I just found out about this program by the UK government. My daughter goes to UC San Diego. Other UC’s included are Berkeley and UCLA. The school has to be in the top 50 on the two of the three global ranking ARWU, QS and Times Higher.
The UK government is implementing its “high potential” Individual visa program by giving 2 year open work visas for everyone graduating with an undergrad or grad degree from a pre-selected group of universities. Here are the American ones:
My niece attended one of the qualifying US schools and is working for a non-profit in the UK through this program before pursuing graduate school. A great experience !
In recent years, the global competition for top university graduates has intensified, prompting the UK to establish the High Potential Individual Visa program in May 2022. This program grants visas for up to two years, or three years for PhD holders, to foreign nationals who have graduated within the last five years from top 50 universities globally ranked by at least two major ranking systems. Amidst this shifting landscape, Japan is adopting a proactive approach to its immigration policies, particularly regarding international graduates. Historically characterized by a cautious stance on immigration, Japan is now broadening its borders with the introduction of the J-Find visa.
As of January 2025, the list of universities eligible for J-Find visa is as follows:
this list seems to be valuing the quantity (and quality) of the professors outputs rather than the students qualifications.
Obviously very smart kids at all these schools, no doubt, but leaves out a lot of schools with higher selectivity and higher average scores, etc. etc. Penn State? UMN?
Yes the government of Hong Kong, Japan and the uk are using the global rankings. I don’t know if teaching quality is part of the category aside from research.
Yeah, and they can do what they want…plus no perfect metric… just seems like a top student from Rice or Dartmouth or Williams or UVA would be pretty high potential:)
I’d think there’s also an element of being able to sell the policy internally. It’s probably a lot easier to tell your citizens that you’re getting immigrants from universities that appear on a third-party, global list than picking favorites yourself. Also probably helps that the research universities will be more likely to have somewhat of a “name brand” there.
