The International Student Blog

Opportunities for international students to study in Pennsylvania at some of its most elite college and university campuses are certainly on this rise, especially with the implementation of a number of new strategies to increase international student enrollment from traditionally underrepresented, lower socio-economic student backgrounds.

One such strategy has been developed by a student-led group at Penn State University, the Student Ambassador Program (the largest international student advocacy group currently on campus) and involves training and recruiting currently enrolled international students (who have already successfully made the decision to study abroad in Pennsylvania) to visit ‘local high schools’ in over 30 foreign countries and educate their students on the international application process, as well as provide them with specific information on Pennsylvania state colleges.

While Penn State has traditionally implemented a wide range of strategies to recruit and maintain a diverse pool of international applicants, school representatives acknowledged they had historically focused their efforts disproportionately on ‘international schools abroad’. By reaching out and educating students at local, and probabilistically less affluent, schools in over 30 foreign nations, the Student Ambassador Program seeks to increase the life opportunities for international students of increasingly varied socio-economic backgrounds and life experiences (further diversifying the international student composition represented on their campuses).

Visit the Daily Pennsylvanian to learn more about the Student Ambassador Program, and its international student recruitment initiatives. Also, to learn more strategies being used by other PA universities to attract and recruit international students to study abroad in Pennsylvania, check out this recent publication by Keystone Edge: PA Higher Education Goes Global. In addition to Penn State University, universities making clear strides to increase their opportunities for international students looking to study abroad in Pennsylvania include Carnegie Mellon and Duquesne University, both with campuses located in the famous, ever-burgeoning city of Pittsburgh.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 5th, 2011 at 11:36 am and is filed under International Student. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Written by Jenny Frankel

Jennifer is the Director of Financial Services at Envisage International. Jennifer is a graduate of the University of Florida where she holds a Masters in International Business and a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration. She has lived and worked abroad in Chile, Costa Rica and London, and traveled extensively in South America, Europe and Asia.

Other posts by Jenny Frankel