Interesting WSJ article about the growth in the number of int’l students at US colleges:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/heavy-recruitment-of-chinese-students-sows-discord-on-u-s-campuses-1458224413
Graphs showing the historical increase or decrease of students, by country. Plus 26 pages of schools ranked by % of int’l students.
**Has the % of int’l students affected your choice of school or altered your campus experience? **
It all depends. I was an international student at Cajun State back in the early 1980’s when we had a ton of students from all over. Lebanon, South America, Iran, India, Malaysia, Nigeria… etc. And 4 from Elbonia. Overall it was a great introduction to the world for someone who had traveled Europe a bit but not a world traveler I think we were 10-15% foreign students with large groups from Nigeria, Venezuela, and Malaysia.
Fast forward two decades to Purdue which is a lot higher than that percentage wise. Apartment websites have parent pages in foreign languages 
and you can get some pretty good ethnic foods. Even the school my older girl is attending has a sizable contingent of foreign students (another flagship state). Does it help? some. In Architecture where she is, it really helps to bring different perspectives in design. In Computer Science where I was, not so important.
But diversity is critical regardless. Right now I’m not asking “are you from India” ? I’m asking “which region”, and know the major regions, foods, good schools, etc, and spent many an evening trying to answer questions on the IIT entrance exam (a favorite pastime of some of my Indian coworkers. My workplace is quite diverse, and I feel the experience helped me.
Mind you, I came from a 99.99 % Elbonian only culture, so I did not have much experience. If you grew up in Chicago or San Jose or New Orleans, you’d probably be “meh, I can do a comparative analysis of Indian restaurants in Devon str.” but if you grew up in a more homogeneous place, it helps.
I think it helps, but at some point it becomes counterproductive because any school can be overwhelmed by a ‘good thing’. Are we there yet? I don’t think so, but admissions folks should keep this all in mind.
I know that many students at Mount Holyoke chose it in part because of the international atmosphere.
My D has some international student friends so I guess it is part of her experience. A plus, as far as she tells me.
I think her school is only about 10% international though.
A point raised by the WSJ article is too many int’l students from a single country and the cultural ghetto/isolation that arises from it. Any observations or comments about this?
That’s the thing. It’s good when the diversity is spread around like my Cajun State days. I married a fellow student from two continents away from a country I can’t pronounce :). The recent phenomenon that the Journal may be focusing more on is a very large block of students from a single country. That’s generally not as ‘diverse’ because isolation is quite easy to occur.
For some reason, at my small college there were quite a few students from Ghana. It was definitely enriching for us to have them there, but they did seem to all hang together.
Cultural adventures are easily the thing I remember the most from my Cajun State days… American, Cajun, or from all over the world. I would say that in retrospect I became a better listener and more considerate of other cultures, something that I would not say I was simply because of growing up in a tight monoculture.
Breaking into such a clique was tough tho. I kept pestering a classmate to go out on a date with me, and she accepted, offering to go out with “a few of her friends”. Alas, she did not specify a number. So, 39 people from the same country and me go into a night club to listen to Zydeco… you get the idea. Thirty years later I’m still friends on Facebook with her and we laugh over such things.
What I would like to know is if today’s instant connectivity and internet impact clique-ness. Back then there were no such things and one had to interact with others regardless of numbers. Today I see such ‘isolation’ even among high school 2nd generation kids. Scary.
Mt Holyoke has specifically positioned itself as having a global, diverse community.
At Wellesley, my D had friends from all backgrounds including several from China, but I did not realize how “deep” the pool of international students was until graduation, when it read like the United Nations.
I admit to having mixed feelings about this. Sure this helps schools financially, but if students are not making much of an attempt to assimilate, how does this help the community?
I think it could be great for the campus if there were a true mix of students from a variety of countries associating with one another. But when we toured at Carnegie Mellon’s school of computer science, the large class we sat in on had a large fraction of Chinese students. After the class, leaving lecture, there were many groups composed entirely of Chinese students, all speaking in Chinese. That was a big turn-off for us. I have seen this happen in other contexts as well, not just with Chinese people. I think when there is a large enough fraction of any group they are likely to lapse into their native language and self-segregate. Sounds like this is happening on quite a few campuses according to the Wall St. Journal article.
My kids both had some great intl friends in college, incl one freshman roommate. It was good. Overall, about 10% intl, from a diverse range of countries. Similarly, there were always a few intl kids at their private hs, there for 2-4 years, and they integrated beautifully, in class, in activities, and in the local community. Some came because parents had a temp opportunity at the local college, some came specifically for the US secondary degree. But this was a small hs, no room to hide, to to say.
Beyond that, there is a growing number of private hs school or post-secondary programs in the US, focused on intl kids, to build them an American educational experience (and language skills) and degree, to ease their way into US universities. Partly based on age, as well as the nature of these programs, the kids don’t integrate locally. Some of this is like Americans going to a foreign county and wanting to maintain a fully American experience- an American/British school, sports, socializing, eating our familiar foods, seeing only English movies, etc. I can’t say I really get that.
It concerns me that the percentages are what I consider high, especially because of how many CC posts I read which give me the impression that many international students view US colleges as a stepping stone to gaining US citizenship. I wish there was a federal cap on the number of admitted internationals (say 10% per college), a cap on the number of foreign workers US companies are permitted to hire (a single digit percentage), and a 1 year limit on the visas they do get.
One of the colleges I attended (near NYC) had what seemed like a good number of international students. Interacting with people from different countries was a great experience, but there has to be a middle ground between providing opportunities to get to know students from different cultures and underserving our own citizens.
It’s a mixed blessing at best for applicants from the U.S., since it greatly reduces the number of seats available.
I think what’s important is the attempt to integrate into college life, and that can be difficult for these kids because I’d assume it’s much easier to just hang with your tribe.
There’s a kid in my digital art class from south korea, and while his first language is not english, he will come over and talk to other people in the class and ask them about their designs and ideas. Some people (like me) are very willing to deal with the heavy accent and broken english because of the huge effort he’s putting in to socialize, but some people just don’t (either because they’re an introverted artist or a hillbilly, no telling).
My tribe (moms) is even smaller than his tribe (south koreans) at this school, and while a LOT of the kids are very cool about talking and socializing in class with you, it’s not nearly as easy for them as socializing with their ready-made peers.
So, what I’m trying to say is that what these full pay foreign kids bring to the school may be different than what the regular 'Mericans bring, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing.
As the spouse of a faculty member the biggest complaints I have heard are about the communication/language skills of many of these students. These students require much more maintenance to navigate through the system yet administration doesn’t recognize or support this enough. Professors and TA offices only have so much time to help students and if they are inundated with intl students that need help because they can’t understand the language that is less resources for other students. What Pitt did is a step in the right direction but you also see some Universities have less of a TOEFL requirement for technical majors compared to humanities which shouldn’t matter - engineers need to communicate as well. As @lookingforward mentioned there is a growing number of private high schools especially Catholic and other religious schools recruiting intl students. even though I’m sure their motivation is to right sagging enrollment numbers hopefully this will have a positive effect of better preparing these students for college.
The issue that @mathyone saw at Carnegie Mellon is same at USC which has huge international population. USC also has a diverse population of US students (many from CA), but the international students only socialize with each other speaking their native language. Very segregated there.
@mathyone and @blueskies2day – the concerns and info about USC & CMU are important ones - it is a consideration – how does the US student body get impacted and how is the social and academic environment affected. I was surprised to learn that at some schools in program areas my son is interested in, a MAJORITY of the degrees go to international students. Not sure at one percentage point it really affects things a lot, but we’ll be concentrating on schools where the numbers are lower.
My very small sample size is D1 is at UIUC in a dorm we jokingly call The United Nations. She reports that the students, in general, break off into same-country groups and there isn’t much interacting. It isn’t the international experience she had imagined. D2 is at a private high school that has international boarders and she reports the same. Everybody seems to stick with their people. I had an international roommate at college and loved it. It was because she was remarkable, not me!
Keep in mind that international students make up 5% of the total university undergrad population. Many of the schools with the high percentages are small LACs. Only 13 colleges and universities have percentages over 20% and only about 75 universities and colleges have percentages over 10% out of 253 schools WSJ examined. About 100 schools have 5% or less of their student populations coming from outside the US.
Having immigrants settle in the US has always been a good thing. Currently, they are responsible for a good portion of the big startups: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2016/03/17/study-immigrants-founded-51-of-u-s-billion-dollar-startups/