<p>Given how difficult it is for international students to gain admittance into US schools, I thought I'd post links to USNWR's rankings of top undergraduate colleges/universities by percentage of international students. </p>
<p>These rankings, used in conjunction with other sources of information, might help some of you narrow your lists. Keep in mind that raw numbers don't mean everything. For example, in the Ivy League, Harvard fares better Dartmouth and Stanford, which may mean that Harvard is more open to accepting internationals --- or it may mean that more top international students apply to Harvard. </p>
<p>The lists may also help you find the elusive "safety" schools, places that you might not have heard of but which accept a healthy percentage of international students. You might want to forget about applying to UWisc/Milwaukee with its 1% of internationals and instead apply to SUNY/Buffalo with its 13% internationals.</p>
<p>It’s interesting that US News reports a 13% international student enrollment rate at SUNY Buffalo when Collegeboard says that 98% of their students are from in-state. I wonder if the discrepancy stems from a different classification of recent immigrants. </p>
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<p>I don’t think there’s a such a clear-cut link between a college’s willingness to admit international students and the number of international students actually enrolled. (Outside of the top colleges, that is. Harvard could easily enroll twice as many international students if they wanted to, while the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee probably does not get enough applications from foreign students to double their international enrollment.) </p>
<p>International enrollment seems to correlate pretty well with
(1) prestige
(2) finances
(3) location
(4) the number of recent immigrants in the state
This suggests to me that international enrollment depends much more on the interest of foreign students in a university than in a university’s admission policies. Universities with few international students might even be trying to diversify their student body and welcome foreign applicants with open arms.</p>
<p>I think that international enrollment can be an important consideration in the college search process (too many international students and the internationals probably have their own subculture; too few and there may not be enough support services in place). However, I would strongly caution against using the number to determine safety schools.</p>
<p>That’s interesting about the percentages, especially since in Singapore I believe UW-Madison is somewhat more highly regarded than SUNY Buffalo, and I know of more Singaporeans going to UWM than to SUNY Buffalo. </p>
<p>Why not the reverse view - that a school with few international students might be more willing to take in international students to increase its international student pool, especially if the reason its international student enrollment is so low in the first place is because few internationals apply there? While state schools might have their hands tied, I imagine this might hold true for some smaller or lesser-known private schools.</p>