AUP Paris University Counselor Conference April

A two day seminar for European based School Guidance Counselors at the American University of Paris 

My impressions of AUP were that they were a very professional and organised University, with a clear vision of the type of students they sought to recruit. The Admissions department is led by Tim Rogers, formerly the head of Admissions at LSE. I felt priviledged to have been asked to attend the seminar being the only Counselor representing any international Schools from southern Spain. It was a great opportunity to meet their Staff and Students, as well as have the opportunity to meet fellow School Guidance Counselors. 

Entrance requirements for AUP, we were informed are on average a 3.3 GPA with approximately 3300 applications this year for 200 places. The University has links with George Washington and UCA universities in the US and an exchange system with them.
They are actively looking to recruit IB students over AP Students as they see them in their own words as more rounded "global explorers". As part of that strategic vision they are offering automatic scholarships for DP students, based upon their final point score with the highest point scores being potentially offered full scholarships to attend. This trend is definitely on the rise with a number of Universities that I have come into contact with this year.

Their methodology is based around research, and links with industry and is in turn flipped back through links with their own post-grad programme.

In relation to DP courses in general they have no specific subject interest in the dp courses and what subjects they choose, as they are offering a broad spectrum "liberal arts" programme in line with the rising demand for these in US Universities. Nonetheless the single biggest Major is in Business.

They do not profess to follow a teaching model: The Students need to be independent, learners, following syllabus outlines but pursung their own answers with the Professors facilitating the education. This flipped classroom model, and independent learning style resonates with the learning style we are pursuing at SIS.

Their academic support system uses a system known as Ebray for e books that perhaps we need to look at as it appears to be a very interactive method to work with published articles. 

I look forward to developing our links with AUP and they will almost certainly attend our University Convention in December. I have signed up one of them to lead  a seminar at our event on US applications and have made some valuable contacts.