International Student Admissions

Yale decides to go with a different approach to admissions videos:

There seems to be intense debate in the UCs (University of California) system as to the exact number of international students they should be allowing to enter their institutions. We have already touched on the debate a bit here. For a more detailed discussion on the issue, I recommend reading this link -

Fix #1 was bringing in lots and lots of foreign students, who would presumably come with fists full of cash.  But also, with problems.

I yield to no one in my appreciation of UC Berkeley’s traditional international flavor. I vividly remember the first time I approached Sather Gate. A woman wearing a sari was coming out as I went in, and I thought to myself that I was—finally—a true citizen of the world, privy to all its delights and entertainment. Among the international friends I made as an undergraduate were a Kurd, (from an ethnic group I’d only encountered in books) a Chilean Socialist (two firsts there), an Israeli woman who thought I was an Indian because of the sound of my name, and my whole rooming-house full of women physics students from Taiwan, who taught me how to cut up a chicken with a few swift strokes of a cleaver without removing any fingers by mistake. And they were all amazing people, brilliant high-achievers, admitted because of their outstanding abilities—not, however, including their ability to pay big bucks for tuition.

There’s a real danger that today’s international students will become nothing more than cash cows. There’s the possibility that the student body will be overloaded with the privileged offspring of the ruling classes who couldn’t cut the mustard back home, and that merit will go out the window.

It doesn’t have to happen that way, but the risk is there. The same caveat applies to out-of-state American students, who will also be paying those lucrative higher tuition fees.

Overall, the percentage of these special categories is jumping from 6% to 8% of the student body in the whole UC system, with UC Berkeley getting the biggest increase. Berkeley continues to be a very saleable brand in brand-conscious Asia, with much more cachet than Los Angeles or Riverside.

A major difficulty with embarking on the mission of educating the world, even if we get nothing but the cream of the crop, is that these students are not nearly as likely as they used to be to stick around after they graduate. India and China in particular are developing their own industries which will employ their own top graduates. This might leave California, high-tech California in particular, short of top talent, having educated too few Californians and too many people who just go home after they graduate.

The San Francisco Chronicle has an interesting article regarding the burgeoning number of international students at California universities -

When Rebeca Ponce signed up for summer classes at UC Berkeley through her university in Mexico, she knew she was in for an experience that would broaden her view of the world.

She had no idea.

The 20-year-old business administration student from the Tecnológico de Monterrey soon found herself sitting in a classroom where she and students from India, Germany, China, South Korea, Australia, her own country and countless others are the overwhelming demographic.

“Studying at UC Berkeley has been a really rewarding experience. I have made many friends from different countries,” she said. “I wish there would have been more U.S. students to get to know more about Berkeley’s lifestyle, but I loved interacting with people from all over the world, learn from their cultures … and see life from other perspectives.”

The result of a concerted outreach effort, the number of foreign students attending classes in UC Berkeley’s summer program this year has climbed 50 percent over last year. The 2,356 international students make up 16 percent of the 15,000 total students enrolled, said UC Berkeley summer sessions director Rick Russo.

The infusion of international students is evident in the Negotiation and Conflict Resolution course Ponce is taking. About 98 percent of students in the class are from abroad, said Haas School of Business Professor Eli Kass, adding that such diversity cultivates a classroom dynamic distinct from what students would find during the regular school year… Read more here

I strongly recommend reading this post to understand the challenges school admissions counselors face in dealing with the highly selective college admissions game. A taste -

What is driving the application frenzy?

One college counselor colorfully exclaimed, “We know the devil and it’s 3 faces: Moody’s, US News and World Report, and the Common Application.”

Moody’s

Moody’s, the first branch of the demonic trifecta, penalizes colleges and universities by degrading their bond ratings if their SATs, selectivity or yield drop. And bond ratings are nothing to sneeze at. When a university needs to borrow money for capital improvements or renovations, its bond rating determines the interest rate at which it can borrow funds. The Board of Trustees will put heavy pressure on an admissions office to maintain the institution’s AAA bond rating.

Private High Schools are locked into a similar set of rules determined by Moody’s. Their bond ratings are tied to their matriculation lists, SAT scores, National Merit and AP scores. To keep their boards happy, college counselors must attend to the selectivity of the colleges on their “matric” lists.

US News and World Report

By now, most of you are aware of Mephistopheles’ favorite publication, the US News and World Report. The US News annual rankings are responsible for narrowing the collective gaze of millions of high school students onto a handful of schools and rewarding these schools for rejecting as many students and being as “selective” as possible… continue reading.

The Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic) is an English language test designed to assess the readiness of non-native English speakers to participate in a university-level English language instruction program (the test is meant to be a substitute for TOEFL). PTE Academic is endorsed by the Graduate Management Admission Council, who are owners of the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT). The test is computer-based exam and focuses on real-life English used in academic surroundings.

Harvard, Yale and Stanford Business Schools all accept the PTE.

Format
Computer-based test measures all four language areas: Listening, Reading, Speaking, Writing,

Content
Authentic academic test content from a variety of international contexts and scenarios

Duration
Approximately three hours

Availability
During the launch period PTE Academic will be available in 37 territories including China, India, the US, Japan, South Korea, Australia, the UK, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Canada.

Registration
Register online and schedule a test using a flexible ‘choose and book’ system

Scores
Available online within five business days of taking the test Secure online results service

The enrollment of international students in undergraduate and graduate programs in the U.S. has somewhat suffered as a result of the worldwide economic crisis — but not as much as many have feared, a report from the National Science Foundation (NSF) declares.

The total number of international students in the United States rose by 3 percent from fall 2008 to fall 2009.The only fields of study that suffered declines were psychology, education and the humanities (the NSF report is based on federal data on visas).

There is reason for a bit of concern for colleges however - there appears to be a declining rate of annual growth: Total foreign enrollment rose by 4.3 percent from 2006 to 2007, by 3.7 percent from 2007 to 2008, and by 3 percent from 2008 to 2009…

Read the rest of the report here.

This video is a great resource! The production is a bit on the sloppy side but the advice is golden. The questions that are addressed in the video are ones I often hear from students that are looking to get into more selective colleges. Here you can get the answers to these questions straight from the the Admissions Director at Penn! Many thanks to the District Communication Services of Collier County Public Schools.

The TOEFL exam can be taken either online (also known as the ‘iBT’ – Internet Based TOEFL) or on paper (also know as the ‘PBT’ – Paper Based TOEFL). Today we will examine the more common IBT.

Since its introduction in late 2005, the Internet-based Test (iBT) has progressively replaced the paper-based (PBT) tests, although paper-based testing is still used in select areas.

The four-hour test consists of four sections, each measuring one of the basic language skills (while some tasks require integrating multiple skills) and all tasks focus on language used in an academic, higher-education environment. Note-taking is allowed during the iBT. The test cannot be taken more than once a week.

Reading

The Reading section consists of 3–5 passages, each approximately 700 words in length and questions about the passages. The passages are on academic topics; they are the kind of material that might be found in an undergraduate university textbook. Passages require understanding of rhetorical functions such as cause-effect, compare-contrast and argumentation. Students answer questions about main ideas, details, inferences, essential information, sentence insertion, vocabulary, rhetorical purpose and overall ideas. New types of questions in the iBT require filling out tables or completing summaries. Prior knowledge of the subject under discussion is not necessary to come to the correct answer.

Listening
 
The Listening section consists of 6 passages, 3–5 minutes in length and questions about the passages. These passages include 2 student conversations and 4 academic lectures or discussions. A conversation involves 2 speakers, a student and either a professor or a campus service provider. A lecture is a self-contained portion of an academic lecture, which may involve student participation and does not assume specialized background knowledge in the subject area. Each conversation and lecture stimulus is heard only once. Test takers may take notes while they listen and they may refer to their notes when they answer the questions. Each conversation is associated with 5 questions and each lecture with 6. The questions are meant to measure the ability to understand main ideas, important details, implications, relationships between ideas, organization of information, speaker purpose and speaker attitude.

Speaking
 
The Speaking section consists of 6 tasks, 2 independent tasks and 4 integrated tasks. In the 2 independent tasks, test takers answer opinion questions on familiar topics. They are evaluated on their ability to speak spontaneously and convey their ideas clearly and coherently. In 2 of the integrated tasks, test takers read a short passage, listen to an academic course lecture or a conversation about campus life and answer a question by combining appropriate information from the text and the talk. In the 2 remaining integrated tasks, test takers listen to an academic course lecture or a conversation about campus life and then respond to a question about what they heard. In the integrated tasks, test takers are evaluated on their ability to appropriately synthesize and effectively convey information from the reading and listening material. Test takers may take notes as they read and listen and may use their notes to help prepare their responses. Test takers are given a short preparation time before they have to begin speaking.

Writing

The Writing section measures a test taker’s ability to write in an academic setting and consists of 2 tasks, 1 integrated task and 1 independent task. In the integrated task, test takers read a passage on an academic topic and then listen to a speaker discuss the same topic. The test taker will then write a summary about the important points in the listening passage and explain how these relate to the key points of the reading passage. In the independent task, test takers must write an essay that states, explains and supports their opinion on an issue, supporting their opinions or choices, rather than simply listing personal preferences or choices.

It should be noted that one of the sections of the test will include extra, uncounted material. Educational Testing Service includes extra material in order to pilot test questions for future test forms. When test-takers are given a longer section, they should give equal effort to all of the questions because they do not know which question will count and which will be considered extra. For example, if there are four reading passages instead of three, then three of those passages will count and one of the passages will not be counted. Any of the four passages could be the uncounted one.

This is the most comprehensive list of schools with FA for international students I have yet encountered (PDF or Excel version). It is a must read for any international student looking for FA and covers most of the selective colleges.

Much thanks for compiling the list goes to Doug Thomson from OACAC.

This video is an opportunity to hear directly from admissions directors on the process of reviewing college applications. Deans of admission from eight colleges discuss the admissions process -