US Educational Group

Mailing Addresses in the Middle East

admin — Wed, 11 May 2011 15:51:55 +0000

This is the post office building on Tahlia Street in Jeddah.This isn’t a tiny little street where there is a few stores here and there. This is the “main drag” of the city and is lined with every store you can think of from Dior and Bulgari to Starbucks and Payless Shoes.

At our last Visa Briefing in Beirut, Lebanon the AMIDEAST country director Ms. Barbara Batlouni bluntly said to the group “Guys, please stop trying to mail stuff to these students. A few years ago the government decided to name all the streets, no one in Beirut knows the name of their street. I’ve lived in my house for 13 years and I can tell you exactly how to get here, but I have no idea the official name of the street or my house number”. She is not exaggerating. Students use the AMIDEAST office PO Box to receive their I-20′s and SAT/GMAT results.

Here are my suggestions for working with students from the Middle East:

1. Do not ask students for their mailing address during your Initial Point of Contact – whether its a form on your website, a booth at a fair in the country

2. Request a phone number, students are always happy to give you their cell phone number

3. Ask for the student’s mailing address ONLY once their application is started: this will ensure that no made up address ends up in your database.

4. FedEx delivers to PO Boxes in the Middle East. Always. They do not deliver to PO Boxes domestically but do in the entire Middle East.

The mail system in the entire region is a complete disaster. Mail can arrive if you send something via regular post, however, if you are sending the students anything time sensitive (such as their housing forms) please either consider sending it along with the I-20 in the courier package OR switch to an online form.

In the past I had often been required to fill out an address for my (parent’s) home in Saudi. I used a hodgepodge of close by street names and no-longer-in-existence landmarks to complete that part of the form. Once I knew I needed to make sure the address was 100% correct and deliverable I would call Dad and ask for his office PO Box. Its easier to rely on email and phone rather than post. Let’s not even discuss the big name school that spent $60K on a direct mail campaign to Saudi Arabia. Yeeesh…

If you are traveling with us this Fall expect that the student registrations from the fair will NOT have a mailing address included – just all the more important contact information and student data you need to collect

- Wassan

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Saudi Government Curriculum Fails to Lay Foundation for Education Abroad

admin — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:09:17 +0000

During the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Higher Education fair in Riyadh, Arab News (the largest English language newspaper in the Middle East) had a number of articles on the topic of education. I thought this one would be interesting to share as I’ve had this same discussion with many university admissions officers: Does the Saudi education system prepare students sufficiently to study overseas?

I doubt I’ll hear many international admissions people argue against this, but I am interested to hear your comments. Personally I feel that the standard way of learning in all of the Middle East (rote memorization, regurgitation, and no discussion) leads to the lack of cognitive thinking that is the basis for US-style education especially at the University level. Combine that with the language issue and you have a student that’s primed to fail.

Read the Arab News article here: http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/education_supplement/article366841.ece

See you at NAFSA (Booth #750)

- Wassan

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Saudi Ministry of Higher Education Continues Student-side Improvements

admin — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 19:59:55 +0000

Last year at the Washington International Education Conference we were walked through an impressive back-end dashboard that the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission was using to keep track of students currently studying in the US. The system allowed counselors at SACM to receive automated messages when a students GPA dipped below a certain point or when a student dropped a class that could potentially put their visa in jeopardy. It also allowed students to view their requirements, reminders about I-20 information and visas, see when their disbursements were coming, and quite a bit more. We thought the system was a huge improvement and allowed the counselors to free up some of their phone time spent responding to questions the students could answer themselves.

Yesterday the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) in Saudi Arabia announced the release of their official iPhone app (so exciting!). The iPhone app (there is an android version, but I have an iPhone, so that’s the app I played with!) includes information aimed at students including recent news from MoHE, recommended universities database, following up on application status, student eportal and a listing of the different cultural and educational offices around the world. Pretty good stuff. There were some issues with the university search, but its a good starting point.

Some screen shots:

Main menu:

Example of a search for “Virginia” in the “recommended colleges” section

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US Educational Group Fall 2011 Middle East Tour

Wassan — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 23:17:04 +0000

We are excited to announce the US Educational Group Middle East Fall 2011 Tour Schedule
Beirut, Lebanon                    October 23rd
Amman, Jordan                    October 25th
Dammam, Saudi Arabia    October 27th
Kuwait City, Kuwait       October 29th
Manama, Bahrain                 October 31st
Muscat, Oman                       November 2nd
Doha, Qatar                            November 5th
Dubai, UAE                             November 7th
Option City:
Damascus, Syria    November 10th

You can find more details on the tour on our website we can’t wait to head to Damascus – we know it will be an amazing experience in an emerging market!

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Saudi Students in US Ecstatic over Education Benefits

admin — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 22:06:42 +0000

When King Abdullah announced last week that additional scholarship programs were announced for Saudi Arabian students studying abroad, we immediately began making calls to see whether community colleges and non-scholarship majors were going to be included. However, it seems that the actual rules and regulations from the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) in Saudi Arabia have not changed, but this is more of a “one time deal” giving ALL 7,000 students in the US as “self funded” students a scholarship.

In this oddly worded article from Arab News you can read more about the details of the scholarship increase and what it means to current students in the US: http://bit.ly/SaudiStudentBenefits

I do hope that this means students in atypical majors will soon start seeing scholarship benefits as it still does not seem to make sense to not allow a scholarship to an A+ student heading to University of Southern California to study film making and script writing but to give a scholarship to a D student going to a low-tier university to study business. Lets hope that MOHE will begin to see those changes can bring huge benefits to the country by allowing students to go towards a major they are more apt to succeed in!

- wassan

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Aramco Continues to Innovate with Exchanges & Education

Wassan — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 22:13:57 +0000

For decades Saudi Aramco has been the front runner in the Middle East for companies innovating with education. Intelligently thinking about how to better their employees, reduce turnover, and increase productivity while creating an amazing workforce.

“Last year the government-owned company paid for the education of 1,922 graduate and undergraduate Saudi students, including 1,138 in North America, 439 in Europe, and 217 in Saudi Arabia itself.”

Impressive for any organization, but not nearly as important as their college preparatory programs that help the students succeed in international universities. All the students I’ve met on the Aramco scholarships have been of an extremely high caliber, showing that the organizaiton is seriously dedicated to homegrown talent.

Its something that not only other Middle Eastern companies need to learn from, but more importantly, I believe its how multi-national organizations need to think. Instead of recruiting expats to come in for 2 year contracts, use those same dollars to build an educated and dedicated workforce that is already in its own country. I hope its a concept that we will see more companies begin to use in the next few years.

You can read the full article “A Saudi Oil Giant Sees the Future in Education” at the Chronicle of Higher Education website.

-wassan

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Wash Post: Enrollment of Muslim students is growing at Catholic colleges in U.S.

Wassan — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 16:45:29 +0000

Every conference I attend, whether NAFSA, OACAC or NACAC, the question of whether Catholic Colleges and Universities should bother recruiting in the Middle East comes up consistently. I am always baffled by the question, as I would expect Catholic institutions would be more aware of the long history of Catholic and Jesuit education in the Middle East. I have also heard counselors discouraging Catholic schools from recruiting in the region and all I can say is that they are wrong.

I was thrilled to see this article in today’s Washington Post and hope you will enjoy reading it as well:

Enrollment of Muslim students is growing at Catholic colleges in U.S.: Washington Post

Catholic Universities who have traveled with us to the region, including DePaul University, Loyola Marymount University, Ohio Wesleyan University, have always seen a great deal of success in recruiting students from the area. The students are attracted to the universities for their education, campus life, diversity, and majors – just like at any other school. A few times I have been asked whether they will be required to pray at Church, which of course is not the case at these universities. This is a simple misconception that a few of the students may have, but the overwhelming number do not connect the university with religion.

I do still discourage universities with a more overt religious mission from recruiting in the area, having required Chapel or Bible study classes will not be encouraging to potential students in the region and I would doubt the universities would see a good return on their travel budget.

Now I have to go dig up that old photo of the Jesuit priest (Father) from Massachusetts playing baseball at Baghdad College in the late 1950′s to share with you all. Its why my dad still cheers for the Boston Red Sox, to the chagrin of my Cardinals loving husband!

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International Student Ambassadors – Keeping in Touch with Alumni

Joseph — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 18:48:46 +0000

What better way is there to stay in touch with Alumni, keep them engaged with the University and have a brand ambassador overseas? More universities are connecting with students overseas with more formalized “International Student Ambassadors” that ever before. An excellent idea, simple to implement.

Identify 10-30 students graduating and returning to their home country
This is as simple as hosting an ice-cream social, a pizza party, or another “bon voyage” party at the International Students Center/Office. Talk for a few minutes about how important Alumni are to your university, and how important international Alumni are to the university name. By allowing them to have an official title such as “International Student Ambassador” you can create a stronger buy in from the student.
Assign more students to countries with a higher prospective base
If you are physically recruiting students from certain countries (China, India, Middle East, etc) be sure to assign more than one student ambassador to the region. This will reduce the number of emails each student receives, giving y0u a better chance that they will continue responding to questions.
Provide them with a well-written Q&A to use in their responses
To help your alumni answer many of the basic questions, it would be helpful to provide them with a Q&A written in an informal and relaxed tone, allowing them to use bits and pieces as they respond. Again, this ensures timely responses and better interaction between the Alum & Prospective student.
Give them a few “outs” to move the inquiry towards admissions
Have a list of some closing phrases to allow them to move the back & forth emails towards an admissions counselor. This uses their time efficiently and sends the prospective student to the admissions personnel ready to engage and guide them through the personalized application process

“I loved Kalamazoo, and I know you will too, Karen in admissions is interested in helping you through the admissions process – just like she helped me!”
Update your alumni list!
Be sure to keep in touch with your alumni ambassadors and update your list every 6 months. You want to be sure the ambassadors are responding to emails, and if they are getting too many, you need to address that issue immediately. The on-going connection with the university as well as the growing alumni base from the country should be a great asset to the campus for years to come.

Some great examples of programs implementing a similar idea:

University of Chicago
Iowa State University
Virginia Tech
Clemson University
University of Minnesota

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Excited about our March 2010 tour – Middle East + Central Asia!

Wassan — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 18:50:39 +0000

With our Fall 2010 fair already full and on track, I am already getting excited about our March 2010 tour. Its always great to go back to the Middle East, but in the Spring we will be heading into Central Asia as well. Personally, I can’t wait to go back to Almaty, Kazakhstan – but I’m not sure if I will make it on a roller coaster again this time. The students we met last March were amazing, intelligent, and very excited to speak with US colleges and universities.

I received these photos via twitter (thanks @gordon_ryan) and had to share them with you all. You will not believe these amazing shots of Uzbekistan, Dagestan, Bukhara, Russia are 100 years old. The photography is amazing, as is the use of color photography which was so primitive at that time.

http://bit.ly/dkEPPD

Hope you enjoy them & consider visiting some of these countries with us in the Spring!

Amman, Jordan March 27th
Manama, Bahrain March 29th
Kuwait City, Kuwait March 31st
Dubai, UAE April 2nd
Almaty, Kazakhstan April 5th
Baku, Azerbaijan April 7th

Wassan

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OACAC BOS10 Conference App

Wassan — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 13:35:37 +0000

Finally arrived in Boston for the OACAC BOS10 – Overseas Association for College Admission Counseling Conference. Traffic delays brought me into the city well past midnight, and onto the Northeastern campus at almost 1.30am. I remembered that the last email from the OACAC team had mentioned an iPhone App, since I didn’t have my agenda on me, I quickly downloaded it in the hopes it would actually be, you know, helpful.

Wow, thanks so much to the web development team at Northeaststern for putting the tjme into developing the rockin’ OACAC BOS10 conference app for the iPhone. A simple to use interface allows even the frazzled traveler to stay organized. The interface and nice and simple:

Screenshot - OACAC BOS10 App

The *only* item I would have added would have been a campus map – or maybe that was only needed while searching for the housing dorm at 1.30am after arriving on a much delayed flight.

NAFSA better not have ANY excuses for not having an app available for next year’s conference!

The agenda is easy to access, each session is listed on there, and all the pretty social media icons are easy to access (facebook, twitter, flickr). Be sure to properly tag the conference if you will be tweeting with the #BOS10 hashtag (however, I think lots of people will just use the #OACAC10 hashtag as well).

Screenshot - Sessions

The *only* item I would have added would have been a campus map – or maybe that was only needed while searching for the housing dorm at 1.30am after arriving on that much delayed flight.

NAFSA better not have ANY excuses for not having an app available for next year’s conference!

If you didn’t already download it, what are you waiting for?! See you all in a few hours!

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