i-studentadvisor have just returned from the sixteenth annual conference of OACAC (Overseas Association for College Admissions Counseling) in California and we are sure all who were in attendance would agree that the conference was a huge success.

Amongst the highlights of the conference, hosted by Chapman University, were the awards dinner on the Queen Mary, the social event at Downtown Disney and the (fiercely competitive) annual dodgeball tournament!  Of course the conference was not all about socialising and there were a fantastic selection of workshops to choose from discussing important topics within international education, it was fantastic to hear the perspective of both the schools and the colleges on different issues. Another highlight was the high school and college fair on saturday, which i-studentadvisor were very proud to be the sponsor of.

This was the first OACAC conference i-studentadvisor attended and we were amazed by the care and organisation that went in to planning the conference. Special mention should go to David Allen, Doug Thompson and all the OACAC team for organising the conference and Chapman university staff and students for being fantastic hosts. We would also like to thank all the sponsors of the events, workshop presenters and all mentors and experienced ‘OACACers’ who made us feel so welcome.

We hope everyone who attended the conference enjoyed it as much as we did and we are already looking froward to next years conference being held at Northeastern University, Boston. Those who would like to attend next year should keep checking the OACAC website for updates and we would fully recommend anyone who works in the international college admissions field attend.

Were you at the conference? Please leave a comment aboout your favourite 2009 OACAC memories, or your thoughts on the conference as a whole.