Celia
Chaves-Elbrecht (Costa Rica)
2003 Professional Advising Leadership (PAL) Fellow Report:
2003 Summer Institute for International Admissions
The 2003 Summer Institute Program for International Admissions gave us an excellent opportunity to refresh knowledge and to make new contacts.
The Summer Institute was divided in two tracks: one for guidance counselors and another one for international admissions officers. As an Overseas Educational Adviser, I was interested in learning from the two track, so I decided to pick different sessions from both tracks.
The sessions I attended were on the following
topics:
Besides all this, we also had a College Fair with the presence of several U. S. institutions of higher learning which gave us the opportunity to make ourselves known by sharing information on our countries and our institutions with the representatives of the universities.
All the sessions were very informative and extremely useful for me! I learned a lot in every presentation.
The Summer Institute provided us with the opportunity of expanding the number of contacts for networking.
After the Summer Institute, some of us had the opportunity to visit Villanova University. This gave us the chance to get to know more about the US system of education. This visit was also very productive. We got to learn about all the different programs this university offers. Also, we had the chance to ask questions about our project for the PAL program. The people at Villanova were very cooperative.
My program ended with a set of appointments in Washington DC.
I started with a visit to the offices of Linden Educational Tours, with Linda Heaney. At this meeting, we planned on the visit this group will be making to Costa Rica in September.
I also visited the State Department, where I met with the following people:
Carol Wilder, Program Officer for the Educational Information and Resources Branch of the Office of Global Educational Programs
Maria Urbina, Program Officer for University Linkages for Latin America
Michele Johnson, Program Officer for the Humphrey Fellowship Program
Phillip Ives, Chief of the Educational and Information Resources Branch
Cynthia Wolloch, Chief of the Western Hemisphere Programs Branch of the Office of Academic Exchange Programs (Fulbright)
Among other things, we discussed the problems we now have in Costa Rica with the administration of the ETS programs. I informed them about the administration test dates and how this will affect all the programs of the US State Department since the dates approved for Costa Rica were minimal.
On my second day of appointments, I went back to Georgetown University, to the Office of International Programs, and spoke with Katherine S. Bellows, Vice President, Public Affairs – NAFSA and Assistant Dean and Director, International Student and Scholar Services. We talked about student visas and admissions procedures at Georgetown.
A visit to the Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange was also programmed. There, I met with Michael McCarry, Executive Director, and Sherry Powar, Assistant Director and Senior Policy Specialist. We talked about all the exchange programs they deal with and how the overseas advisers could cooperate with them.
In brief, this was the program in July. I will probably have to go back to Washington in October to finish with the PAL project.
To me, the program in full was very productive. I plan on having a workshop with the Guidance Counselors in our country so I can share with them everything I learned, especially in terms of visas and the SEVIS program.
Celia Maria Chaves-Elbrecht
Senior Educational Adviser
Centro
Cultural Costarricense-Norteamericano
APDO. 1489-1000
San Jose, Costa Rica
Tel: (506) 207-7564
Fax: (506) 224-1480
cchaves@cccncr.com
www.cccncr.com
7-03
Report: 2003 Summer Institute
for International Admissions
Activities Performed After the PAL Program
As a result of the PAL program, I have been involved in several activities related
to visa procedures:
These are the most important activities I have come up with after my PAL program. I am enclosing with this report, the first report I submitted to The College Board, the evaluation form and the Power Point presentation I developed with the supervision of the Consular Officers of the US Embassy in Costa Rica.
Celia Maria Chaves
Senior Educational Adviser
San Jose, Costa Rica