<p>Re #375: Sorry, I did not mean to imply that I think that foreign students make a physics department worse. Causality of that type was not intended. What I meant was this: When you look at the coefficient for % foreign students in the R-based analyses recently compiled by the NRC, you find that it is negative at the 5% cut-point for the great majority of programs, and still negative at the 95% cut-point for many. The causality direction is this: The faculty rating departments tended to give higher ranking to those with fewer foreign students (without considering in any way the number of foreign students actually present in a department), and this resulted in negative coefficients for the presence of foreign students.</p>
<p>I am generally in agreement with NCL, actually. I agree that the top programs have their pick of the American students, and then admit some truly outstanding foreign students to fill out the classes. We saw a noticeable change in the quality of our foreign graduate students (downward) when the University of California schools began to admit significant numbers of foreign students in my field.</p>
<p>Typically our foreign students are stronger than our domestic students in theory and in mathematical background. They are usually less strong in computer programming, use of symbolic mathematics programs such as Mathematica or Maple (though this might be changing), and construction of new electronics. Don’t mean to start a firestorm here, just stating my observations, which could well reflect the stratum of my university (not the top).</p>
<p>When on sabbatical at a top school, however, I did not notice that the foreign students were better at research than the (presumably top) American students.</p>
<p>It is true generally that foreign students must have much higher GRE scores than American students, to be admitted to an American university for graduate work. This certainly holds in the stratum of my university, and I suspect that it holds higher up, also. Ironically, I have fought for many years for my department to admit more foreign students, because it seems to me to be a question of justice in admissions decisions. My colleagues have argued that the foreign students prepare intensively for the GRE, including subject tests, while the American students take it cold, and this skews the scores. I do see some rationality in this argument–and observationally, the statement appears to be true of American students I know. On the other hand, I cannot imagine what level of preparation it would take to compensate for 21 years of living as a native English speaker, when it comes to the verbal portion! I had a superb Chinese graduate student who scored at the 80th percentile on the verbal part of the GRE, well ahead of many of our American admits. I think there is heavy prejudice against foreign students on the part of some of my colleagues.</p>
<p>I should retract the use of “favored” with regard to the selection of American students for fellowships (for which they may be the only ones eligible) and for research assistantships, and just say that more of the American students are given these opportunities, apparently.</p>
<p>Mainly, my post was made in response to screwitlah, who claimed that there were few if any American graduate students in the top programs. Just over 50% doesn’t seem to fit that bill.</p>
<p>Finally, I note that the tuition charges for foreign students vary by university. At mine (public) the costs of tuition and stipends are identical for all Ph.D. students, regardless of citizenship or residency.</p>