In response to the rising number of Vietnamese students coming to study in America, colleges have begun sending more recruiters to Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries.
According to Director of International Admissions Evelyn Levinson, AU has increased its own efforts to bring in international students in order to expose foreign students to American culture and to give AU more of an international flair.
Vietnam places 13th on the list of countries sending the most students to U.S. colleges, with 8,769 students sent for the 2007-2008 academic year. This represents a jump from 20th place on the list for 2006-2007, and a 45 percent increase in the Vietnamese student population for that year, according to the Institute for International Education.
Twenty-three schools participated in last year’s Asian recruitment tour, according to USA Today. Most of the participating schools, like Sheridan College in Wyoming, were community colleges or other two-year institutions.
Director of International Admissions Evelyn Levinson praised international student recruitment as a way to connect AU to the global community.
“We’re bringing quality and diversity from the international community to AU,” Levinson said. “We are a very international campus.”
AU’s Vietnamese student population has risen in recent years. The total Vietnamese population of graduate and undergraduate students jumped from seven in the 2007-2008 academic year to 10 in 2008-2009, according to the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment.
The total Vietnamese student population at AU for 2009-2010 is 11 students, according to Levinson. This is comprised of two undergraduate students and nine graduate students, four of whom are affiliated with their embassy or non-governmental organizations in the D.C. area.
Levinson said that Jia Jiang, Assistant Director for International Graduate Admissions in the School of International Science, will be traveling to Vietnam as well as a few other Asian countries later this semester to recruit students
Hong Hang Dinh, a sophomore in the Kogod School of Business and the President of AU’s Vietnamese Student Association, said she thinks Vietnamese students are coming over to American schools in large numbers because of the rigor of the Vietnamese school system.
“My cousin took the [entrance] exam for Ho Chi Minh University, Vietnam’s equivalent to Harvard, and he did not pass even though he was the valedictorian every year [of high school] until he graduated,” Dinh said.
Dinh said studying in America could give Vietnamese students a chance to learn about capitalism and the American government. However, Dinh also said that Vietnamese students should be given a better school system if they choose to stay in Vietnam.
“I am not saying that the Vietnamese education system should make it ‘easier’ for students, but it is losing many good potential students that could prove to make a difference for their nation,” Dinh said.
Pek Koon Heng, an assistant professor and the director of AU’s ASEAN Studies Center, said many of the Vietnamese students coming to AU are coming for the School of International Service. She feels these students want to learn more about the ties between the United States and Vietnam and how relations between these two countries can be improved.
The Vietnamese government is excited about sending students to America, according to Heng, but on one condition: the government gives preference for education visas to students who will return to Vietnam once they are done with school. Vietnam has had a problem in the past where students would go to school in America and choose to stay there once they finished school, Heng said.
Heng said she is interested to see what Vietnamese students will do with their American educations and with the experiences they will get from living in this country.
“These students could go back to Vietnam and help the country make better economic and foreign policies based on what they learned in America,” Heng said. “These students could bring about a new Vietnam.”
You can reach this staff writer at jryan@theeagleonline.com.
