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New
York High School Student Wins Summer in London
By
Marie Holmes
Rachel
Moran, a student at Pittsford Sutherland High School in Rochester,
New York, has won first prize in InternationalEducationWeek.com’s
inaugural essay contest. Rachel’s essay, “Sending Postcards Without
Stamps,” was chosen from among numerous submissions from high
school and college students across the country. In her winning
essay, Rachel describes her art history classes as “imaginary
field trips” and explains that international education need not
require costly trips around the world. “With the right education,”
she writes, “students will encounter far off lands from inside
their schools.”
Rachel’s prize includes three weeks of summer study at Richmond—The
American International University in London, including housing,
meals, tuition and airfare, courtesy of the American Institute
of Foreign Study (AIFS).
Rachel will soon join thousands of American students who study
in the United Kingdom each year. Long the top destination, the
U.K. hosted 29,289 American students during the 1999/00 academic
year, more than double that of any other nation, according to
the Open Doors 2001 report on study abroad. Other popular host
countries include Spain, Italy, France, Mexico, Australia, Germany,
Israel, Ireland, Costa Rica, China, Japan and Austria, almost
all of which experienced an increase in U.S. enrollment over the
past year. The number of international students who study in the
U.S. also increased by over six percent, to 547,867. The majority
of these students receive no U.S. funds to finance their studies,
making higher education the country’s fifth largest service sector
export.
New York is a national leader in hosting international students,
second only to California. New York University boasts the largest
foreign student enrollment for the fourth year in a row. Columbia
University ranked third, after the University of Southern California.
Leading places of origin for international students were China,
India, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Canada, Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey
and Mexico.
This year’s Open Doors report, released November 13 during International
Education Week, also included a recent online survey about study
abroad in the aftermath of September 11th. Ninety-seven
percent of the 600 educators who responded to the survey reported
that study abroad was regarded as more important or equally important
on their campuses after September 11th, and that few
to none of the international students on their campuses had decided
to return home early in response to concerns about security. The
majority (91 percent) of respondents also reported that 90 percent
or more of their U.S. students had made no changes in their plans
to study abroad.
International Education Week, sponsored by the U.S. Departments
of State and Education, was first established by the Clinton Administration
in 2000. This year, StudyAbroad.com launched InternationalEducationWeek.com
to promote the week’s events. The essay contest was held in celebration
of the site’s launch.#
Education Update, Inc., P.O. Box 20005, New York, NY 10001. Tel:
(212) 481-5519. Fax: (212) 481-3919. Email: ednews1@aol.com.
All material is copyrighted and may not be printed without express consent of
the publisher. © 2001.
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