The why of where: Vietnamese doctoral students’ choice of PhD destinations

ABSTRACT Opting for academic sojourns has become increasingly popular for students worldwide at various levels of education. While there have been a number of research studies into the college and country choice of university students at the undergraduate level, the opinions of international doctoral students are less presented, and if presented, they are mostly categorised into push and pull factors. Using imagination and aspiration theorised by Appadurai [2004. “The Capacity to Aspire.” In Culture and Public Action: A Cross-Disciplinary Dialogue on Development Policy, edited by M. Walton and V. Rao, 59–84. Washington, DC: Stanford University Press] as the conceptual lens, this study investigates the factors affecting the choice of 19 Vietnamese PhD students regarding where to embark for their academic pursuit. The findings of this paper demonstrate that their decision-making process was mediated at the intersection of family situations, financial plans, practical concerns including language development and environmental factors, the influences from their friends and direct networks, and their own prior mobility and transnational experiences.