Best Colleges For Study Abroad?

[cellardweller]

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From their own “Factsheet” - “915 students (regular and summer term) studied abroad in 2010-11.”

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<p>More than 85% of these are summer students. The number of Yale students studying abroad during the academic year has actually declined in recent years from a high of around 180 in 2006-2007 to less than 120 last year. The two biggest programs, Yale in London program typically attracts less than 10 students/year and the Yale in China around 20/year. It is true that Yale has been promoting the study abroad programs more in recent years but students are not lining up for them (except for summer programs).</p>

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The number of Yalies abroad last year (2010-2011) was approximately the same at Harvard and Princeton, according to assistant director of study abroad at the Center for International Experience Susan Evans. Yet this group represents less than 3 percent of the undergraduate population at Yale.

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Natalee Pei ’13, who will leave for China next semester under the joint study abroad program between Yale and Peking University in Beijing, said she thinks most Yale students do not study abroad during the academic school year simply because it is not the norm.</p>

<p>“People who do study abroad feel a little bit left out and it perpetuates this attitude that you’re going to miss out if most people aren’t doing it,” she said, adding that this atmosphere creates a self-enforcing cycle where students do not think to study abroad.

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Others attributed Yale’s small study abroad population to broader institutional issues. Eric Jones ’12, who spent his sophomore spring semester in Morocco, noted that academic departments at Yale do not include study abroad as part of their curricula. As a result, he said that for most Yalies going abroad during the academic year is not part of the “quintessential Yale experience.”</p>

<p>Jones, an economics major, added that students majoring in certain departments may have difficulty going abroad because of Yale’s strict policies regarding credit transfers.

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