad. (CMU is a nationally-accredited, for-profit online university that I featured in a previous post.) Such is the magic of a powerful IP-based advertising tool known as geo targeting, the method of determining the … Continue reading CMU’s Ubiquitous Online Presence

Vietnamese US Higher Education Alumni

15/09/201115/09/2011 Mark A. Ashwill Commentary, Updates alumni, US-Vietnam educational exchange, US-Vietnam relations

Just over two years ago, I helped to organized the 1st annual US alumni conference in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) in my previous incarnation as country director of IIE-Vietnam. That it was called the "1st" reflects the fact that I am an optimist by nature. It's been the only alumni conference to date for US-educated … Continue reading Vietnamese US Higher Education Alumni

An International Educator in Vietnam

Information, Insights & (Frequently) Intrigue