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Post Fair Report (2004
Fall American Education Fair,
Taiwan)
AIEF is grateful for your participation in, and support for, the 2004
Fall American Education Fair in Taiwan. We are glad to report that there were good turnouts at each of the
three venues in the cities of Taipei, Kaohsiung, and Taichung. This
post-fair report contains a summary of the events that took place during the 2004 Fall Fair in Taiwan, including information about AIEF’s local school outreach program, attendance statistics,
fall fair highlights, feedback from fair participants, news about our student information system, our student interpreter service, an update on Taiwan’s recruitment market, AIT briefings, AIEF scholarships, and the schedule for AIEF’s 2005 Spring
American Education Fairs in Taiwan and Korea. We cordially welcome you to join us again at our upcoming events in Spring 2005.
Subjects covered in this
report:
2004 Taiwan Fall Fair Statistics
The three-city 2004 Fall American Education
Fair in Taiwan kicked off at the Howard Plaza Hotel in Taipei. The two-day event in Taipei was held from 1:00-6:00 PM on Saturday, October 23rd, and from 11:00 AM – 4:00 PM on Sunday, October 24th. In Kaohsiung, the exhibition took place at the Grand Hi Lai Hotel from 4:00-9:00 PM on Monday, October 25th. The final stop of the three-city exhibition was Taichung, where the fair was held on Tuesday, October 26th, from 4:00 – 9:00 PM at the Evergreen Laurel Hotel. The US-Taiwan Business Council is an honorary sponsor of these events, which were open to the public free of charge. Attendance estimates for
Taipei was 5,117 visitors. Venues in Kaohsiung and Taichung were
still well attended despite the typhoon. Kaohsiung had 1,016
visitors while Taichung had 1,293 for a total of 7,426 for the
three cities.
 
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Fall Fair Highlights
Free advising for students was available at the American International Education Foundation’s booth at each of the fair venues. Students were encouraged to register their contact information and academic preferences in AIEF’s student information system in order to receive
personalized materials from U.S. educational institutions. For the benefit of students and parents, a series of free symposia on educational topics and visa issues, as well as individual school presentations, were held at all three venues of the
fair. AIEF conducted sessions to explain the features of the next generation TOEFL exam, which is due to be implemented in September 2005.
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Taiwan Market Update
As of October 20th, 2004,
the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) had issued 12,565 student
visas to students from Taiwan. This figure shows an increase
over the total of 11,373 students visas issued for the entire
year in 2003. According to AIT, the visa issuance rate for
students from Taiwan is higher than 98 percent. The percentage
of students from Taiwan studying in the United States at the
graduate level is 55 percent, while 36 percent are enrolled
at the undergraduate level, and 9 percent are in language and
other non-degree programs..
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AIEF’s Local School Outreach Program Benefits Undergraduate Recruitment
Through optional visits to high schools in Taiwan, as well as through special sessions arranged for groups of high school students at the fair venues, AIEF continued its successful local school outreach program. American school representatives were given the opportunity to introduce their institutions to students during visits to the local schools. In addition, many high school students attended special sessions arranged for them at the fair venues by AIEF to ease their transition to studying in the USA. AIEF initiated its local school outreach program to help U.S. schools more effectively recruit undergraduate students from Taiwan. This fall, U.S. school representatives visited two girls’ high schools in the Taipei area: Our Lady of Providence Girls’ High School and Blessed Imelda’s School.
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Student
Tracking System Facilitates Recruiting Efforts
Online pre-fair registration was offered by AIEF to the exhibition’s visitors. Students who visited the American Education Fair were encouraged to register their educational goals and contact information in AIEF’s
student tracking system. 4,775 students registered for the fall fair. AIEF adheres to confidentiality and privacy practices with regard to student information, and expects the same of U.S. educational institutions that receive the data from students who visit their booths. AIEF pioneered its online student information database in 2001, and has offered the database as a service exclusively to U.S. schools since 2002. AIEF’s emphasis on service, quality, and integrity explains why its current database, the largest of its kind in Taiwan, has accumulated a membership of more than 90,000 student names in two years. Participating U.S. schools
have already received a list of the student contacts that visited their
booth during the Fair.
 
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AIT Briefings Provide Valuable Information at the Fairs
At AIEF’s pre-fair orientation held on October 23rd at the Howard Plaza Hotel, Consular Officer Rachel Brunette-Chen of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) provided an overview of the student visa application process in Taiwan and the latest student visa statistics to the education delegation. Ms. Brunette-Chen also offered presentations on student visas for students and parents at the Taipei and Taichung fairs. AIT consular officer Mr. Alex Yuan conducted a student visa seminar at the Taipei venue on Sunday, October 24th. After offering his insights to the U.S. education delegation on Taiwan’s study abroad situation at the
pre-fair morning orientation, Mr. Jamie Fouss spoke to students and answered their questions at the Kaohsiung fair venue during the afternoon on Monday, October 25th.
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Student Interpreter Service
An always-popular feature of AIEF’s Fairs is the student interpreter service that is provided at no additional cost to fair participants. Enrolled at local institutions, the student interpreters not only help to translate and disseminate information at the fair, but potentially could also serve as ambassadors to their own institutions on behalf of U.S. schools.
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AIEF Scholarships
In 2003, AIEF administered scholarship awards totaling more than US $100,000 to students from Taiwan. On an annual basis, AIEF 's Scholarship Committee awards a limited number of scholarships to qualified students from Taiwan who have been accepted by accredited American educational institutions. The scholarship application deadline is April 1st, 2005, for students enrolling at an accredited U.S. community college, four-year college, university, or graduate program during the Fall term of 2005. Application materials were available at each of the American Education Fair venues.
AIEF is honored to have been chosen to administer a new scholarship program on behalf of ETTV for graduate studies at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communications. Created to encourage promising students from Taiwan to follow a career path in mass communications, the purpose of the ETTV Scholarship Program is to help to cultivate future professionals who will be able to use their expertise gained at USC to develop quality programming for Asian, American, and international communities.
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Fair Participant Feedback
AIEF thanks the fair participants who completed the
post-fair survey for their comments and suggestions. Your feedback helps us to improve our services. Many fair participants expressed their positive impressions of the
fair’s professional organization, interpreter services, promotional efforts, as well as the quality of the students who visited their booths.
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Strong Recruitment Competition From UK And Other Countries
Over the past few years, the
United Kingdom, Canada and Australia have garnered an increasing portion of the market share for students from Taiwan who choose to study in English-speaking countries. In contrast with the 1980s, when the United States attracted over 80 percent of Taiwan’s student who studied abroad, the current market share for the United States has fallen to around 40 percent. It is expected that competition from the UK and other countries will continue to be keen in Taiwan’s recruitment market in the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, the United States is still the most popular study abroad destination for students from Taiwan, which remains the fifth largest source of international students for U.S. educational institutions.
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2005 Spring Fair Dates
Registration is now open for AIEF’s 2005 American Education Spring Fair in Taiwan and Korea. The Spring Fair schedule is as follows:
Taipei, Taiwan – March 19-20 at Howard Plaza Hotel
Kaohsiung, Taiwan – March 21 at Grand Hi Lai Hotel
Taichung, Taiwan – March 22 at Evergreen Laurel Hotel
Seoul, Korea – March 26-27 at COEX
Online registration is available at:
http://www.aief-usa.org/services/signupfair5s.htm. For more information, please call the AIEF office in California at 626-965-1995.
American International Education Foundation (AIEF)
Telephone: 626-965-1995; Fax: 626-965-1675
E-mail: info@aief-usa.org
Web: www.aief-usa.org
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