Education – hot topic when it comes to parenting. Every parent wants the best for their children when it comes to education. Right from pre-school to primary to secondary and then university…There are so many options and career paths are now available. Which one you should choose? Which works the best for your children? What about the cost involved? Myriad questions we get as a parent. What is much needed is the The International Family Guide to US University Admissions in such cases.

It gets more complex when it comes to sending kids abroad for studies. The whole process looks tiring and gigantic. I have caught my hands upon a book that simplifies the US University Admissions process for the entire family. My kids are still in school but sooner or later, I will have to plan for them. Many of my mom readers have kids that are older and soon going to start university.

So parents, Written by Jennifer Ann Aquino – an experienced international educator and counselor, The International Family Guide to US University Admissions (Wiley & Sons, June 2017) is an indispensable resource for international families and students applying for admission to US universities.

What’s in the The International Family Guide to US University Admissions?

• Every action step (Milestone) the student & family must take in the process is covered.  Insider tips, comments and alerts accompany each. All Milestones incorporate worksheets and reasoning for why they need to be done, when, and how each will affect the application.
• Every chapter begins with a Case Study of an actual student of mine. Read feedback and advice from both students and parents on specific Milestones throughout the guide – giving you the most realistic picture of how the process works, how to manage it, and how to succeed.
• Learn what type of universities are best for you and how to determine what your fit truly is. With thousands of schools to pick from, it’s important to first figure out who you are and what you want, your interests and passions.
• Learn what colleges want, what they care about, and what will make your application stronger (or weaker) by staying true to yourself and the fit between you and the university. A full Writing Handbook is included that covers how to write your own powerful, meaningful, and unique essays staying true-to-self and standing out to admissions.

Whether you’re an international student living outside of the US or an ex-pat living abroad, you’ll find answers to all of your questions – all in one place while reading The International Family Guide to US University Admissions.

The International Family Guide to US University Admissions is very elaborate, written in a language and sentiments that we all can relate as parent. It’s 324-pages book comprising of 12 chapters and I have recently started to read it. It’s interesting and has lots of tips and pointers for the entire family.

I am publishing the preface here. Do read it and get your copy too!

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Preface: The International Family Guide to US University Admissions

If you grow up in the US, you are constantly surrounded by and influenced by “college” culture. Colleges are represented everywhere in American culture—the university that is located in everyone’s home town, references made in the media, the sweatshirts Americans wear to sports events on the weekends, flags of alma maters displayed outside houses to support college sports teams. Yet for the hundreds of thousands of international applicants, they have experienced none of this. For as complex as the admissions process is to someone brought up in the US, this becomes one of the most complicated events at this stage of an international applicant’s life.

However, there is no shortage of information out there. Often this information treats the international family and applicant as a less-than-sophisticated consumer, using platitudes, fear or outright incorrect information (“You must ‘ace’ the SAT to get into any good university!”) to “guide” the very unique cohort of which you are a part. It is hard to find a trusted resource to guide you honestly and effectively through the process based on how the process actually works.

Daily experiences and encounters, both with my own private clients and also with friends and acquaintances living for years in Europe, Asia and Pacific regions, rather quickly convinced me that there was a critical need for this guide. Admissions in the US are based on fi t: this means that the student/applicant must know who they are in order to determine which universities they will apply to. And it also means that the family of the applicant must also understand—and support—this. No one can bury their heads in the sand in this process (“My child is made for the Ivy League!”) and it is too late to understand the day decisions are made by universities. Being enlightened, educated, and informed as an international family is critical to the applicant finding success in his or her applications and in the rest of his or her life.

When my first international homeschooled student, Matthew—you’ll see his Case Study in Chapter 11—was rejected by all the Ivy League schools, it was the reaction by him and his family to these rejections that made me realize the need to educate the international family on US university admissions. Even as prepared as they were for the rejections, I realized society places an absurd amount of praise and worthiness on just two handfuls of universities. It bothered me greatly and I wondered how I might be able to help international families and students better understand how this process works, while trying to make sense of it in the greater whole. (Matthew is thriving and excelling right now, as you’ll soon see.)

At every fair or event I attend I get asked the same questions. During a single event I attended in Southeast Asia, I had about 200 families come by and ask me questions, the most common one being: “What’s the best college in the US for my son/daughter?” This is the absolute opposite way to approach it; you first need to start with the student. The question should be, “What’s the right university for me and how do I best present myself in the application?”

As you’ll see from the experiences and people that gave me the impetus to write this book, this is a process that has to be taken on actively by both the parents/guardian and the applicant. It is meant to be read and used by both. In the best of circumstances, each party has their own copy—there are things both parties need to do, sometimes together, sometimes separately. The idea here is that it is a process to go through together but also that each person has their own role.

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More Info:

About the Author of The International Family Guide to US University Admissions :

Jennifer Ann Aquino is passionate about education. She started her career after university teaching AP Biology at a US boarding school (The Gunner School, Connecticut). She moved on to educational publishing as an editor for secondary and university-level foreign language and science textbooks before working in management roles as an administrator in universities in the US and Europe. Jennifer double-majored in Biology and Spanish Literature with a Pre-Medical concentration from Boston College (US) and earned a Masters of Arts degree in Spanish Literature from Middlebury College (US). She was accepted to and enrolled in Harvard University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Romance Languages and Literature. Jennifer worked as Director of Education Abroad (Bentley University, USA), Managing Director International MBA Programme (IE Business School, Spain), Director of International Advancement (Bentley University, USA) and Lead Recruiter, Undergraduate Admissions, Asia & India (Bentley University, USA).

Jennifer splits her time between Singapore and Geneva. She has her own private consultancy working directly with families and their children, helping to guide them to their best-fit educational goals. She has visited over 100 university campuses in a professional context and is Professional Member of IECA and Member of International ACAC

To learn more, go to http://www.jenniferannaquino.com/

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