I am hoping International students can help educate me and others about why some students choose to attend US schools over those in their own country. Students from US high schools sometimes also choose to attend universities in other countries but it is fairly rare, with the exception of Canadian universities. I am sure that the reasons differ by student and I would guess that the decisions may also differ by country. Perhaps some countries don’t have very strong schools or they are strong but very competitive. I think it would be very informative to hear from international students about why they are choosing to attend a school outside their own country and also how they decided on the US as opposed to attending school in another country. I imagine some students apply to schools in different countries and then see which they get into.
If you are an International student, it would be great if you’d tell us a bit about why you are interested in a school in the US and how it differs from schools in your country. Is it common for students to leave your country for school? What are the universities like in your country? Do most students attend universities? Also, are your parents in favor of your seeking an education outside your country? Did they attend college? If so, was it in your country or the US? Have other relatives attended US schools? Thanks for sharing, if you do!!
Based on some of the responses on this forum, I believe a lot of it may be tied to future career prospects in the US. Not making judgments, just my observation.
First some background on myself. I was an international student at a US college 30 years ago. My son just started freshman year as an international student at a US college this fall. I guess I could shed some perspective on this question.
The answer like for many questions is not a simple one. There are a multiplicity of reasons which vary for different individuals. In my case and in the case of my son, I strongly believe that living (not just visiting or touring) abroad is one of the best experiences a person can have. To be totally immersed in a different (I don’t like to use foreign) culture is an experience like no other. College is one ideal opportunity to do this. I am strongly encouraging my son to take advantage of the year abroad opportunity his college offers. Even if my country had the best University in the world, I would still want my son to study abroad.
Why the US specifically ? I am also a strong advocate of the US system of a liberal education. There are few other countries which offer this opportunity for a broad education. I tell my son, “I am almost 50, I still don’t know what I am interested in. Why should I expect you at 18 to decide what you want to do for the rest of your life”. In most other tertiary education systems you only takes courses in your chosen major. Changing majors would be next to impossible. To me, a formal education is not about any specific knowledge one can acquire but about acquiring the ability to learn whatever you need to or want to once you leave school. The best system for that, in my opinion is the US liberal arts education.
Great answer by @Monsterkitty --it is important to recognize that most countries’ universities require early and permanent specialization, unlike the liberal education model in the US.
Thanks @Monsterkitty. Did you study abroad for a year or complete your entire undergraduate training in the US? Many students from the US do a semester abroad but it is often far short of genuinely experiencing a different culture. For a certain type of student it is today’s equal to what “coming out parties” were for girls of a certain demographic in the '50s. . They do it junior year, and aim for schools and settings as similar to their home school as possible. then, to make certain they don’t have to really experience anything new, they often choose the same school they know their friends are also choosing and they travel together-so for them, the experience is sort of like pseudo-immersing yourself in a new culture or, put another way, they are dabbling (which can be a pattern in general for some students in terms of their involvement in intellectual pursuits). That seems quite different from what I see from international students studying in the US, many of whom choose schools in communities that are very different from their home communities.
I’d love to hear from others who are hoping to study in the US or who are already doing so!
I would echo what @Monsterkitty said about the liberal arts education model. I, personally, start at University of Michigan this January. Money is not much of a barrier for me, so studying at a reputed US institution fills the bill both in terms of education(excellence) and reputation.
The US “holistic admission” process also appealed to me. Admission to a reputed Indian Engineering institution is based on a single exam based on an arbitrary syllabus. And after admission, what you want to study is decided on how well you scored on that exam. This seems positively draconian to me.
Anyways one of the main reasons my parents want me to study abroad is because my family runs textile export business, and they want me to have contacts, and familiarity with how things are done abroad.
@lostaccount Not for me. The school I was in wasn’t big on study abroad. It was more of an internship focused school. Anyway, I wouldn’t have been able to afford it. I absolutely agree that the community should not be the same. I think I was the first from my country in my school. A few came later. Am glad there are only 2 other students from my country in my son’s school. No chance for him to hang out with only students who are like him, not that he would anyway.
@marvin100 I absolutely would not agree to him doing study abroad back home. A third country.
@Dawnseeker11 In my country also, tertiary acceptance is based on a single examination result. And I think you are pretty much assigned a major based on that result. Many countries do that. Britain, Australia, probably most of the British commonwealth countries, China, Korea and you mention India. I know that many on the CC community would disagree but I feel that the US holistic admission system is also the most equitable I have seen.
Another first time poster - I thought your question was so interesting, I wanted to respond.
I am a parent, living in Europe.
I am a sometime lurker who signed up in the first place wanting to find out more about the current higher education system in the US for myself (sheer intellectual curiosity on my part) but also because I am always checking out educational options for my three kids, the oldest of which is only nine (I like obsessing) and who have various special educational needs, none of which are being met very well at the moment.
I spent most of my undergraduate years at a continental European university, I a country with a strong public secondary and tertiary education system. State schools are academically solid, but under resourced, big and impersonal, with professors often so jaded you basically had to turn cartwheels try to get their attention, and even then, chances were they didn’t care one way or the other. I had friends, but felt disaffected, bored and both academically overwhelmed and intellectually stunted.
I then spent a year at Oxbridge, swimming with the sharks, and realized that the problem wasn’t that I wasn’t suited to higher education, but that the kind of university I’d been at wasn’t suited to me - wrong type of fish for the pond. Most kids from my country thought the UK system, with all the handholding, spoon feeding and amenities, was a mix between kindergarten and paradise (academically, they felt, like me often for the first time, that the challenge was just right). The American students, while academically fine, as well, felt unappreciated and lost. So I went to see what American colleges were like (just as a visitor, life happened and I never did apply for graduate school in the US as I’d planned) and the luxuries of both amenities and academics blew me away.
For top students, no country in the world can offer what top colleges in the US can offer. That is the answer specific to higher education.
There are other reasons beyond the social and academic ones which have to do with the enormous cultural, political and economic influence of the US. At a certain level of professional responsibility, you have to have not just a solid command of the English language, but some deeper understanding of the US as a country. Something you may gain as a high school student, an au pair, an intern, an expat, an undergraduate or a grad student. I did au pair an internship, but I think grad student might be ideal. I hope my kids will have the chance.
Some people feel that what I wrote just now about the US is as true, or even more so, about China. I don’t buy it and even if it were true, I’d still prefer aligning myself with a true democracy as a political and cultural hegemon.
@Tigerle What you say is even more applicable to students that are not top students in the US. The quality here is far superior compated to schools found outside the US. Schools for A- to B students are equally good when it comes to resources. Also, even at schools that cater to students with lower stats there can be a large population of top students. This does not happen outside the USA.
Yes, of course this happens outside the US - if there are no domestic alternatives to the large state schools, the top students have to go somewhere after all. Very few are willing to or able to afford to spend all of their undergrad years abroad. In some subjects, in some universities (particularly STEM programs, due to attrition, and more so in popular locations) they may even form a critical mass. Only they are not catered to, as no students tend to be precisely “catered to”, in this kind of large state uni.
The student experience, of course, is not comparable, in any case - you get what you pay for, on both do sides of the Atlantic. However, at some point below what would be the top twenty or fifty colleges in the US (depending on the field) the educational outcome may turn out to be comparable - but at a fraction of the cost.
Unless I felt my children needed the academic experience a top school offers, I would not be prepared to send them abroad, or at least look no further than the UK.
@Tigerle Sorry to disagree but having seen a few non-top universities in Europe and having discussed this at length with colleagues, the universities in Europe for students outside the top tier are completely dismal compared to what is available in the US for such students. That was my point. One example here would be University of Alabama. There would be nothing in Europe for a B/B+ student with facilities, sports, academic programs and overall college experience on that level.
Your answers are so interesting. Tigerle, I chuckled when I read "Most kids from my country thought the UK system, with all the handholding, spoon feeding and amenities, was a mix between kindergarten and paradise (academically, they felt, like me often for the first time, that the challenge was just right)"I’ve never heard that about UK. If UK is a mix between K and paradise, then many of the the less competitive state schools in the US (not the flagships but those in states with tons of directional. regional mediocre universities and colleges) are between preschool and camp!
Now I’m chuckling at “preschool and camp” - because to an outsider like me, that’s exactly what second and third tier universities in the US appear like.
Not sure what I’d call a first tier college. Maybe “paradise and boot camp”?
@lostaccount I guess I’ll speak for the Africans on here.
First there’s definitely a big difference between US education and African Education. Selection for university in Africa is based solely on National Exams, nothing else. No one cares, how amazing of an athlete, actor or singer you are. No essays or recs .The whole process is number’s driven. With so much emphasis, placed on this exams, one would think, that such exams are free from cheating. However, this is not so, there are many cases of students FAILING all high school classes, but miraculously passing their national exams.
Secondly, high school curriculums in most African countries are challenging and misguided. While our American counterparts get to choose their courses by fit. Ours are forced on us. In the US, calculus or “complex”/AP sciences are left to strong students, who feel they are upto the task. Here everyone must take Advanced Math and learn Physics, Biology & Chemistry. A typical student takes 8-9 classes in Kenya,per year; English.Math.Swahili,Physics,Chemistry,Biology,Geography/History/Religious Education, An Elective(Electricity,Computers,French,German).
My parents went to college. My dad was offered a scholarship to Yale in the eighties(all he had to do was raise airfare), but pressure to study here, made him stay. My mom did her post grad in Belgium’s Ghent. And my dad did his grad school in Monash Uni.
Am mostly interested in a US education; because of the liberal arts education. At Kenyan universities, forget learning anything new, other than your intended major, The facilities are also just plain awful here. This is probably why Kenya’s top university is ranked 1008 in World Rankings. Also arts courses and non medicine/engineering majors lead to little or no renumeration. Majors in education,psychology,music, geology, veterinary medicine, etc are reserved for ‘low’ performing students that are usually ridiculed for picking these majors.
How are universities here? Packed. The ‘smaller’ classes boost 50+ students. Clubs? 3-4…pretty much.
It is more common for masters students to leave the country.
Why not other countries? Top universities in the UK, Germany, Belgium,etc. Offer no aid to international undergrads.
Only 30% of graduating seniors get spots in universities(based on national exams).
In conclusion, big multinational company jobs(govt. jobs as well) are reserved for students that study abroad, hence the pull factor-e.g;
Google Subsaharan African Boss- Joe Mucheru(Stanford undergrad alum)
Kenyan President- Uhuru Kenyatta(Amherst alum)
Kenyan Opposition leader- (London School of economics)
Facebook Eastern Africa CEO- Nahhid Hirji(UWaterloo)
CEO Bidco- Vimal Shah(Billionaire-American Int. Uni)
Samsung Kenya CEO-Robert Neru(USunderland alum),etc.
@TurnerT, I am frankly not sure whether we are talking about the same thing? Europe not having a homogenous university system after all?
In most continental higher education systems (the UK is very much different, and other countries, such as France have exceptional schools for a tiny number of students) there IS no such thing as a university that caters to a certain type of student. There are simply large state schools with open enrolment for anyone who has graduated from a public or publicly recognized college prep program (which may comprise anything from 20 to 70% of the age cohort) and a very large number will simply enrol at the school that is closest, because they can commute, like to stay close to family and friends, or enjoy preferential enrolment for impacted majors. Exceptions aren’t by school, but by (impacted) major such as premed/med programs where student numbers are capped, but it still means that you go wherever you manage to gain a place. There is very little conscious selection, whether on the part of the student nor on the part of the school.
The state schools close to us which may be considered our state flagship and our state tech school are internationally ranked, in some subjects among the top thirty research universities of the world. No idea what exactly these rankings are based on, but the student body, while probably somewhat more nationally skewed than our local school, will not be appreciably different in academic preparation or GPA, nor will their academic and social experience differ much; in fact the students at the smaller regional schools tend to be much happier, as these schools are less impersonal and both academic and administrative staff tend to put more effort into improving the experience, and their retention and graduation rates tend to be much higher, regardless of student level of preparation or financial situation.
What do you consider a “top” and “not top” school, and in which country, in continental Europe?
I personally think comparing the European system to the American system is like comparing apples to oranges. They are altogether different in their philosophies and ideas about the “college experience.”
Also, don’t forget that many US citizens are born abroad and spend their whole life up until 18 abroad. As they have US parents, they are still exposed to US culture through their parents, visiting US relatives, etc.
Also, many kids are “Tri-coastal” (i.e., Spanish mom and Australian dad but growing up in London). As many of these kids are truly international, many will attend Uni in the UK but others will go to the US, etc. and the US universities are a likely destination as these schools are becoming more international.