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Fulbright Program: U.S. Applicant Podcast

Transcript For: Cara Wolinsky, Manager, Central America and the Caribbean

Cara Wolinsky, Manager, Central America and the Caribbean discusses recent developments in the Fulbright program in the region.

Tony:                Welcome to the Fulbright US Student Applicant Podcast. I am your host, Tony Claudino with

Schuyler:          Schuyler Allen and today we are joined by Cara Wolinsky who is going to talk to us about applying to Central America and the Caribbean.

Cara:                That’s right.

Tony:                Thank you for joining us.

Cara:                Thank you for having me.

Schuyler:          So, Cara, tell us, what countries are in that region that one can apply to? Just some of them.

Cara:                There’s a lot of countries- all of the countries in Central America, except for Belize. So there’s Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua. And then there’s a lot of countries in the Caribbean. These include the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Barbados, most of the island states

Tony:                It’s probably easier to say which countries you can’t apply to, like Cuba. We always have that question.

Cara:                You can’t apply to Cuba. This is Department of State policy. Because Fulbright is funded by the Department of State and we don’t have any diplomatic relations with Cuba we can’t have a program there. There’s also no program to Haiti; this is for security reasons. Maybe one day in the future they’ll reinstate the program. But we’re not considering any programs there for the following program year, which is 2009-2010. But check back later, maybe, in a future year if you really want to go there. And there’s also no program in Belize. This is because there’s no Public Affairs Officer or Cultural Affairs officer there to oversee the program.

Tony:                That’s temporary?

Cara:                Yeah. If they get one, then we’ll talk.

Schuyler:          The Fulbright is a dynamic program, there are changes year to year. So that said, if I’m an ETA can I apply to any of these countries or no?

Cara:                No. There are no ETA programs.

Schuyler:          For the moment there’s no ETA programs in any of these countries.

Tony:                English Teaching Assistantship program, for those that don’t know the jargon already.

Schuyler:          Thank you, thank you.

                        So, but it’s all fields, correct?

Cara:                Yeah.

Schuyler:          So all fields, ok. So what if… how does the application process work? Are there a number of set grants per country or are they grouped by region?

Cara:                No it’s a … Thank you that’s a fine question. It’s a completely regional program. So there’s no quota per country at all and all the selections are based on the quality of the application. You know, last year we had, I think, about 4 or 5 grantees to El Salvador, this year there’s only 1. It’s just random based on how strong the applications are.

Schuyler:          Are there any fields that are popular in any of these countries?

Cara:                There are a lot of Environmental applicants in Costa Rica and those kinds of places. But they’re open to all fields of study and all levels…

Tony:                So it could be the sciences, could be the arts? How about the-

Cara:                It could be anything. Yeah we had some film makers last year and also in the coming year. Anything.

Tony:                And we do have some Fulbright mtvU—

Cara:                There was last year to Panama.

Schuyler:          Well, that said, are there particular fields that maybe ECA would like to see more of in some of those countries?

Cara:                There’s not any particular field. They would like to have some more applicants to El Salvador. I mean, it’s a pretty competitive region. But you know any field… basically what we are looking for in the application is a strong tie to the country. So just make sure your application is very specific and the reasons why you want to do your application in that country are very strong.

Tony:                Can they do a multi country, especially in the Caribbean?

Cara:                Yeah.

Tony:                Or is that normal or would you encourage it?

Cara:                We generally discourage multi country proposals if your reasons are just because you want to see a couple of other countries, which you know, if I was an applicant I might think hey that sounds like a good idea. But it’s actually much harder to get it approved because your application needs to get vetted by three different countries, and if any one of those countries rejects your application then you’re done for. So, if you have very, very strong reasons then by all means apply, but if you’re just thinking, well, it’d be nice, you know, to have more of a tour of the area, then it’s definitely not a good reason and you shouldn’t consider applying.

Schuyler:          And then also keep in mind that for every country that you want to do, you know as Cara was saying, just to underscore this point, you have to have an affiliation for each of those countries. So you get reviewed by each of those countries’ public affairs offices; that makes the whole thing very protracted in terms of you being notified whether you’re a recipient of the grant.

                        Well let’s say, I imagine Spanish is a requisite to apply to a lot of these countries, but why would I want to apply to one of these countries over let’s say countries in South America?

Cara:                Well, it just depends on the nature of your project. Anyone who’s applying to a Fulbright should have a pretty clear understanding of what it is that they want to do and why they need to study in that specific country. So, it’s just a matter of the project. If you don’t speak Spanish there are several countries in the Caribbean you can still apply to that speak English as their primary language, Jamaica, for example, comes to mind. And also if you don’t speak Spanish, I guess it depends on the nature of your project, although it seems pretty likely that you would definitely need at least some Spanish, at least a hospitality level of Spanish.

Tony:                How many grants do you see this year for the region?

Cara:                Well, we’re expecting the program to remain stable. Last year, or in the current program year, 2008-2009, we have 36 grants and we’re expecting about the same for next year.

Tony:                Great. Well thank you very much for joining us in this podcast to talk about the region

Cara:                Thank you.

Schuyler:          And if we want to contact you, or somebody wants to contact you, what’s the best way to go about doing that?

Cara:                By all means, send me an email. My email is cwolinsky@iie.org. And that info is on the website, or you can call me.

Tony:                Great.

Schuyler:          Perfect.

Tony:                Thank you very much.

Schuyler:          Thank you Cara.

Cara:                Thank you.