Admissions and Development Teams Travel Abroad First-time visit to Mainland China Productive
By Zoe Gorman ’09
News Reporter
From November 12th to the 20th, Director of Admissions Raymond Diffley and Director of International Admissions Beth Whitney, accompanied by Executive Director of Development Daniel Courcey travelled to China for the first time to recruit new students. Diffley and Whitney interviewed students, met with school officials, and held receptions for about 250 students from schools in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.
In addition to attending admissions receptions, Courcey met with several alumni and parents in all three cities to fundraise and established an alumni club in Hong Kong. Having previously travelled to China, he served as a conduit, helping the admissions office in make contacts in Beijing and Shanghai.
Alumni and parents in Asia played a crucial role in planning, funding, and executing the venture. Alumni Ronna Chou and Jamie O’Donnell ’80 helped admissions in Hong Kong to organize the event, taking care of logistics for the reception such as location, audio-visual, catering, and invitations. Because the trip was too far away for any Choate students to attend the receptions, Mr. Courcey brought in alumni speakers to talk to perspective students and parents about Choate in their native Mandarin tongue, in Beijing Robert Anderson ’70, Colm Rafferty ’95 and Dave Barrutia ’95, and in Shanghai Simone Chaoe ’02, Kenny Tung ’80 and Tony Cheung ’80.
Seeking Numbers From Inland
Choate admissions takes an annual trip to Hong Kong, where the school is well known, and often visits Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Choate is currently home to seven students from the PRC and thirteen from Hong Kong. The admissions office is looking to increase the number of students attending from mainland China, although no definitive quota has been set.
Ms. Whitney and Mr. Diffley visited several schools to recruit students and to gain a sense of the Chinese educational system, interviewing about ten students in each Beijing and Shanghai whom had been previously selected by school officials and alumni and 70 students in Hong Kong. In both Chinese cities, the office looked at an international school and a local school closely affiliated with a university, in Beijing the International School of Beijing and the High School Affiliated with Renmin University, in Shanghai the Shanghai American School and the Fudan University Affiliated High School. The office also had success at the Shanghai World Foreign Language High School at the suggestion of Professor Zhang Mingsheng, a former minister of the Chinese Department of Education.
Racing for Recruits
Mr. Courcey and the admissions officers commented that because China is becoming a major player on the world stage, it is vital that Choate augment efforts for recruiting students. Recent attention to the Far East has created a race for recruiting among New England boarder schools of which Choate is a forerunner, aided by contacts made through the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.
“There’s no question that Penn has helped us create a pipeline of admission here,” Courcey remarked, alluding to the Choate China Study Tour for Future Leaders that Penn GSE sponsored last summer as he explained that Choate has “harked itself on being an incubator for future leaders in the world,” and that since China is playing an influential role in the diplomatic arena, if not recruiting students from there, “by definition, we may not be in the leadership business.”
Ms. Whitney explained some of the differences among schools in China: the international schools with 1000 students tend to place emphasis that allows for more rounded educational interests including extra-curricular activities for students and more classes are taught in English; the local schools, with up to 4000 students, emphasize academics and national testing including the international baccalaureate. Chinese students will typically take ten classes instead of five, each meeting regularly.
Adjusting to Choate
Class size ranges from 40 to 50 students, who are not encouraged to raise their hands or question the teacher. One of the criteria for looking at candidates is how fluidly they will adjust to the different circumstances at Choate.
Mr. Diffley commented that the visits gave his office both a sense of the academic achievement for each school and the language skills for each student that could not be inferred from reading an application without visiting the country first-hand. English was strong at the World Foreign Language Middle School, where principal Pei Ming Luo nominated six students for interviews and encouraged others to attend the reception.
Whitney suggested that the Chinese consider the US university system to be the “pinnacle of higher education in the world,” and aspire to attend college or graduate school, a goal more easily attained with increasing high school exchange opportunities and ease of attaining visas.
Parents Question Safety
Although parents were apprehensive about safety after hearing about US school shootings on the news, they agreed with Mr. Diffley that “the time for exchange is high school,” and that Choate offered a nurturing environment as well as a motivational and prestigious academic experience.
Choate’s international reputation in countries like Hong Kong is widespread that Mr. Diffley was able to prepare part of his opening statement from what he heard some of locals say about Choate ambassadors.
Whitney was awed by the organization even in gym class at some of the schools she visited where hundreds of student lined up in uniform to perform routine exercises. “I wonder whether we could get organized enough to have 850 Choate students wearing the exact same thing and doing the exact same movements at the same time,” she mused.
From the fundraising spectrum, with the crash of the credit markets and the poor state of the US economy in general, fundraising abroad has become more lucrative. Courcey’s three prime international markets for Choate fundraising at the moment are China, Korea, and Thailand. Just as sharing experiences with students in Asia is crucial to maintaining Choate’s reputation for diversity, Courcey explained that “we’d by foolish not be overseas, and talking with individuals from other countries that maybe are in a better position economically than the US right now.”
Admissions Seeks a Balance
Admissions looks for a balance of voices and interests within the Choate community and looks to recruit students from China who will stay in the US long enough to graduate. The admissions office relies on its network of alumni to recommend many of the students for interviews before admissions’ arrival. In Hong Kong, a panel of six alumni answered student and parent questions. Presentations in each city are angled toward the interests and level of infirmity of the audience.
About 50 perspective members of the Choate community attended the reception in Beijing, 75 in Shanghai and 140 in Hong Kong. Because significant interest was generated during these events the night before the admissions team could depart for the next city, Alumni trained in the admissions process would interview with later applicants in the area.
The new Choate Alumni Club in Hong Kong is part of a Development Office initiative to revitalize the self-standing clubs to become more tethered to daily operations at Choate. President Mark Chung ‘77 will help sustain alumni efforts when representatives of Choate are not making their annual visit. Other clubs are located in Boston, Washington DC, Seoul, San Francisco and Los Angelos.
Cultural differences that Mr. Courcey and admissions noticed during their trip included the respectfulness, graciousness, and hospitality of the Chinese people they encountered. Mr. Diffley noticed that the vast history of the country was reflected in its people, and that the appreciation for education in China extended beyond that of the United States. The parents and alumni made every effort to take them sightseeing or to dinner in between events of their busy schedules. Although there was not much time, the admissions officers went to see the Forbidden City of Beijing in 37 degree rain before boarding a plane to Shanghai. An appreciative Whitney thanked parents and alumni for being “incredibly generous in spirit and it time.”
Admissions Branches Out
The admissions office has also had recent success in Kenya and the Middle East as part of the Gakio-Walton scholarship program and will continue the recruiting process in both of these countries. The office is ratifying an Internal Strategic Plan to solidify the program philosophy, support international students, gain funds to recruit, organize travel plans, and decide where to recruit. Other possible areas include Turkey, India, and Columbia, yet with limited resources and time admissions cannot travel everywhere it might wish.
In addition to branching out to other areas of the globe, both the admissions office and the development office will continue efforts in China and East Asia. Mr. Courcey reflected on how impressed he was that a Communist insular country from 1967 could undergo such change to become worldly and sophisticated. “You can’t help but be in awe of the progress and the possibilities.”
Ray Diffley, Dirctor of Admissions, organized a panel of alumni to attract Chinese students to apply to Choate. PHOTO/Beth Whitney
