Do international students have easier admissions?

Applying to College
1

So, I’m a high school senior doing a dual enrollment program at my local CC and I’ve become friends with a couple of international transfer students. One friend’s college decisions in particular stood out to me.

So I honestly thought my friend was gonna end up at a local state school or some dashy expensive private school as his performance in the classes we shared (2 calculus classes) was subpar. With college decisions getting harder and harder every year, I honestly thought he stood no chance againt the thousands of other CC kids trying their horse butts off to get into college… He ended up getting a C in calc 1 and a C in calc 2, so I thought no way can he get into a renowned school. Much to my surprise, last week he told me he is going to one of the Claremont McKenna… a school with a sub 14% acceptance rate. I also found out that he got into notoriously competitive schools such as University of Michigan, NYU, UCSD, and the likes… His family is quite rich (his dad is some sort of banker in Singapore)… so I’m not sure if they donated money or anything… honestly it’s not like they would have donated money to ucsd, nyu, u mich, AND Claremont Mckenna just to reject 3 of them…

His EC’s weren’t anything extraordinary… he did his civil service in singapore and he was the “inactive” president of one club (the club was put on probation for not conducting regular meetings…)

My question is: do international students that transfer out from a United States community college have an edge in admissions that regular students? My friends major is economics (which is quite impacted… but not as much as CS and engineering ofc).

2

Definitely not–in general, top colleges have a very low limit on international admits, usually between 5 and 10% of the admit class.

3

My brother’s former girlfriend got into CMK when her daddy paid for the construction of a new building wing.

Big donor parents are a superhook.

4

it’s MUCH harder to get into any US college as an international.
However, if you’re seen as “development”, meaning your family can be pumped for a million or more, then yes you have a huge advantage, but it doesn’t matter whether you’re international or American.

5

HAHAHAHAHA!!

No.

6

They don’t have an advantage and it’s not worth anyone’s time to even theorize on it until you know for a fact that he really did get into all those competitive schools while only managing 'C’s at a community college.

7

He got mostly a’s in other classes with a a few b’s.

8

Students who aren’t even in the top 10% of a HS class can manage that easily.

9

=))
Ummm, no. Generally, it’s much more difficult, which makes sense, since the primary instructional obligation of American colleges and universities is to educate American students.

10

To echo the common sentiment, no it’s not easier. It’s actually harder for international students. We can’t sit here and theorize what factors got this kid in but Claremont McKenna obviously saw something special in him and want him as a part of their student body. Besides the C’s in Calculus, it seems like he wasn’t a totally awful student with the A’s and B’s you mentioned.