I think @FStratford is right that the number of international slots is determined by university policy, not the admissions office, and that international applicants are not really competing against domestic applicants. The 8.5% international representation at Caltech seems to confirm that – it’s the one metric at Caltech that’s completely in line with what happens at its holistic-admissions peers.
Funny how NONE of you even ATTEMPTED to touch the point I made about mental health issues. Nor did you attempt to address the issue of work-life balance. I attended MIT for grad school. I am a numbers guy. I know economics and I believe in free markets. But life is not a spreadsheet or optimization algorithm. There is a human factor here and humans can and will act irrationally. Just ask Robert Shiller. Meritocracy is attractive as it speaks to our admiration for hard work. We are all for hard work being rewarded. Well, those of us that aren’t communists. But that irrational thing sneaks in and causes people to make themselves miserable. Free will, you say? Sure, I suppose. But just like someone may choose to ruin their life and the lives of their children to feed their insatiable ego, I have the choice to shine a light on their irrational behavior and argue for the merits of a more balanced approach. Tiger parents are more the rule than the exception for international students that stay here and have children. It isn’t even close, actually. And forget about the parents of the current batch of international students. The scarcity of opportunities in their home countries have driven them to insane levels of competitiveness. I have seen the effects of that parenting approach first hand and most of the kids are miserable. Dismiss this all as stereotyping if you want but know this, the mental health crisis is real and the shift in our culture from a more European work-life balance to an Asian hyper-competitive meritocracy is the reason. America has long been between this cultural rock and hard place. It goes back to the 1970s. We long for the lifestyle of the southern Europeans but we feel compelled to compete with the Asians.
And why do people flock to the United States? Because there aren’t enough slots in their own universities and we let them come here. It is that simple. Yes, prestige and quality play a part too but many of these kids would probably choose to stay home if they could. China and Indian simply need to improve the size and quality of their universities. Globalization doesn’t mean that America is responsible to educate and defend the entire world.
maybe people just didn’t think your long racist rambling was worth responding to
better put up that wall real quick, they’re starting to seep into our universities.
@brianboiler for US students, the high sticker price doesn’t bear much relation to what many families pay. About half of the students at HYPSM are almost on a full ride for tuition if not for room and board as well. Possibly Chicago too. Net price there ends up being lower than at middle-ranked and less endowed schools and at state schools. At the very top and the best endowed schools, it’s no doubt a factor in the large number of applicants. The sticker price is a squeeze on the highest income brackets who become ineligible for aid.
Sorry, I just scanned this whole thread and didn’t see a source referenced for the OP’s 7.1% statement. Where are we getting that?
“You’d think some Booth guru would have this all worked out to the optimum price to generate all the other metrics desired.”
It’s been figured out - and it’s a heckuva lot higher than current UChicago tuition.
“Tiger parents are more the rule than the exception for international students that stay here and have children.”
Sure - but their grandkids won’t be raised the same. Most immigrant groups assimilate to the American lifestyle and that includes a scaling back of the famous immigrant work-ethic and enjoying the fruits of prosperity. Families from East Asia, East India and other similar “non-western” cultures have the same focus on work and excellence that German and Irish and E. European families had when they immigrated here in the 19th century.
The competitiveness that has characterized the college admissions process probably has more to do with the enormous financial returns to a top education than it does any supposed cultural influence from the presence of internationals.
@booklady123 - upthread the source was ultimately Nondorf’s office.
So, we have no idea yet.
NotPeeCee because your analysis was bunk. Your racist conclusion was even worse.
You are at a UChicago forum now, you need to come up with logical and intelligent arguments. Stupidity, while tolerated and allowed, is not praised.
“What your analysis does not do and where it gets its erroneous conclusion is that it does not recognize the fact that number of international admits is pretty much fixed, so even though they drive down the overall acceptance rate and the acceptance rate for internationals, they do not have an effect on the acceptance rate of domestic applicants. It is a totally separate pool. (This also works somewhat on a country by country basis… where there is an informal quota for China, India, etc)”
“I think @FStratford is right that the number of international slots is determined by university policy, not the admissions office, and that international applicants are not really competing against domestic applicants. The 8.5% international representation at Caltech seems to confirm that – it’s the one metric at Caltech that’s completely in line with what happens at its holistic-admissions peers.”
Yes, I’ve heard the same regarding what part of a university sets the policy for admission of internationals and they are separate pools. Also, the number of slots are variable in the long run (or, perhaps, the not-so-long run for those universities that “happily” oversubscribe each year) - as universities have increased the number of international applicants, they’ve also made more slots available overall (generally - ymmv depending on the school). But technically speaking, the fewer slots available for internationals, the more slots available for US residents and vice versa. So saying there’s no competition isn’t quite accurate. The university might also have a commitment to double the number of Questbridge admits - those kids aren’t competing against the majority regular-pay kids (because the latter aren’t Questbridge) but that does mean fewer slots for the regular pay in the short run.
It’s important to understand the big picture in all of this admissions stuff - what’s happening over time, what’s happening globally, etc. - before we start worrying about one group or another pushing us or our kids out of the running. Barring a violation of US discrimination laws, universities here can pretty much admit whoever they please (state flagships will have additional restrictions favoring their state residents, of course). When it comes to internationals, most universities in the US are balancing the perceived need for diversity with that of money - that’s the main competition on the teeter-totter.
Here’s some facts:
Harvard College
Students (All Years) 6,700
Domestic Students (All Years) 5,946
International (All Years) 754 11.3%
China (All Years) 63 0.9%
India (All Years) 22 0.3%
UK (All Years) 83 1.2%
Germany (All Years) 26 0.4%
Using the latest stats as proxy for all four years
Acceptance Rate (Class of 2021) 5.2%
Yield (Class of 2021) 82.80%
Implied Accepted(All Years) 8,092
Implied Applications(All Years) 155,611
Adjusted Acceptance Rate with 0 Internationals accepted 5.9%
(Conservatively assuming current yield and acceptance rate of Internationals are not differentiated from Domestic applicants and no change in Yield for Domestic Applicants.)
In this rough estimate, removing all International students only improves acceptance rate by 0.7%. While it would definitely help 189 kids per year, this solution does not eliminate the problem that domestic applicants may be emotionally and psychologically bruised by the application process. 5.9% acceptance rate is still pretty horrible to >35k+ Domestic applicants each year.
Now the opinion:
Based on the enrollment numbers above, one can say that there is already a preference for European Internationals over Asian Internationals, if you consider the number of applicants from these representative countries (or the proxies of total population or high school aged population). International intake is not making Harvard more Asian.
Now as to the implied action that college acceptance of second generation Asians - who are Americans - should also suppressed, that is also already happening - hence the lawsuit against Harvard. (And somehow supported by how CalTech and Berkeley’s student demographics are.)
So really, how much more should anyone in their right mind advocate for preferential treatment of ethnic Europeans over ethnic Asians, both domestic and international, so that we can feel like we will have a “less competitive” and “more European” college demographic?
His analysis is severely flawed, and hence his proposed cure will not work. (Not to mention the many negative externalities it will cause)
This leads me to believe that he is blaming internationals for the recent phenomenon of steep reductions in acceptance rate at all top schools, not because he is an “MIT” grad who did an unbiased analysis - but precisely because he has a bias that he wanted to confirm by ignoring the numbers. (I’m surprised how shallow a supposed MIT grad does his analysis.)
Source
https://www.harvard.edu/about-harvard/harvard-glance
http://www.hio.harvard.edu/statistics
Y’all would be interested to know (or already do) that 100 years ago, upper-class (racist anti-Semitic) WASPs were horrified by what an influx of Jews was doing to the composition and culture of their beloved Ivies. They felt strongly that Jews had certain characteristics (Google up some historical stereotypes if you are interested) and they were not fans, let’s just say. So they instituted the Jewish quota*.
*They also developed the SAT in an attempt to keep out Jews but that didn’t achieve their objective so well so then they switched to using holistic admissions so that they could discriminate, to put it baldly; then they just put in a quota on Jews (also southern European Catholics and other folks deemed undesirable).
The more things change. . . .
International students…
I re-read a story of an English woman attending Harvard back in 2000 (it was newsworthy in England), and I imagine she is typical of the very well-qualified students who are admitted - and this is confirmed by what she has since done, although just a sample of one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Spence_Affair I mention this because the quote here is notable.
‘Spence completed her studies at Harvard in 2004, and planned to return to the UK to pursue a medical career. She also encouraged more British students to study in the US, citing the “broader, more balanced curriculum” of a liberal arts education and the availability of scholarships and need-based financial aid…’
What is unique about American universities is not just the liberal arts (e.g., not having to declare a major until the end of sophomore year) but the focus on so many other things - athletics, facilities, aid, student health and support, diversity and inclusion, extracurricular opportunities - made possible by an explicit mission / focus, and by huge endowments (even lesser endowed schools have tens and hundreds of millions). By athletics, I mean how many universities in the world can boast of programs, coaches and stadiums like American universities have, the institutional pride and attachment to their teams, and the games being broadcast nationwide?
I was not an undergraduate here in the US. I got a fine education in England, but it was an academic education, with much less of the other things. My children attended school and colleges here and I see a huge contrast in our experiences. Many students may well be very satisfied with the universities in England, Germany, China, Korea, Russia, India or Taiwan - they all have excellent academic institutions - but as an undergraduate experience beyond academics, American universities offer something unique and worthwhile to the world. And we should welcome that, and welcome the 10-20% of foreign students who enroll here.
@PurpleTitan at #93 - Yep. And UChicago bucked the trend - it admitted both Jews and women from the beginning.
@bronze2 you hit on one positive externality that internationals bring to the US - there is a likelihood that we would not have “All-American” science/tech companies like Intel (Andy Groff/Grove, Berkeley undergrad) or Google (Sergei Brin, Maryland undergrad) and Facebook (Eduardo Saverin, Harvard undergrad) and webmail/Hotmail (Sabir Bhatia, Caltech undergrad) . and many tiny but up and coming messaging tech, gaming tech and finance tech companies without them.
In theory, we would still get some of these benefits by banning international undergrads and only allowing postgrads, I suppose… but to what end?
I suppose Stanford and Silicon Valley would have less impact on America, which has its pros and cons… UChicago would be higher in the college rankings, for one… but that is not reason enough for me, personally.
In many ways, I like that 10% of my classmates were internationals, it gave me that extra push to prove that Americans are better (cant help it, love the US - we’re number 1, dang it!).
I think that domestic UChicago students, even if they do not consciously do so, get better in school because of the extra competition brought on by the highly selective international admissions process.
Does anybody actually have a link/source for the stats?
@Superpulsar No it is unofficial. Just a whispered number.
Hi - I went to an admitted students reception this past weekend. The transcript of Nondorf’s remarks are included in my comment below:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/21366281/#Comment_21366281
In summary, the numbers posted by @Chrchill were confirmed by Nondorf.