Who Gets In to Top Colleges? A Geography Lesson

How hard is it to get into a top tier college as an international student?

What follows is my answer to this question first posted on Quora.com

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You’ve asked a great question. However, it seems to assume that all international students are evaluated equally when it comes to admission to highly selective colleges and universities. For a number of reasons I will try to list (and I am sure I am missing some), schools treat students from some countries and different regions quite differently than others.

China:

The flood of students coming to the US is a recent phenomenon. From a trickle a decade ago there are now over 100,000 undergraduates from China studying in the US. The number of these students who start their college search in  China with top schools in mind is huge; they are the schools the parents and students have heard of. At this very moment on Quora I am trying to get information on the number of applications from China the number of those accepted at Harvard and Stanford. (I have not had any success in getting these numbers.) The schools themselves will not release this information. And not just to me. There is a reporter at Harvard trying to get the information but they won’t release the data to her either.  I do, however, have the number of students accepted from China last year by the most selective schools. The information may not be 100% accurate, but it’s pretty close. What follows are the number of Chinese students accepted followed by the overall acceptance rates at these schools:

Stanford 13 5.6% 
Harvard 9 5.79 
Yale 13 6.72 
Columbia 14 6.89 
Princeton 14 7.29 
MIT 5 8.2 
Chicago 25 8.89 
Brown 27 9.16 
Dartmouth 4 10.05 
Caltech 6 10.55 
Duke 26 11.58 
Vanderbilt 27 11.97 
UPenn 16 12.1 
Pomona 16 12.89 
Amherst 5 13.67 
TOTAL 220

Only 220 students from all of China have been offered places at these top tier schools. This seems at the least very odd, since a study released last year showed that China ranked number 1 in the world on the PISA test, a global test that is as good or better than any standardized test at measuring academic success. The acceptance rate for students from China to top schools is, I am almost sure, far lower than even the percentages of students offered admission overall. Jessica Su already posted on Quora about how international students at Cal Tech have a harder time of it (3% acceptance rate), but I think this is in part due to the students applying from China. I think if they were subtracted out the acceptance rate for international students from China (and Korea and Singapore too), the overall acceptance rate would be close to if not a little higher than the rate for domestic students. Top schools have said there are no quotas when it comes to China. A quota is an exact number and is different than a goal. Schools do have goals and schools do have limited spaces so it appears from the outside that it is much, much harder to get accepted to top schools from China.

Why would schools make it harder for some students from certain countries? Schools have goals for the number of international students they wish to enroll. Given the number and quality of students from China they would take up a disproportionate number of the slots. Rather than having ‘too many’ from one country, colleges and universities have simply made it harder to get in from China (they will not say this but I have been told this in private conversations with admission officers at some schools).

Korea

Korea used to be the one that had lower acceptance rates than virtually anyplace else. It has slipped because of the influx of students applying from China and it now appears that the number of students applying from Korea has peaked. Nevertheless, there are still exceptional students applying from the top high schools in Korea who cannot get in to top 15 schools.  For example, one of the best schools in the world, Korean Minjook Leadership Academy, only gets a couple of students in to most top 10 schools.

Here is one of the paradoxes about highly selective admission. Students who go to the top schools in the world not only face competition from the others from their country, but from their schoolmates as well. Colleges and Universities do not want to accept too many students from any given school be it in China or Korea or in the US. KMLA has the highest SAT average of any school in the world and I have met many students from there and they are more than high scoring machines. They do amazing things outside of class too. The quotes from these students about what they do should prove my point.  They have the full package to be a huge addition to any of the top schools but because of the policies about spreading offers (something schools are hesitant to admit to in public), only a select few will end up getting into the top 15 or so schools. Schools would never use the word quota about the number of students from a country and they would never use the word when talking about schools either. I have written about this policy about the selection of students from top high schools before.

Singapore:

Singapore is a small country with a great system for pushing up the top students into a few schools. One of them, Raffles JC, may be the best school in the world. I say this as they have hundreds of students each year who score the equivalent of 4 A’s on A levels (the British exam system). These grades makes them all eligible for Oxbridge, but those schools don’t enroll hundreds; however, they do enroll more than the top schools in the US. The school has well over 1000 students graduating each year and they are the best, along with Hwa Chong, in Singapore. In addition, the Singapore government offers scholarships to students from around Asia to attend these top secondary schools in hopes that many will stay for university and add to the brainpower and economy (other countries should follow this model). But like KMLA and other great schools, many top colleges and universities will not take more than a handful.

India: 

There is a huge surge in applications to the US from India. However, most of these are from students applying to graduate programs. However, if the trends in education hold true, then there will be many more undergraduates applying to top schools in the US in the coming years. They will find, I would predict, that there will not be many who can get in at the very top schools.

Thailand: 

The government of Thailand has a wonderful program—the Thai Scholars. In a given year the top 40-50 students (based on a national exam) get funding from the Thai government to study in the US,  all the way through the PhD. The catch is that for every year in the US they must return to Thailand and work for 2 years in a field chosen for them for every year they are in the US. The students come to the US for a year at top boarding schools, then apply to US colleges and universities. Once again top schools rarely offer to more than a handful of these students. I find this perplexing as some that I know are medal winners in international science Olympiads and most spend their summers in secondary schools preparing for these competitions. They are incredibly bright and driven but stats show that only a few get into the top 20 schools.

Virtually all the toughest places to get into selective schools from outside the US are in Asia. The vast majority of international students applying to schools come from there. The stats are dramatic and are available here: http://www.ice.gov/doclib/sevis/pdf/by-the-numbers1.pdf

http://www.iie.org/Research-and-Publications/Open-Doors/Data/International-Students/All-Places-of-Origin/2011-13

The graph above gives some idea how much China specifically and Asia as a whole dwarfs all other places in the world in terms of applications and students. The stats include graduate students, but the overall trend, even for undergraduates, reflects these percentages.

The Rest of the Story

Here is where the news gets better. If you are not from one of the places above, the demographics begin to shift in your favor. US colleges and universities want to promote their global profile and this means they try to enroll students from all around the world. Given that there are small numbers of students coming from most countries across the rest of the world, the chances of being admitted go up at highly selective schools. I do not, however, wish to convey that it is easy to get into top schools; it is simply not as hard if you have the academic profile the schools are looking for. For example, if you are a student in France who has very high marks so far in the French Bac, and, in addition, have high SATS and Toefl scores, then you are in a very small cohort of people. To put this in perspective, there are probably more students at Raffles with 2250 SATS and all A’s applying to US schools than the entire group of applicants from France (and perhaps most of the rest of Europe taken in the aggregate).

So too with most other locations around the world. It does, however, usually mean that students from outside the US who have done very well on standardized tests and within their national or intentional school typically attend elite secondary schools: Eton, Robert College, Henry IV, Nuevo Granada, Le Rosey, or The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy, for example, almost always get at least a few into top schools in the US. International students from outside Asia need to have strong stats and a compelling set of recommendations and essays, but if they do, then they stand as good or better a chance at getting in than a student from, say,  New York or New Jersey, who is a US citizen.

Diversity means many things in the US but one of the defined stats is the number of countries students come from. Schools like to report that they have students from many places, as it looks good on the profile that goes out to the public and the media. But it’s more than a cynical ploy by a long shot. There are significant benefits to having students on campus who come from many different places. Their experiences and backgrounds will add to the overall education of other students, both in and out of class. The perspectives they give can often teach a professor a thing or two as well. Global perspectives widen the scope, views and approaches to issues. I have certainly had international students change my understanding of the world.

	2005/2006	2010/11	201-.2012	2012/2013
Undergraduate	79,365	84,543	90,903	102,069

And here’s where the news gets even better. Last year the percentage of international undergraduates coming to the US increased by almost 13%. Colleges and Universities are looking to increase the numbers of students who will add a diverse point of view to their campuses. The increase at the top 10 or 15 schools, however, is negligible. They are not increasing their percentages much at all. But if a student begins to look just a little further down the list, then things change dramatically. For example, last year alone, Berkeley increased its offers of admission to international students by about 45%. Berkeley is rated as the best public university in the US and there are many other schools with great rankings and reputations that are also increasing their international numbers.

Berkeley international numbers

And this too is great news even for those whose sights are set on Ivies. Although those schools may still be out of reach, the great students not accepted there will get into wonderful schools and given their academic credentials they will likely do exceptionally well. For example, when I oversaw the selection of honors students to the university I worked for, a significant number of the international students in the group did not have my school as their first choice. They did not get into to the Ivies or other top 10 schools.  However, once they got there the loved it and also did exceptionally well academically. The data is clear: a student that does very well at a top 50 school will have better opportunities after graduation than any student who does not do particularly well at a top 10 school. Malcolm Gladwell and many others write about this and provide good data to back it up.

International students, from anywhere, should understand that the acceptance rates at top schools are so small that it is almost impossible to predict who will get in. But even if a great student does not get in they will still have many what could be ultimately better choices instead.

Another significant factor that comes into play when strong international students apply to highly selective schools: money. While colleges and universities are interested in creating a diverse class, they also have their eyes on the bottom line. Most schools, no matter the size of the endowment, expect most or almost all of their international students to be able to pay some if not all the fees (there are a tiny number of exceptions to this). Most schools in the US do not provide any financial aid for international students. Those that do give need-based aid then get deluged with star students from around the world whose only chance of attending a school depends on money. What many schools do (but will not say) is to give preference to those needy students who come from countries not often represented. A needy star from Paraguay or Sudan has a much better chance of being admitted than needy students from China. Again, this should not come as a surprise. Schools have limited dollars and they put their institutional needs ahead of those of individual students. Students who say they are applying for need-based aid will, in most instances, be held to the highest possible academic standards. There are, however, a number of very good universities and colleges that offer merit scholarships for students. Some of these cover all the fees; others cover just some, but there is money out there for very strong students.

There is one set of international schools that often sends a healthy number of students to top universities. The United World Colleges are actually a set of secondary schools around the world. Through private generosity and government support (and especially one individual, Shelby Davis), students from all over the world receive scholarships to attend these wonderful schools. The schools are more international than any I know of. The students follow the IB curriculum and many of the teachers are US citizens so the students are well prepared for success at selective schools. Mr. Davis has put a billion dollars into providing support for students to attend a range of great schools in the US. Most of the students can receive up to $10,000 a year but in the case of a select few, Princeton and Middlebury among them, he provides up to $40,000 for each student who shows need and is offered admission. These students often have compelling stories in addition to academic strengths. Every year these schools get a number of students into top schools in the US.

Diversity

I have already mentioned diversity before but there is one more factor that comes into play for students applying to schools in the US. Most schools care a great deal about trying to bring in students from different races and ethnicities. Schools who do not enroll enough of certain groups are often critiqued for not enrolling a mix of students that reflects the racial composition of the US. The two groups that get favored status in affirmative action are Blacks (I use this term because some of the students who count in statistics for African American are recent immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean) and Hispanics. Because students in these groups tend not to score as high on tests or attend any of the top magnet schools across in the US in significant numbers, schools try to supplement their racial and ethnic diversity with international students. The number of students who come from Latin America, Mexico and Africa is quite small relative to those coming from Europe, the Middle East (especially Saudi Arabia) and of course Asia. Therefore a student in one of the under-represented groups often gets a push in the admission process. This is especially true of students in these categories who do not need financial support. On the other hand, Asian Americans perform better than anyone in the US on tests; in addition, they are already disproportionately represented at top colleges and universities. Bringing in more Asians from outside the US increases the percentage of Asians overall and for some schools this may be perceived as a negative. 

In some cases, then, an international student with a certain background may be admitted to a top tier school with lower test scores and a less impressive program than a domestic student. Conversely, for those from certain countries, the acceptance rate often falls below the overall acceptance rate of virtually any other measurable cohort that I know of.