2008
Fall Shanghai Post-Event Report
Report Topics:
U.S. Consulate Briefing
American Education Fair participants attended a briefing at the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai on Friday, October 17th. Speaking on behalf of the Consulate were Mr. Scott Walker, Public Affairs Officer, and Ms. Laura Anderson, Consular Officer. The officers discussed the role that the consulate’s Public Affairs section, Consular section and Foreign Commercial Service play in promoting studying in the U.S. and were able to dispel myths regarding the difficulty for Chinese in obtaining a student visa.
In response to a question regarding a five-month limit for students who take time off from their studies, the Consulate confirmed that students who leave their school for more than five months would need to apply for a new F-1 visa. It was noted that this issue rarely comes up in China, because the F-1 visas issued in China expire after one year; therefore, anyone taking a five-month break from his or her studies would probably be holding an expired or almost expired visa at that point and would need to reapply anyway.
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UScampus Center Visit & Shanghai City Tour
Following the briefing, some of the U.S. school representatives visited AIEF’s UScampus Center in Shanghai. AIEF opened the Center in order to provide a study in the USA resource for Chinese students, as well as to provide a professional environment for U.S. school representatives visiting Shanghai. The Center features a library displaying U.S. schools’ brochures and multimedia materials, video introductions of American educational institutions, free Internet access for students seeking information about studying in the USA, student counseling, and a computer lab for English language proficiency assessments online. American school representatives have found the Center to be a convenient site for offering speeches or seminars, conducting individual or group counseling and interviews, engaging in web chats with students, or for implementing cooperative programs with local Chinese universities. The Center also maintains a very active Chinese language website, UScampus.com.cn, to provide up-to-date information about studying in the USA to the student population in China.
After the visit to the UScampus Center, the U.S. school representatives enjoyed a typical Chinese lunch hosted by AIEF at a local restaurant. UScampus Center staff then led the group on a tour of several of Shanghai’s popular tourist attractions, such as the Yu Garden.
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Shanghai Fair Venue & Fair Statistics
AIEF’s American Education Fair in Shanghai was held on Saturday and Sunday, October 18-19, from 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM each day. Centrally located in a business district, the Multimedia Life Plaza was the venue for the fair. Co-hosting the fair was the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, which staffed a booth at the venue to provide information from the government about study abroad. Over 1,700 visitors, including students and parents, attended the two-day fair. A total of 1,326 fair visitors registered in our database. Out of this number, 1,155 were verifiable data.
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AIEF’s Student Tracking System
At the entrance to the Fair, students registered their names, contact information, and educational goals. Each student was assigned a tracking number to facilitate student data collection at each booth. Participating U.S. schools were sent a list of the student contacts that visited their school’s booth during the Fair.
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Shanghai Fair Highlights
UScampus Center staff offered counseling at the venue, with separate areas set up respectively for prospective graduate, undergraduate, and language school students. Based on their interests, students attending the fair were guided to visit the appropriate U.S. school booths to obtain information about the particular programs in which they were interested. Most of the students who attended the fair were serious students ready to study in the USA. As a result, many of the U.S. school representatives were very pleased with the quality of the students they encountered at the fair.
Each booth was well served by Chinese college and high school students who acted as interpreters and volunteers. In fact, some of the interpreters turned out to be strong prospects for the U.S. schools.
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Shanghai Special Seminars
At the venue, the UScampus Center provided seminars on graduate school application procedures, school selection, and internship opportunities in the USA. Sessions on “All You Want to Know about Studying in America” and English language proficiency testing were also featured.
In addition, at the invitation of AIEF, U.S. Consular officers Ms. Andrea Coreg and Mr. Paul Guertin conducted presentations on the student visa application process in China. A highlight of the presentations was a mock visa interview, for which a student volunteer was enlisted from the audience. This made for a very lively and effective demonstration of a typical student visa interview. Happily, at the conclusion of the demonstration it was pronounced that the volunteer had “passed” the interview, eliciting applause and cheers from the
audience.
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UScampus Guide
The new UScampus Guide was distributed for the first time at an AIEF fair in China. We are pleased to report that the magazine drew a great deal of positive responses from students and fair participants. An expanded edition will be published for distribution at the next AIEF American Education Fair in China. AIEF will soon contact you about opportunities to have your institution’s profile featured in an upcoming edition.
(Front Cover)
(Back Cover)
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2009
Spring and Summer Fairs in Asia
The schedule for AIEF’s 2009 Spring and Summer American Education Fairs in Asia is as follows:
2009 Spring Fair Dates:
March 21-22 - Seoul
March 24 - Busan
March 28-29 - Taipei
March 30 - Kaohsiung
March 31 - Taichung
2009 Summer Fair Dates:
June 20-22 - Beijing
June 27-28 - Shanghai
Online registration for AIEF’s 2009 Spring Fairs is currently available at:
http://www.aief-usa.org/services/signup_fair.htm. For more information, please visit our Website or call the AIEF’s California office at 714-985-1995.
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