<p>I don’t know about this, so, I would like to know how many full rides are given to students each year? I’m asking because Website always says the coin thing.
</p>
<p>I don’t think there is a cap on student visas so I’m not sure jpm50’s statement is entirely accurate but after 9/11 it was definitely more difficult to get visas (source: [Drop</a> in U.S. student visas by foreigners / Decline after 9/11 curbs called threat to education, economy and security - SFGate](<a href=“Drop in U.S. student visas by foreigners / Decline after 9/11 curbs called threat to education, economy and security”>Drop in U.S. student visas by foreigners / Decline after 9/11 curbs called threat to education, economy and security)).</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>It’s what was stated at an MIT information session a decade ago by the director of admissions. It was in response to questions on the topic. </p>
<p>Ten years is a long time, so I don’t know how much of it is still related to the reason MIT limits international admits today.</p>
<p>All US colleges limit their international admissions to around 10%. This is regardless of need for financial aid. I guess they have to, because they should give priority to US citizens or residents. Probably there are too many qualified international students who apply and if they didn’t put a cap on them, they would be limiting the chances of domestic students. I guess it’s only fair.</p>
<p>Also, there are very few colleges that are need blind to internationals. And many say very openly that if you are an international student who needs financial aid, your chances of admission are a lot lower.</p>
<p>
There’s not a limit – it’s based on the need of each individual admitted student. About 75% of students receive aid from MIT, with the amount of aid increasing as a student’s family income decreases.</p>
<p>I still don’t understand how MIT admissions claims that the government puts a quota on the number of international students but (1) no one has cited any sort of legal basis for the quota, (2) no other college seems to say they have a government enforced quota on international students, (3) no one knows whether the quota applies to just undergrads or both undergrads and grad students. Even though few if any colleges have substantially more than 10% internationals at the undergrad level some have at least 12% or 13% which is at odds with the existence of a strict government enforced quota. Similarly I don’t see why colleges have to favor domestic applicants. Perhaps they think they should and international students typically require more financial aid but it doesn’t seem like anyone is forcing them.</p>
<p>^ The difference between MIT and many other schools is that MIT is both need-based and need-blind. This means everyone at MIT will (theoretically) get however much aid they need, including international students. It also means that everyone at MIT has an equal shot (within the international or domestic pool) of getting in - you won’t get favored if you’re richer, you won’t get rejected for being poor. </p>
<p>MIT needs to make sure it can pay for the international students it wants to accept without using federal aid for them, hence the cap.</p>
<p>PiperXP may very well be right in describing why MIT limits the number of international students but I still wouldn’t call that a government enforced quota. As I mentioned in my post #10 MIT still has some options
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But it can hurt some people. Those who are rich tend to get lot of opportunity around them. And poor student might be ended up some “worse” ECAs because of family responsibility. Those thing isn’t going to show up in college application. And some internationals tend to believe tat in order to get in, they need medals. It may be true maybe not as I’m not admission expert. But what about some student living away from the opportunities? Do the chances of getting admission remain the same. I doubt it.</p>
<p>
It’s not exactly that, anyway – I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that claim made by the admissions office. </p>
<p>Higher-ups in the administration (not anyone in the admissions office) set the quota each year, in response to various sources of pressure, some of which are no doubt financial. Some of the financial pressures are likely related to MIT’s status as the recipient of a great deal of federal funding. If there are other sources of pressure, and I assume there are, I do not know what they are.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>How does this benefit the American economy? Given that there are 300 million people in the U.S. and 7 billion worldwide, if the talent pool and interest in attending an American school was proportionally distributed, that would mean that it would be expected that only 5% of the student body would be American. That would mean a lot less people trained to work in industries with the borders of the United States. </p>
<p>I don’t doubt that having some international students is beneficial. But there are reasons for the cap. </p>
<p>I don’t know all the rules of federal grants, but even if there is no explicit mention of the undergraduate population, it would not be taken well by the taxpayers if the vast majority of students were international.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is exactly what is meant by evaluating applications in context. MIT (as with most top schools is trying to evaluate what a student has managed to accomplish given the resources available to them. Indeed, they love it when they find a student who has achieved a lot given not much at all.</p>
<p>I interviewed a young woman about a decade ago, who came from a very economically depressed area. Very few of her graduating high school class were looking to go on to tertiary education, and of those, all but her were going to the local community college. Her academic accomplishments were at best ok, but certainly not as impressive as most of the admitted internationals that I meet. At the interview, she talked about working on a project with her school’s science teacher (note not Physics teacher or Biology teacher, but science teacher, the school had one). She was admitted. Although she turned us down to go to Harvard, where she had also gotten in. And she got into Princeton as well.</p>
<p>These people are deeply desired by top schools. If you look at what they have been able to accomplish given the resources available to them, then an obvious question is what might they accomplish given what MIT could offer them. That is the context.</p>
<p>If you think that living “away from the opportunities” is an admissions killer, then you are absolutely wrong.</p>