Quito

Quito is the capital of Ecuador and recently became the largest city in the country. With nearly three million people, the metropolitan area offers a wide variety of cultural, historical, and hip attractions to discover. Quito’s geography is complex since it sits along the valley between two mountain ranges, but this also allows for spectacular views of the Andes and several of their snow-capped mountains. The Old Town, also known as Centro Histórico de Quito, was the first World Cultural Heritage Site designated by UNESCO in 1978. In the heart of the Old Town you’ll find the Presidential and Municipal Palaces as well as numerous century-old churches, which make the Old Town one of the main tourist attractions the country has to offer. Quito is the political and intellectual center of the country. Dozens of public and private IB schools as well as several international private schools are located here. Most of the top-ranking universities are also based in the city, including the best university in the country, Universidad San Francisco de Quito (private), the only liberal arts institution of higher education in Ecuador.

According to the most recent Open Doors survey, in the 2015-2016 academic year, 2889 students from Ecuador were embarked in some form of educational experience in the U.S., which represents an increase of 3.3% from the previous year. The number of U.S. students our country welcomes also went up by 1.3% from 2014 to 2015. The Ecuadorian Government continues to offer the large scholarship program for graduate studies and the GAR program of scholarship for undergraduate students. Quito is the city with the highest level of English in the country and the U.S. is one of the top places people consider when thinking about education abroad, which makes it a very good market for recruitment.