<p>It's been said that of all internationals, Asian internationals are at a severe disadvantage...</p>
<p>Rumor or fact? </p>
<p>Any evidence to back it up?</p>
<p>--Greatly appreciated X3</p>
<p>I don't have any solid statistics but it does feel that way. Not surprising at all though, given the limited number of international students they will accept (and on top of that the limited number of asians they are willing to take) plus the strength of the asian international applicant pool.</p>
<p>For the class of 2009, 83 international students applied to Wellesley with TOEFL scores only. It is safe to assume that all of these are Chinese because China is the only country from which Wellesley accepted TOEFL only applications. I used to know exactly how many internationals apply to Wellesley overall, but let me assure you that 83 was a very significant percentage of that.</p>
<p>And 83 doesn't even account for all Chinese applicants. I am sure there were some Chinese students who went abroad to take the SAT or the ACT. Btw, I used the class of 2009 because the number of TOEFL-only applicants has gone down since. That does not mean that there are less Chinese applicants, only that more of them actually take the SAT or ACT.</p>
<p>I just realized how confusing my last post was. Let me explain what I was talking about:</p>
<p>Wellesley publishes admission statistics for its freshmen applicants. That does not include a breakdown of applicants by country of origin, but it does have data that allow us to find a lower bound for the number of Chinese applicants: a breakdown of applicants by their test scores, which includes a category for TOEFL-only applications as well. Since all TOEFL-only applications are from Chinese students (because the SAT is not offered in China; Wellesley requires the ACT or SAT from all other applicants), we know that there were at least as many Chinese applicants as there were TOEFL-only applicants.</p>
<p>My (implicit) conclusion was that there is a higher percentage of Chinese students in the applicant pool than there is in the undergraduate student body, which might mean that Chinese applicants are at a disadvantage.</p>
<p>P.S. You can find the admission statistics for the class of 2009 through the Internet Archive.</p>
<p>Risking stereotype, Chinese students (mainland Chinese, NOT Chinese-American) are insanely hardworking and do amazingly well academics-wise.
I think you are at a disadvantage because you'll be facing fierce competition, and I mean FIERCE, from your countrymen. It is a myth, yes, but I think it's not totally unfounded to believe that colleges consider applicants based on nationality. They would want an "international"-looking class.
Based on my observation/knowledge of Chinese students (i'm surrounded by hundreds of them coming from a top school in Singapore), they're very well-qualified. They might be slightly less well-versed in the English language, hence don't do that well in English (and English-centric subjects like History), but study so freakishly hard that they can score very high on the SAT. And even in English, they memorise essays and regurgitate them during exam, so they score decently. In Math and Science they're a crazy bunch. This guy I know swept four gold medals in four science olympiads. </p>
<p>So yeah, not to pressurise you or anything but if you're eyeing top schools, you're in for a bloody battle. But if your English is strong i'd imagine that you have a slight advantage.
If you're not vying for the Ivies, your competition lies in the fact that there are SO MANY Chinese applicants, many of whom not applying for financial aid.</p>
<p>Ha - 4 medals, Wang Tengyao, that guy is a god.</p>
<p>Ban co cung ten voi vo cua ung cu vien tong thong dang cong hoa khong?</p>
<p>Oh this guy i'm talking about is currently in his JC-2 year. We're talking about 2 different guys who are just as crazy. I don't know how people do it! 4 gold medals!
I'll answer your question via PM :)</p>
<p>In response to the OP's first post, i don't think ALL asian internationals are at a disadvantage.
In terms of quantity of applicants, clearly, Chinese and Indian people will face more competition than others, say people from Afghanistan or Mongolia. In fact if you're from Afghanistan i think you have a MAJOR advantage. Same goes with under-represented countries.
In terms of quality of applicants, Chinese, Indian and Singaporean people are especially well-qualified, so the competition will be harder for them. Especially the third group, their credentials can give the American applicants a run for their money.</p>
<p>Other than that, I don't think applicants from other Asian countries face an especially hard competition. Sometimes the quality, like of SAT score, expected from them might be less if they come from non-English speaking third world countries where the standard of education is, frankly speaking, not very high. Japan and S. Korea, being the two most developed countries, belong to the Western camp so i'd think the criteria for them will be different? Never thought about it though cos I don't quite consider these 2 countries Asian...</p>
<p>Oh is it Zhang Kang?</p>
<p>the main disadvantage is that in mainland there is no SAT, so some schools even asks GRE as to replace SAT with is a lot harder</p>
<p>What about students og Chinese heritage but have migrated and no longer hold chinese citizenship e.g. me! - A chinese living in Australia? Who would be I compared to? Applicants of Chinese heritage or applicants from Australia regardless of their ethnicity, or a mixture of both?</p>
<p>Applicants from Australia</p>
<p>They cannot accept all the Asians.</p>
<p>You will be compared to applicants from Australia and New Zealand.</p>
<p>So then...</p>
<p>A non-citizen kid (haha, me) residing in America who is currently holding a Canadian Permanent-Resident thing would be compared to...</p>
<p>a. Mainland Chinese (me=oh crap)
b. Americans
c. Chinese Americans
d. Canadians (wishful thinking)
e. Chinese Canadians</p>
<p>Thanks XD</p>
<p>You will be placed in the international pool (which is generally more competitive and they accept limited people [generally 8-10% for HYPSM or similar]), since you do not have US citizen or permanent resident-ship. You are schooled in Canada so you will compared to fellow Canadians.</p>
<p>
[quote]
You will be placed in the international pool (which is generally more competitive and they accept limited people [generally 8-10% for HYPSM or similar]), since you do not have US citizen or permanent resident-ship.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>MIT's international admission rate is 4% and I don't see a reason why HYP's admission rates should be much higher than that.</p>
<p>I also wanted to mention that many top colleges don't explicitly pool international applicants since financial aid is not a factor (i.e. they are need-blind to all applicants, domestic as well as international).</p>
<p>As in 8-10% of the pool of admitted/enrolling students are internationals. International admit rates are generally around 1/2 of domestic admit rates.</p>
<p>If they have a quota/limit (whether official or unofficial) on the number of international students (whether it is for the sake of diversity or simply for the fact that they don't want Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Indians flooding their university) then I'd say they are putting internationals in a separate pool for consideration.</p>
<p>Some universities may have "admission targets" for the international pool, but they don't necessarily have "targets" for individual country or region. For example, in 2004, from one university in Singapore (RJC), 94 students were admitted to Cornell, 88 to Michigan, 27 to CMU and 12 to Stanford. Colleges have no problem admitting more students from one country if the applicants all have super credentials.</p>
<p>RJC is not a "university" in Singapore. It's a junior college, which teaches junior and senior years of American high school (british system). </p>
<p>I believe there is a certain awareness to be inclusive when admitting Internationals, like they'll try to slot in some people from lesser developed countries like Vietnam and Afghanistan, for instance,, but the number of people accepted from these countries will naturally be much smaller than that from Singapore, which has, by the way, a very VERY competitive education system that produces very VERY competitive applicants.
and RJC is one of the top 2 schools in Singapore, hence the number. Risking embarrassment, from my school, which is the 4th-ranking - if the ranking still holds - from the best of my knowledge only 1 guy was admitted to Stanford, 1 to Brown. So kinda balances out. Not all Singaporean schools have hundreds of admits to Ivies.
Seriously nobody wants a freshman class with ALL Chinese or ALL Singaporean (which will be the case if they consider all internationals in the same pool).</p>
<p>My point being ... while some colleges may have ädmission "targets" for the international pool, they don't necessarily have "targets" for individual country or region.</p>
<p>Cornell and Michigan both enroll around 250 international freshman each year. Admitting 94 and 88 from RJC are way out of proportion for a country, much less from one high school. Sure colleges will always look to admit a few from under-represented countries like Vietnam or Afghanistan but for the rest, there is no "quota" ... only a "target" for the international pool.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Seriously nobody wants a freshman class with ALL Chinese or ALL Singaporean (which will be the case if they consider all internationals in the same pool).
[/quote]
So what do you think is Cornell's or Michigan's "quota" for Singapore or for the Asia region? Keep in mind that other Asian countries like China, Hong Kong and Korea send as many, if not more, students to the US each year.</p>