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Brussels, 1 July 2005

The admissions challenge: Policies and tools for the admission of international students into higher education

Theme

International admissions have become a major concern amongst many European higher education institutions. With the growing demand for higher education in some world regions and increased marketing activities by destination countries, the volume of applications from international students has been steadily increasing over the past decade in the main destination countries; and applicants’ countries of origin are ever more diverse. Many international offices originally designed to manage exchange programmes, or administrative structures designed for national admissions are overburdened with this situation. Solutions are needed at different levels – national, field-specific or institutional.

This seminar offered a forum for the discussion of possible solutions. It built on the findings of a recent ACA study on the admission of international students into higher education, which was also presented at the seminar. In addition to this, national and institutional level experts from different European backgrounds presented various models for international admissions, and discussed their usefulness.

ACA was able to win as external speakers Annette Julius (German Academic Exchange Service, Bonn), Jean-Pierre Trotignon (Edufrance / n+i, Paris), Rob Coelen (Leiden University, Leiden) and Gerben van Lent (Educational Testing Services Europe, Utrecht). The team was completed by ACA Senior Officer Franziska Muche.

Programme

Thursday 30 June 2005

Welcome dinner

 
Friday 1 July 2005 

 

9:00 

Registration

9:30

Welcome/Opening

9:45

Plenary session: The admission of international students into higher education. Presentation of the ACA study
Franziska Muche, Academic Cooperation Association (ACA)

10:45

Coffee break

11:15

ASSIST and UCAS: advantages and disadvantages of two national-level clearinghouse systems
Annette Julius, German Academic Exchange Service 

12:00

The engineering network n+i: international student recruitment and admissions in a field-specific network
Jean-Pierre Trotignon, EduFrance

13:00

Lunch

14:00

Europe-Australia compared: institutional strategies for international admissions
Robert Coelen, Leiden University

14:45

A critical look at graduate admissions and success criteria
Gerben van Lent, Educational Testing Service Europe

15:30

Coffee break

16:00

Round table discussion:
No best way to do it? The impact of different national contexts on international admissions practice

17:30

End of seminar

Speakers

Franziska Muche

Franziska Muche is Senior Officer at the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA). The Academic Cooperation Association (ACA) is a not-for-profit European organisation dedicated, amongst other issues, to the analysis of new trends in internationalisation. Franziska’s responsibilities include the acquisition, development, and implementation of ACA projects, as well as the organisation of ACA conferences and seminars. She was responsible for the study on the admission of international degree students, which was conducted by ACA in 2003/2004 and is the main author of The Admission of International Students into Higher Education. Policies and Instruments, published in the ACA Papers on International Cooperation in Education in 2004.

Franziska studied International Business and Cultural Studies in Passau, London, and Granada. Before her appointment at ACA, she had been trained at the European Commission, for the Unit for Higher Education in DG Education and Culture, where she was dealing with several issues linked to the Bologna Process.

Annette Julius

Annette Julius is Head of Division “Strategy and Cross-Sectional Programmes” at the German Academic Exchange Service DAAD. She studied English and Russian Language and Literature at the University of Cologne, the University of Dundee in Scotland und the Pushkine Institute of Russian Language in Moscow. From 1992 to 1995 Annette Julius did a PhD in Slavonic Studies, with several research stays in Moscow. After completing her PhD, she worked six years for the Catholic scholarship foundation Cusanuswerk, where she coordinated educational events in Belarus, Lithuania, and Ukraine.

In 2001, Annette Julius joined the German Academic Exchange Service DAAD as Head of Section “Policy Planning and Coordination”. In 2005, she took up her current position as Head of Division “Strategy and Cross-Sectional Programmes”. Annette Julius is the editor of the DAAD publication series “Die internationale Hochschule” and has been one of the heads in the creation of the “Application Services for International Students (uni-assist)”.

Jean-Pierre Trotignon

Jean-Pierre Trotignon is Executive Director of the Network n+i, based at the EduFrance agency for promoting French higher education abroad. n+i is a network of more than 50 engineering schools and university-based engineering programmes. The network is in charge of foreign student admissions, marketing, recruitment and orientation.

Jean-Pierre Trotignon is also Professor at the ENSAM engineering school in Paris. He holds a degree in engineering from the ENSAM engineering school (Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers) in Paris, a Master of Sciences from the University of Montréal in Canada and a PhD in Physical Sciences from the University Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris VI. He also holds four international patents and is the author of 12 books and over 100 articles and communications in his field. Since 1997, he has been working in international cooperation in education on behalf of the French Government (Ministries of Education and External Affairs). For two years, (1997 to 1999) he was Scientific Attaché at the Embassy of France in London and since 1999 has worked for EduFrance and n+i.

Robert J. Coelen

Robert J. Coelen is Vice President International at Leiden University in The Netherlands. Robert Coelen holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree from the University of La Trobe, a PhD from the University of Western Australia and a Graduate Certificate in Education from James Cook University. Robert’s research revolved around the molecular evolution of mosquito-transmitted viruses. He is an accomplished author and was an editor of the World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology.

Before he took up his position at Leiden University in 2004, he spent all in all 30 years in Australia as a foreign student, researcher, and educator in microbiology. In the last decade of his time in Australia he was International Director at James Cook University and at the University of Queensland. At James Cook University, a regional university in Australia, he developed an international office from scratch and grew the international student population from 350 to about 1200 students with a profile distinctly more divergent than the average for Australia, with much less dependence on Asian students. At the University of Queensland he was responsible for an operation with 55 staff that managed the enrolment of about 6000 international students.

Gerben van Lent

As Director of Strategic Development and Quality Assurance, Gerben van Lent represents ETS Europe, a subsidiary of Educational Testing Service and is based in Utrecht in the Netherlands.

He has broad experience in the field of education, organisation and management. He has presented or conducted workshops at international conferences in the UK, Germany, France, Portugal, IAEA conferences, and AEA Europe conferences about assessment and admission, technology issues and quality assurance issues. He has conducted local seminars in Serbia, Romania, Macedonia, Moldova, the Netherlands and the Caribbean about large scale assessments. Gerben van Lent has contributed articles to journals in the field of education and measurement and he is an external member of the Research Board of AQA in the UK. He has also been involved in the OECD-PISA project and managed education reform projects in Serbia, Macedonia, Romania and Moldova.

Venue

Club de la Fondation Universitaire

Rue d’Egmont 11 – 1000 Bruxelles
Tel : +32 2 545 04 40
Fax : +32 2 513 64 11
E-mail : club.fu.us@universityfoundation.be
Website: www.fondationuniversitaire.be