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IIE, the Fulbright administrators, told me that although applicants use IIE’s Fulbright application form to apply for the Teaching Assistantship to France, this is not a Fulbright but IIE administers it on behalf of the French Education Ministry. Applicants can also apply for it via French Cultural Affairs Consulates, which is what the Smith French Dept. has been doing successfully. Many Smith students who apply this way are accepted.

IIE claims that applications that go through IIE receive priority acceptance (because IIE does a professional screening, selection etc.) and that they are not hard to win. But maybe they are just saying this because it is business for them. Their placement success rate is about 33% which seems to be less than that of our French Dept. The Fellowships Program suggests that students apply via the French Department’s proven path that appears to have a higher success rate than applying through IIE.

www.frenchculture.org/a_assistantship-program_195.cfm

Q. I'm working with a student applying for a French Government TA award who would also like to take some university courses while in France. He wants to go to Marseilles and is having some trouble finding course information on the Web, i.e., descriptions of individual courses as opposed to program descriptions. We're wondering how important it is to the study proposal to have a detailed description of the applicant's study plans in the application for a teaching award.

A. Some experience with teaching/education is helpful, even at the community level. Also, it is a good idea for students to write their geographic preference in the space provided at the bottom of the proposal.

A. Our experience with French Government TA-ships is that it is an excellent idea to have a general plan of things to do when not engaged in the teaching responsibilities, but it should not be too specific. This is mainly because the French government wants to have the freedom to assign their TA's as needed. I am told that applicants through the IIE are more likely to get their first-choice placement than those who apply directly to the French government, but even there, it would be a risk to present too rigid a plan. Preferable might be to give course work in Marseilles as an example of the kind of activity the student would undertake if s/he were placed in a university setting. Perhaps an alternative for a non-university setting could be imagined as well. Hope this helps.