My daughter in Boston just alerted me to the fact that Boston College has just extended acceptances to 400 students off their wait list, an all time high for them. Her understanding is that this is at least partially driven by the loss of international students, which is an outsized financial loss since so many international students are full pay.
BC had 185 international students in this past year’s freshman class of 2400 and 662 international undergrads total in the entire university with an enrollment of 9700. This is a relatively small number. So, what’s happening at other universities with bigger international enrollments? For example, University of Rochester typically has about a quarter of its admitted class being international students. On any level, their loss represents a huge financial hit, but if they’re all full pay, the impact is disproportionate to just their number.
As colleges and universities turn to their wait lists, there will be a ripple effect. Whoever is at the end of the line, will be left losing students to these wait list acceptances with no one to replace them and will have a corresponding loss of revenue.
Do you know if the 400 offers off the waitlist are cumulative since initial rd offers in March were made, or do you mean BC just extended offers to 400 more students off the waitlist in the last few days?
So, to be clear, you are saying that yield for internationals is down at BC, i.e., internationals are choosing not to enroll? How accurate do you think her source is on the 400, and is it possible yield for BC is down more generally or possible that BC admitted fewer students overall, with a strategic plan to use the waitlist more extensively, as we might be seeing from some other schools this year? Just thinking out loud.
In 2023, BC admitted 116 from the waitlist, 55 in 2022, and 16 in 2021, so 400 would represent a significant increase of waitlist acceptances, albeit from a likely waitlist well over 5k. If 400 turns out to be the total, that’s still a sub-10% waitlist acceptance rate.
My daughter works in higher ed in Boston, but not at BC. I understood her to be saying that from what she is hearing, many internationals are not coming to this country at all, not just BC. I’m wondering if it’s not just internationals who applied this year but if internationals who have already been attending are not returning at all.
I put this post out there to see what others are seeing and hearing because if there is a trend developing, it could have massive implications.
That is interesting and certainly could have implications. It just feels a little surprising based on a lack of forum posts by internationals saying they applied last fall, were admitted, and have decided not to come to the US. Maybe that’s just not something people post about, I don’t know.
Thinking out loud some more, maybe low international yield is more likely at a school like BC that doesn’t give any need-based aid to internationals, whereas internationals that applied elsewhere for big need-based aid may have few other options to get their education paid for.
Not surprising as any public statements or actions by international students are now being scrutinized from a political perspective. (Likely to affect anonymous posters as well due to fear.)
I see what you mean, though I’m referring to anonymous internet forums. Disclaimer, there are other forums I don’t venture into, like tiktok and discord, where perhaps this is being discussed.
I guess the challenge for schools in BC’s position, where all the internationals are full pay, would be to admit full pay domestic students off the waitlist, the next question being, are there enough full pay students on the waitlist who would enroll if admitted. My guess is yes for BC. If they admitted 400 off the waitlist, assuming a low yield, they could be trying to replace 100 (or fewer) full pay internationals, let’s say - I’m making that number up.
I’ve seen a couple of posts on Reddit to this effect. I’m not super active there (just have eyes on a couple of college subreddits) so not sure how widespread this might be.
While the larger premise of this post - that full pay international student enrollment is going down at US universities - could be true, I am not sure that the underlying data at BC supports this.
First, “International student” is not clearly defined, but assuming that the OP and others posting are assuming that this means “students who are citizens of, and went to high school in, another country” then my understanding is that BC is expecting 150 - 170 freshmen in the fall who meet that definition. So, depending on where they end up in that range, it sounds like they will have anywhere between 15-35 fewer international students this year (assuming the 185 figure from last year is correct - I don’t have data for that).
That could be significant (especially if it’s 35) and possibly could be explained by lower enrollment of full pay international students, but it’s not a cataclysmic reduction. And, it could be explained by other factors. BC this year, despite having a significant increase in the number of applications over last year (35,475 to 39,681) accepted 200 fewer students (went from 5200 to 5000 acceptances). My guess is that’s because BC was predicting a higher yield rate from its admitted students then it had last year. So, maybe they slightly miscalculated their likely yield and had somewhat fewer students accept their spots necessitating that they accept a few more students off the wait list.
But, also it’s unclear what that 400 number means. Have 400 students just been admitted and enrolled off the waitlist or just 400 accepted? I would assume that 400 admitted would only yield a small percentage of those student who will actually enroll, in which case this might not represent a huge uptick in wait list acceptances.
In any event, again I don’t necessarily disagree with the larger premise - my guess that international student enrollment in colleges in the US is going to be impacted. Just not sure if it’s happening yet at BC.
This is an interesting point, that I don’t see mentioned enough as a potential issue for universities.
I do see stories of current international students not returning home for breaks for fear of not being able to return/hassle to get back in. Very advantaged international students could just say “heck with it” and stay at home or go to UK/Canada.
Not to do with students, but I work with many people around the globe and I have heard people refusing/choosing not to attend conferences or hold conferences in US anymore. Visas were always a big hassle for citizens of many countries and people are increasingly paying attention to this in planning events. An event I know that typically alternated US and non-US locations. They are now doing 2 non-US locations in a row.
I assume they extended 400 offers to those who’d accepted a wl spot. They may expect 40 students out of those?
Some students may want to return but won’t be allowed to, either because their own government will block them (China has been doing that, such that some colleges advised Chinese students not to go home for the summer as early as a year ago) or because they’ll be blocked upon re entry.
Some may choose to delay returning, taking a leave of absence because they fear mistreatment (the story of the 2 German girls who were strip searched left a mark not to mention the countless stories of European tourists being mistreated because once you’re in the transit space you have no rights…) or because they fear masked goons showing up (in some countries that’s a traumatic experience parents send their kids to the US to avoid) or because apparently-random arrests of students in compliance with their I20 strike fear…
If you’re attuned to international student news it’s like the British “hostile environment” idea has been applied to undergraduate and graduate students rather than immigrants, and then militarized.
This may be a big part of it. This seems to have been the case for some other schools (e.g., Brown perhaps), either a strategic move to hedge against yield uncertainty, or a miscalculation of anticipated yield, or potentially both, leading to increased use of the waitlist over prior years.
It is reasonable to guess that some internationals who would have enrolled at BC have decided not to come, which I suppose falls under an inaccurate yield prediction. Adding, however, without actual data, we really don’t know how significant the issue is. Seems unlikely that all, or anywhere close to all, of the internationals who would have enrolled decided not to come, and we don’t know what the proportion is.
I am curious on this, if anyone has updates if visa issues etc. are happening and if anyone this this is effecting waitlist?
I don’t think the 400 # for BC was ever confirmed