We fight for them from the day we recruit them until the moment they go back to their home country. Some day, I hope that one of these students becomes the President of Vietnam and says that I started my US higher education experience because of AAE! That’s my dream.

“Starting this May, the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training began setting up certification requirements”

The PIE: What about the general agency scene in Vietnam? You said that you dealt with one agent that wasn’t ethical. Is there a big problem with unethical agencies?

KC: Things are beginning to clean up. Starting this May, the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training began setting up certification requirements: Agencies must put US$25,000 in an escrow account to show financial stability; agents are required to take a 40-hour course on International student recruitment and ethics. Agents must speak English, have a Bachelors degree to become a counsellor, and be bilingual to own an agency. 

The PIE: In terms of scale and growth what do you think you can achieve at AAE?
KC: Although recruiting international students to US institutions can be challenging and is certainly a time-consuming process, AAE is committed to expanding our operations both in Vietnam and elsewhere. Because of AIRC’s certification process and the NACAC decision last September, we believe the international student recruitment industry will grow and we plan on being part of that growth.

The US will now have the opportunity to better compete with Great Britain and Australia—countries that have increased their international student population exponentially through agency-based recruitment.

The PIE: And have you seen a tangible difference already?
KC: Absolutely. 100%.

The PIE: Do you think you would open another office?
KC: We hope to be in Hanoi some day and have a business plan for Indonesia. But it’s baby steps one step at a time.

“I would like to think the students are smart enough to know we’re there to help them go to a college or university in the United States but they have to follow the rules”

The PIE: And do you ever have problems with bogus students who are trying to go through the backdoor into the US?
KC: AAE has developed ways to vet a student in-house to avoid responses that could be faked in a formal process. We want to be absolutely certain that the students we work with don’t flunk the visa interview. That would be a waste of both our time and the student’s time.

I believe we haven’t seen many phony papers because students know AAE is American-owned with a big red, white and blue office in Vietnam. I would like to think the students are smart enough to know we’re there to help them go to a college or university in the United States but they have to follow the rules.