Doors Opening in Europe for the ACT

Europe’s interest in the ACT is on the rise. So much so, in fact, that Patrick Bourgeacq, director of international service relationships, ACT International Division, gave up a recent holiday with family to travel overseas to explore possibilities.

Patrick Bourgeacq

“There is a large population of students enrolled in high schools outside the United States who are interested in attending U.S. colleges and universities,” said Bourgeacq. “Even though their parents may continue to live overseas, many of these students want to come to the United States for college.”

Bourgeacq spent his Thanksgiving break in Madrid and London. He attended the European Council for International Schools’ (ECIS) annual November conference in Madrid, where he networked with guidance/college counselors from international high schools. Considered the largest and most comprehensive event of its kind, the three-day conference attracts approximately 3,000 participants every year, including teachers, heads of school, guidance/college counselors, and college admissions personnel. The conference featured more than 200 speakers and a major exhibition by school suppliers and publishers.

New Test Center

He also met with the college counselor at the International College Spain (ICS) campus in Madrid, which has since made the decision to be an ACT test center, making it Spain’s second ACT test center. ICS expects to test up to 40 students on each of two annual test dates, starting this April.

Founded in 1980, ICS is a multinational day school for students ages 3–18. An International Baccalaureate (IB) World School, ICS enrolls approximately 600 students from 50 different countries and employs more than 60 teachers from 18 countries. The IB is designed as a comprehensive two-year curriculum that allows its graduates to fulfill requirements of various national education systems. The American School of Madrid also is an ACT test center, and these two Madrid schools send more graduates to postsecondary institutions in the United States than any other schools in Spain.

Bourgeacq said there’s room for more test centers in this metropolitan area of 5.6 million people. In fact, ICS’s college counselor had recommended the ACT to twelfth graders earlier this year, but they found all the seats in Madrid already taken for the October 2007 test date, a fact that weighed heavily on ICS’s decision to become an ACT test center.

Last year, ACT tested students in more than 100 countries outside the United States, Canada, and the U.S. territories. Some of those with the largest numbers of test takers included Australia, Belize, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Pakistan, Qatar, Thailand, and the United Kingdom.

Registration Changes

Recent changes to registration procedures are opening doors for ACT test centers in more international locations, said Bourgeacq. Registering students used to be a responsibility of the test centers. Now students in international locations register online by going to www.actstudent.org and establishing a free student Web account. No longer saddled with the burden of conducting student registrations, other international schools are now more open to becoming ACT test centers. Other advantages of Web registration are that students can access a variety of ACT services and also can view their scores and send additional score reports online.

Travels to London

“I am optimistic about the Madrid leg of the trip and about signing up additional test centers in European countries. Two international schools in Switzerland are interested in becoming test centers. And another ECIS member, Santiago College in Santiago, Chile, has also decided to become an ACT test center,” he said.

After the ECIS conference in Madrid, Bourgeacq traveled to London, where he met with the college counselor at the American School in London, international admissions and recruitment officers of three universities, and the international group of the University and College Admission Service (UCAS), the organization responsible for managing applications to all higher education institutions in the United Kingdom. Representing 314 colleges and universities, UCAS processes more than two million applications for full-time undergraduate programs every year and provides online tools that help students choose the right institution and program.

Bourgeacq’s main goal in London was to counter the notion that colleges and universities do not accept ACT test scores internationally.

“I introduced the institutions I met with to the ACT and encouraged them to accept ACT scores from U.S. applicants. Most are very open to accepting ACT scores as part of their admission requirements. I also learned through UCAS that many universities in the United Kingdom already do accept ACT scores, but this fact is often buried deep in the universities’ admissions websites, if it is even there at all. I’ve begun suggesting to these universities that they make that information available on their websites so that potential applicants from the United States know they can send them their ACT scores,” he said.

He has also since learned that many of the universities in the United Kingdom that accept ACT scores do not have an ACT college code, so he has begun working with these institutions and ACT’s Institutional Services staff to set them up with their own code. He expects this will increase the number of U.S. students applying to these universities.

Bourgeacq is optimistic about the outcomes of his visit to London. “More representatives from colleges and universities were interested in meeting with me than I had time to schedule, so we know interest in the ACT is increasing,” he said. And the American School in London is currently weighing the possibility of becoming an ACT test center, where they expect upwards of 100 students could take the ACT on each test date.

Bourgeacq anticipates more international travel in the near future, as more international high schools learn about the opportunities available to their students who take the ACT, and as more universities outside the United States become acquainted with the ACT, what it measures, and how using it can open up for them another pipeline of quality student applicants.

Inner Mongolian Delegation Visits ACT
A delegation of 12 people from the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region visited ACT in early December to learn more about ACT products and services and discuss opportunities for future collaboration. They met with ACT staff, including Patrick Bourgeacq, director of international service relationships, ACT International Division (back row, second from right). The group included officials from the region’s department of education and educational enrollment testing centers. Front row, from left, are Ren Ligang, Dong Fangcheng, Guo Minglun, Suo Yunsurong, Liang Nashun, A Lata, and Bu He. Back row, from left, are Gao Xiangdong, Fu Tiezheng, Li Rongguang, Wang Niaohu, Bourgeacq, and Han Rongfei.

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