hokiestar

I can't really answer your question about degree titles and such, but I did some digging on the internet for people in the International Education field back in VB. At the community college level, it looks the International Student Advisor has an MA in applied linguistics from ODU, and taught ESL before becoming the advisor there. The equivalent of that person at ODU also has that degree. At my undergrad (not near VB, but in VA), the staff in the both International Student Center and the Language Institute had degrees in Higher Ed, Public Health, International Studies, Counselor Education - didn't see anyone who specifically had a degree in International Ed or TESOL. Hopefully that can provide a bit of insight into what degrees get these types of jobs.

This is interesting. I was born and raised in Virginia Beach and now work at a university in the Boston area. I can't speak to your schools (unless the Southern Ivy is UVA, but I haven't heard of them offering a MLA). But Virginia Beach (and Norfolk, Chesapeake, etc - commonly referred to as the 757) and the Boston area are very different places to live, so your choice of school may be impacted by where you decide to live in the future. Boston is obviously a more competitive area, but has a larger population which leads to a higher need for the types of jobs you are looking for, as well as a variety of places you could work for. From second hand experience, it can be tough to get a job here if you don't already live here, but it can be very expensive to live here if you don't have a solid job. People come here from all over, many with advanced/prestigious degrees. It's been rare that I find someone who went to my university, and there only seems to be a handful from any of the universities in VA. The 757 population is smaller than Boston, obviously, and there's a significant chunk of people who live in the area that are military. In VB, ESL is done within the public school system, and from what I remember, an ESL teacher is hired to serve multiple schools. Even though there are a lot of schools, there may not be a lot of ESL specialists. If you are talking about international student advising at the university level, there are a decent number of unversities in both Boston and the 757. I'm assuming, just based on just growing up in the area, that the universities in the 757 are not as competitive as some of the Boston area ones. A quick search of the school systems in Virginia Beach/Chesapeake/Norfolk (maybe even Newport News, Hampton) and in greater Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Arlington, Newton can probably give you an idea of what jobs are/will be available in the future. If you need advice on specific schools or systems or universities, feel free to shoot me a message and I can send you more info. Hopefully this is a little bit helpful! Edit to add: I skipped over this part I've seen this a lot in Boston, done through individual agencies and such. Not really a common thing in Virginia Beach from what I've seen. There are some cultural (especially Asian) groups, but they've been long established by families in the area and have their programs in place; I believe they're also just community programs rather than organizations that hire people to run them. I don't think there's a huge population of internationals in the area, and generally the international students are taken care of at their university or K-12 school. If you have specific questions about this, let me know.

Just from a pure "Top Schools" perspective, Ivy League schools with Higher Ed programs probably have the same impressive factor that HYPSM does for undergrad. Just from my own experience, I'd say: Harvard, UPenn, Columbia, Stanford, University of Virginia. They are all prestigious and happen to have solid education schools.

Glad to know there are others who have already been down this path. Thanks for your help, HGSEStudent!

This question is directed toward current HGSE students: are there any HGSE students who were admitted after being employed by Harvard? I am currently a university employee and have been able to take many classes as a non-degree student with their tution discount. I am now looking at applying in the next year (for the 2015-16 school year or the year after) to HGSE for the Master's in Higher Education. Does anyone know if being an employee at Harvard and/or previously taking classes might be beneficial in the application process? For what it's worth, I was previously interested in higher ed grad programs while I was an undergrad, so I have lots of extracurricular/student leadership experience and now employment experience at Harvard and one other university. Thanks for any advice!