<p>Interesting that Indian parents are complaining that admission is based on one test, and some parents in US complain about holistic admissions.</p>
<p>Interesting also that the NYT continues to perpetuate the myth of scholarships, as they are most commonly thought of in the US, in the Ivy League instead of accurately reporting need based grants of $20,000 offered by Dartmouth.</p>
<p>Their loss is our gain.</p>
<p>I agree, fishymom. The NYT ought to know better, and they do students no favor by leading them to believe that one can get $$ from an Ivy or other need-based institution on “merit.”</p>
<p>Well it is true that Indian students are flocking to the US, but also true they are flocking to a wide range of other countries in the world as well, such as Canada, Australia, the UK. I think this should be obvious but I also think it’s worth stating out loud since it seems American news consumers seem only interested in world events as they relate directly to the US.</p>
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<p>That’s assuming students like her plan to stay after graduation and put roots down in our country. </p>
<p>If India’s employers and government agencies are like those in Mainland China or Japan, however, she may have a harder time gaining employment by not having attended an elite university in her home country for undergrad. </p>
<p>Recalled reading about a Japanese student who despite graduating from an elite east coast university and doing a masters at a top 5 Japanese university was pointedly told by employers they weren’t interested in hiring him because his undergrad degree wasn’t from a top 3 Japanese university. However, after enrolling himself as a 2 year transfer student at UTokyo and graduating…those same companies were suddenly falling all over themselves to hire him. </p>
<p>Also most mainland Chinese grad students at a couple of Ivies IME tended to be quite disdainful of fellow compatriots who are undergrads on the same campus. This disdain extended even to a few visiting fellows who are Profs at the top two schools in China. From their vantagepoint, these were second/third rate students who took a backdoor route to prestige mainly because their families were rich and they couldn’t hack it on the national college entrance exams. </p>
<p>Though this attitude has started to shift within the last five years, there’s still the prevailing mentality that the “proper path” is to do undergrad at an elite Chinese university like Tsinghua or Beijing U and then to go to US, Canada, Europe for grad school. This may also impact hiring choices though that is mitigated by the fact most Chinese undergrads IME aren’t planning to work in Mainland China right out from undergrad. Most plan to put roots down in the US or to wait until they gained enough work experience and preferably an elite grad degree before heading back.</p>
<p>I also found the reference to “scholarships” to be misleading. I know that’s been a contentious topic on CC before, but I do think it leads students to believe that there is merit money available at Dartmouth or other ivies.</p>
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<p>Starts to sound like one of “them” STEM threads on CC. :)</p>
<p>It depends on how you look at “scholarships” and “merit” money. One cannot get “need based financial aid” from an Ivy league school unless one gains admission. One cannot gain admission without considerable “merit.” Hence, it is not shocking that some percieve financial aid from an Ivy league school as a “scholarship” or “merit based.”</p>
<p>If a student from Jakarta gets into Dartmouth and is offered financial aid enabling her to attend, everyone in her circle of family and friends will see her good fortune as a “scholarship” to Dartmouth that she only got because she is so smart and poor. That is not innaccurate.</p>
<p>^^ It is not not accurate. And it is not only a misconception but also a misrepresentation. </p>
<p>Everyone who is admitted has the same “merit.” Presenting financial aid as a merit scholarship intimates that the accepted student did something “more” to deserve his or her admittance.</p>
<p>Dartmouth calls its FA, “Scholarships.” [Grants</a> & Scholarships](<a href=“http://www.dartmouth.edu/~finaid/award/grants/]Grants”>http://www.dartmouth.edu/~finaid/award/grants/)</p>
<p>I’m surprised the article didn’t talk about quota systems. Indian colleges have pretty strong affirmative action policies - it’s much less competitive to get into top schools if you’re from a backwards caste, at least, in terms of numbers. I bet this partly explains why the students mentioned in the article can get into the top US schools, but not the top Indian schools.</p>
<p>10-20 years it was “much” less competitive for those from backwards castes. Now, not so much. The competition is fierce! and the backwards castes have discovered this as a way out. Nice to see AA working, and actually working very well.</p>
<p>I India the system is crazy. If you dont score well on IITJEE(A very difficult and calculative test testing math physics and chemistry to its limits , in which you are not even allowed a calculator ) there is no chance of getting in. So to get in students have to give up life and study for at least two years the way feudal lords would force their laborers to work.
And if you have bad test day you are screwed for all life.
Hence a significant number of people (myself being one of them) in India like the US system.</p>
<p>Having spent some time in Indonesia, I highly doubt any poor student from Jakarta would have the wherewithal to be accepted by an elite U.S. university. They would be lucky to make it through to high school. I deal with a lot of international students in my job at a community college- none are from poor families.</p>
<p>^Agree. Occasionally, students from poor and very poor families in those countries make it to their domestic elite universities, but few of them can make it as a undergraduate to schools abroad, even less so to top tier U.S. universities. One reason is family resource, another, maybe more important, is their exposure to outside world before college. However, many of those students from poor background do come to the western countries as graduate students, after exposures to such possibilities in college. I would say the vast majority of the undergraduate students from developing countries in the U.S. are from relatively well-to-do families.</p>
<p>The misconception (or sometimes misrepresentation) of need-based FA that a student receives from top U.S. universities as merit-based scholarship is wide spread in China (would not be surprising in other countries as well). Local newspapers would often boast a student receiving “full scholarship” to attend Yale etc. The students and their families in most cases actually let the distortion stand and the flattering go on. This is actually harmful to the recruiting process for the top universities because it shields the “need blind” nature of the aid from other potentially qualified students.</p>
<p>The best way to correct this would be for the elite schools to abandon the financial aid to foreign students altogether, and replace the aid through a set of specific merit programs. </p>
<p>Nothing would preclude the schools to spend the same money --and respect the donors’ wishes-- but it might help ending the charade.</p>
<p>The article has other inaccurate pieces of information. The students start branching out after 10th and not 12th because they usually have one major exam after 10th and one after 12th. They starting heading to math, physics, chemistry or biology, physics, chemistry, or a combination of liberal art subjects, while including English and a mother tongue as languages for all. These are broken down to assist those interested engineering or medicine or the everything else bucket. The story is concentrated on Delhi and there are a large number other well known colleges that admit a large number of students all over India. This 99% cutoff mark seems to belong to just one university.</p>
<p>This great mass of applications to Brown that went up from 86 to 300 -I can’t believe they even need to open an office for that, and Brown gets 24k plus from US? I have a friend whose kid got into Brown last year and chose to go to UK because for the cost of a Brown education, the kid was going to get a masters in computer science from one of the top schools in UK.</p>
<p>If you read it carefully, the paper suggests a large number being graduate students but never specify the ratio. I am under the impression that it is more than 80% which makes the undergrad number pretty small.</p>
<p>I’d like to comment on the “Their loss is our gain” note. I agree. Indian U’s losses are our U.S. U’s gains. I know that the article is talking about top tier schools, but think about it. There are more than 2000 four-year colleges in the U.S. I would guess that at least 1/3 of them don’t currently have a student who went to “high school” in India and has come here for college. </p>
<p>My opinion: Indian students are good for U.S. colleges whether they stay here after college graduation or not. They pay tuition and, more importantly, they add new viewpoints at their undergrad colleges, showing U.S. students a different culture and a different way look at the world. It’s good four U.S. students to have fellow undergraduates from as many countries as possible.</p>