@sbjdorlo
‘Could you explain the “dangerous” part as opposed to other areas of the world? I’m very curious about this’
I spoke to an Israeli (an Israeli!) who felt the amount of mass shootings in the US were a key reason why his son chose to study in Australia as opposed to the US. The amount of killings here are giving international students (and their parents) pause. “America is becoming like the Wild West in the movies,” said this Israeli.
From the article:
@stardustmom
Yes, there have been issues in verifying test scores for some graduate internationals, but lets not extrapolate it to all internationals. Often times, the ones who come here to study in graduate school are some of the best the country has to offer. (Not all the time, but often.) (The undergrads are a different matter.)
Also regarding engineering a US based student should be able to get into a school in the US. There is not that much competition for graduate schools for US students. How many engineers even want to go back for a PhD. or even a Masters for that matter?
@sbjdorlo The “dangerous” part comes from the mass shootings being reported all most constantly…not an insignificant amount of which happen on college campuses. People just do not view the US as a safe place anymore.
@OHMomof2 - Yes, sorry I forgot but definately Australia and NZ have become much hotter college desinations for this part of the world.
Indians know that in the US they are subject to being profiled. My own 1/2 Indian kids worry about it as well. Honestly, if it wasn’t “home”, we would not be considering the US for college at all.
I think there are some areas that are more dangerous than others, and I do think it is a consideration when selecting colleges. Johns Hopkins medical school is in a very dangerous part of town (or at least it was, maybe it has improved since I lived there) but I don’t think they lose many applications because of that. They have fenced and locked parking lots, they have guards, they have security in the hospital. I went to grad school right where the riots were in Baltimore last year. I don’t think it influenced any of the professional school students that wanted to go to UMAB - we just took precautions. If Israelis don’t want to live in Miami, Baltimore, NYC, Chicago, LA, I’m sure they can find a school in another city, or even in a small town in the US.
When my daughter did study abroad in London last spring, there were bombings in London and Paris. I did not deem Europe to be too dangerous, but there were certain parts that I preferred she didn’t visit.
And in the news today…
"On Monday, a man in Tehama County, California, was involved in a “domestic violence incident.” Less than 24 hours later, the man grabbed a semiautomatic rifle and two handguns, got into his car, and drove around his rural subdivision, shooting people at random.
The man stopped outside of an elementary school and fired a series of rounds into the building, injuring a small child. He came upon a mother driving her children to school and fired several shots into her truck, wounding one child and leaving the woman with “very life-threatening wounds.”
People abroad see this news. Then they look around and see that in other countries you simply do not have the possibility of being “shot at random” by some nut job with a “semiautomatic rifle and two handguns.”
Someone mentioned an Israeli citizen commenting on dangers in the US. I found this:
I feel less safe than I did when I was a child, but it doesn’t have to do with guns. I remember the first time I felt unsafe. I was 17, just graduated high school, and was taking up jogging for the first time. In my own very suburban quiet neighborhood, just a block from home, some car started following me. I ran into someone’s driveway, and hid behind a tire as the car pulled into the driveway. They sat there for a minute, and then drove away. I went to the door of the house, asked to go inside and called my mom to come get me. It was definitely a turning point for me.
Guns scare me even though I was around them growing up (my brother was a hunter). I have no desire to handle one. I think the plethora of news outlets and social media plays a huge role in the proliferation of violence.
The issue of why international student enrollment is down is probably more complex than we’re making it on this thread.
Did they ever think that the US was safe, in terms of violent crime rates relative to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and many countries in Europe?
I certainly feel less safe. I don’t worry about it constantly, but my work and my children’s schools have lock down drills, I’m reminded of the Aurora shooting every time I go to a movie and they play the pre-film short about staying low and looking for the exits, I think about where the exits are at concerts, etc.
They just installed shades and locks in the conference room next to my office. That’s so we can hide in there if a shooter comes. Yay.
For people who lived during the top of the crime wave (1970s to 1990s), does it feel less safe now than then?
Even with the recent uptick in some crimes, crime rates are far lower now than then. But fear of crime seems to be higher, and the US is still higher in violent crime than most other developed countries around the world.
@sbjdorlo - I can speak from my microcosm of an International school with parents from Europe, South Asia, Japan, Korea, etc. It is not much more complex than too expensive and not safe. Those combined realities very quickly ensure that the parents make the kids look outside the US. I also know families where the kids apply only to reach schools in the US (think Standford) and apply safety to Canadian schools or schools in their home countries.
While most American families don’t see options outside the US as viable, many international families see the ENTIRE globe as an option - and then pick and choose based on a few criteria.
People deciding whether or not to send their children to study in the US may not be aware of the various crime waves in the US.
They ARE aware of our near weekly mass shootings thanks in part to the ubiquity of CNN internationally, and online coverage.
Those who want to check these kinds of things will quickly find out that 47 people were killed by terrorists in the UK in the past seven years, where as more than 300 were killed by mass killers in the US – just this year.
Whatever the odds are of any single international student being murdered in the US, the perception is that we have a safety problem in America. It’s very hard to argue otherwise when you compare the various murder rates here and in developed nations around the world.