Is there an issue with the rapid rise in international students

Applying to College
1

I have been asked to make this a new topic so here we go.

I believe we need to do something about the insane rise in the number of international applicants. A cap or control needs to be placed on international student visas immediately. The increase in applicants is accelerating. Cornell’s acceptance rate this year is the same as Stanford’s was in 2007. It is now as hard to get into Cornell as it was to get into Stanford in 2007. Think about that. The acceptance rate dropped from 14.9% in 2015 to 10.3% in 2018. It took from 1999 to 2007 for Stanford’s acceptance rate to drop between the same two points. That is 8 years compared to 3 years. This is what I mean about accelerating. The logic for allowing unlimited access to American universities for international students is based on an assumption that there is a shortage of highly educated workers for our new service economy. We apparently need more engineers, computer programmers and doctors. While that may be true TODAY, what people aren’t looking at are the extrapolations for other groups. In addition to the number of international students growing rapidly, the children of the last generation of international students are also hitting our universities at the same time and they are all preparing for the same small number of careers. You have to be myopic to not see the problem on the horizon. What may be a shortage today will rapidly become an over supply when these kids hit the workforce. The reason is simple. They all want to do the same jobs. They all want to be doctors, lawyers, engineers and scientists. We will soon go from a shortage of these people to a massive over supply. Student visas need to be capped now and capped low. What we are seeing is that there are plenty of American students hitting the universities now to address the current shortage as well as the projected growth in demand.

I had one person tell me that only 10% of college students are international students. That 10% number might seem reasonable but there is a problem with presenting a simple number like that in a vacuum devoid of context. In 2014, there were over 434 thousand international students in our universities. It has only grown since then. Here are the problems. First of all, they are all applying to the same small number of top universities. But what is much worse is that they are all planning careers in the same, ever smaller, number of fields of medicine, engineering, science, law and finance. So, yeah, it is a problem because the current shortage in these fields will soon be an over supply. The low acceptance rates at the top universities is just a red flag. Many of the kids going into one of these fields is going to accrue debt. In some cases it will be a lot of debt. Then they will hit the workforce and find that they can’t find a job or, if they can, the pay will be dropping or stagnating.

If we didn’t have a rapidly rising number of children born to the last generation of international students also hitting the universities and majoring in all the same fields, the international student population explosion wouldn’t be a problem and might even be a necessity. But from 2004 to 2014, while the number of international students has risen from 218 thousand to 434 thousand, the number of American kids born to the last generation of international students has also risen rapidly and will only continue to accelerate. The reason is simple, the number of international students from the previous generation also rose rapidly over time so it only stands to reason that the number of their children hitting the universities will rise rapidly as well. By the way, go back and look at that those numbers I presented above. In 10 short years, the number of international students doubled and increased by 216 thousand. Now you know why the admissions departments at the top schools are so overwhelmed to the point where one bad sentence in an essay can get the application from a great kid thrown into the deny pile in, literally, 10 seconds. These poor folks have NO CHANCE at trying to really get to know a kid from their application.

And it will only get worse. That 10 year period I presented exhibited an exponential, not linear, growth in international applicants. The curve fit has an R^2 of 97%. The 3% error is due to the fact that the growth is actually GREATER than exponential. Based on what we heard about last year’s numbers (applications AND yields were way up) and this year’s numbers (applications way up yet again), I suspect it has reached a crisis point and the problem is exploding. One last thing. In my analysis, I added the number of international students to the estimated number of children of international students applying to elite universities and the correlated that number to the rise in applicants at one particular elite university, MIT, and found a 99.8% correlation. So, yeah, this is real.

2

What is your point or question ? Please try to be clear & concise. Thank you !

3

A more balanced and informative article on this topic from World Education Services:

https://www.wes.org/advisor-blog/international-student-enrollment-trends/

4

who cares? worry about your own application. if you dont like it apply to community college where you will have little competition from intl students

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@hpcsa That is as unbiased as a study on global climate change by oil companies.
@ccfk1221 Are you an international student or the parent of one? Who cares? You, apparently.

6

``If we didn’t have a rapidly rising number of children born to the last generation of international students also hitting the universities and majoring in all the same fields, the international student population explosion wouldn’t be a problem and might even be a necessity. But from 2004 to 2014, while the number of international students has risen from 218 thousand to 434 thousand, the number of American kids born to the last generation of international students has also risen rapidly and will only continue to accelerate. The reason is simple, the number of international students from the previous generation also rose rapidly over time so it only stands to reason that the number of their children hitting the universities will rise rapidly as well.’’

You probably should have understood why what you are suggesting won’t happen. Through its Universities USA has been attracting talent that settles down in the country and contributes. And besides producing children that are competing for college slots, you know what these previous generation international students or their children have been doing – creating companies and jobs! It is possible that you may work for one such company in the future.

7

Yes some colleges are collecting apps from internationals, for two reasons

  1. International students are cash cows that keep budgets in balance
  2. Rejecting them makes the school look more selective

Neither if these two outcomes hurt domestic students

There are no schools where the number of international students enrolled is increasing exponentially, even when the number of international applications is increasing.

8

If your goal is one of the top universities in the world, you shouldn’t be afraid of any competition. If you need someone to stack the deck in your favor, you might want to aim lower.

9

Recruitment of international students is critical, and has been for over a decade now, for the survival of many boarding prep high schools in the US. That, plus the fact that US families are having fewer children, account in large part for the recruitment of international students for US colleges & universities.

10

I’m sorry your son didn’t get into Cornell, or Wake Forest, or any of the other schools that rejected/wait listed him. But I don’t think he was competing with international students. His competition would have been more regional. There are a lot of accomplished kids in the US, and it was a tough application season.

I wish people would quit blaming their disappointing results on some “other.” Kids with marginally lower stats must have gotten admitted because they’re an athlete, URM, poor, or whatever the latest flavor of shade that’s being thrown. If you’re going to knock other people, at least try to pick some who were in direct competition with your son.

11

You are concerned about a non-issue. International student numbers are dropping.

https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/mobile.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/us/international-enrollment-drop.amp.html

12

Very clear from your other posts that this concern stems from your son’s rejection from Cornell. I am sorry for your disappointment and I am sure it is easy to blame this in the 10% of international students that got “his” seat at Cornell. But why not blame the 90% of domestic applicants that also got his seat? Or the athletes? Or the legacies? Or the band members? I also have an extremely high stats daughter who did not get into her reachiest schools. But luckily she had lots more she got into.

You also blame “tiger parents” in your previous posts, and “international” parents whose children are now entering the system. To be clear- you are talking about many parents who are NOW US citizens. Their children may not be white…but they are not international for the purpose of admission. There have always been ethnic groups that are high achieving- and there have always been arguments that we need to limit their numbers in order to protect the “real” American kids. We are all aware of the policies used against Jewish Americans at the top universities in our country- using the same arguments you make now.

Tons of kids didn’t get into Cornell or H,Y,P. Your child was not entitled to a seat in these institutions just because he is a more traditionally “American” student than other American kids from different backgrounds.

I hope he has found a great college to attend and he is happy.

13

Also fascinating- you desperate for a seat at Cornell for your son is fine… but non-white parents desperate for the same seat- “tiger parents” chasing prestige at a small number of select universities. Hmm.

14

I think there should be a cap on international students.

15

What should it be?

16

The private schools (like Cornell and Wake Forest) each decide for themselves whether they want to admit more or fewer international students. Students who do not want to attend schools with however many international students those schools have can choose not to apply to those private schools, or choose not to attend if admitted.

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Always interesting that the people willing for the government to “cap” international enrollment at PRIVATE universities are usually the same people who believe in less government.

18

So what if the colleges admit foreigners? Why does it matter? There are plenty of colleges to go around for everyone.

19

We should welcome high intelligence foreign students in our private universities. It is really for the universities to balance their institutional priorities, and decide on the desirable level of foreign students, subject of course to any applicable laws regarding discrimination. If people do not want as many international students entering the country to study, they should agitate at the federal level to restrict student visas.

Public universities are a bit different to my mind. Citizens of a state have the right to restrict foreign enrollment at their state universities, but again the proper venue for this is through the ballot box.

20

I guess I distill this OP’s rather convoluted initial post to:

All American universities should have a responsibility to educate American students first. So if there is a spot that could be filled by an American student of entirely equal academic ability, financial ability to pay etc. then that seat should go to the American student first? (Given the incredible number of applicant for a limited number of spots that we have seen this cycle, it shouldn’t be so hard to find an American over an International?)

Do I have that right?