Dispatches from the NAGAP Conference in San Diego, CA

May 2nd, 2014

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Coronado Bridge, San Diego

The 27th annual conference of the National Association of Graduate Admissions Professionals (NAGAP) http://www.nagap.org is being held in downtown San Diego at the Grand Manchester Hyatt Hotel.

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Entrance to the exhibit hall

With our President and CEO, Jasmin Saidi-Kuehnert, we arrived in San Diego yesterday to a warm welcome where temperatures hovered in the low 90’s (Fahrenheit). San Diego’s downtown has undergone a huge facelift and now boasts luxury condominiums, four-star hotels and a wide range of restaurants.

Driving through the clean and orderly streets of downtown San Diego, Jasmin made the following observation: “This isn’t how I remember the downtown when I was an undergrad at the University of San Diego and it never was this hot when I lived here, but unusual shifts in our climate are occurring everywhere around the globe these days and San Diego is not immune.”

This is ACEI’s first NAGAP conference and we chose to have a presence with our booth in the exhibit hall. NAGAP is as its full name describes an association for individuals who are engaged in graduate admissions at U.S. colleges and universities, though there are attendees were Canadian institutions as well as several other parts of the world.

We met Gunay Ziyadova, Associate Director of Graduate Admissions, School of Business at ADA University in Azerbaijan and even a student from Sofia University in Bulgaria who had studied fine arts and now intends to attend a U.S. college to study hotel and hospitality management.

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Clayton Winston (ACEI) and Gunay Ziyadova (ADA University, Azerbaijan)

Jasmin who serves on the executive committee of TACEP (The Association of International Credential Evaluation Professionals) hosted a meeting with some members who are attending NAGAP, offering a quick update on the recent developments within the association.

While attending the awards luncheon we were fortunate to meet Guity Nadjafie who is the Director of Graduate Admissions at Concordia University in Quebec, Canada. While pining over the summer like weather we discussed Canada’s new policies on international education admissions and immigration. For example, international students who previously were able to take a leave of absence per term at the graduate level to concentrate on their research/thesis are no longer able to do so and must leave the country. However, the question remains, whether reentry will be possible or will the process require application for visas and admission; questions that remain to be answered. The recent mentioned policies could significantly affect the flow of international students applying to Canadian universities.

This has been very successful conference for us. We have met and made new contacts with several directors of graduate admissions at US universities who are interested in working with ACEI. We look forward to helping them and their international students with their credential evaluation need to qualify for graduate admissions.

Clayton

Clayton Winston
Director of Communications, ACEI
clayton@acei-global.org

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