In this conversation, we hear from founder and Executive Director Joan Liu who discusses the origin and mission of Second Chance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping international students secure last-minute scholarships for higher education. The initiative began in response to a crisis where students lost their scholarships unexpectedly. The conversation emphasizes the importance of community support, innovative thinking, and the skills necessary to navigate the complexities of international education.

Joan Liu is the Founder and Executive Director of Second Chance. She has been a college counselor for the past 22 years, across various public and private schools in the US, UK, Turkey, and Singapore. She has devoted her career to helping students go to college in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and other countries. An industry expert in financial aid and scholarships, she is a fierce advocate of international students seeking access to higher education.

Joan is known for her work in 2018 when she mobilized the Nepal Justice League, a pro-bono team of counselors to support the 60 Nepali students who had lost their scholarships from the University of Texas at Tyler (due to a budget error on UT Tyler’s part). She galvanized a global movement amongst the international counseling community, and she and her team re-seat 56 students at new universities in the US, Canada, Middle East, and East Asia, with 10+ million in financial aid and scholarships, and raised 180K in gap funding - after the US cycle had finished that year.

Joan has been the recipient of industry awards: NACAC’s Rising Star Award (2016); International ACAC’s Distinguished Service Award (2017); CIS’s Peggy Templeton Award, an international award recognizing one counselor in the world annually (2017). In 2021, she and the Nepal Justice League team were awarded NACAC’s Joyce E Smith Award, an award given to those who “have improved the field of education and the way students are served” (2020). In 2021, she served on the President’s Alliance for Higher Education and Immigration Pathways for Refugees Task Force, for the US.

Learn more about Second Chance: https://www.secondchance.global/

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