International student applications increase due to global recruiting
‘Across the country, schools at our level, at our prestige, are seeing increases in applications, particularly from China and some of the other Southeast Asian countries,’ said Don Saleh, vice president for enrollment management.
The Office of Admissions had received more than 25,270 first-year applications as of Jan. 24, a record increase of 13 percent since the previous year, according to a Jan. 25 article in The Daily Orange.
He said China and South Korea are currently the top two countries from which SU has received an increase in applications. A growing recognition for SU’s academic programs is one of the main reasons for this increase, Saleh said.
Five years ago, there were about 100 international students in SU’s fall freshman class. This year, the number has more than doubled to about 230 students, Saleh said. Recruitment efforts have increased in the past three or four years, Saleh said. The Office of Admissions is sending representatives to more countries this year to recruit prospective students.
SU typically sends representatives to China and countries in Southeast Asia each year, Saleh said, but this year there were recruitment fairs in India, Western Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. These areas have prospective students with a strong interest in applying and potentially attending SU, he said.
Patricia Burak, director of the Lillian and Emanuel Slutzker Center for International Services, said many of the professional programs offered at SU are attractive to international students.
The College of Engineering has been a popular choice among international students in previous years, but the Martin J. Whitman School of Management and the School of Information Studies — both of which offer highly-ranked graduate programs — have also increased in popularity among international applicants, she said. Officials from the iSchool have also done research and innovative work internationally, which has affected recent undergraduate enrollment, she said.
The increase in international interest is also due in part to more families acquiring greater financial capability in recent years, Burak said.
‘We’re seeing so many first-year students from families who can now afford to send their sons and daughters to the United States,’ she said, ‘whereas in the past they weren’t able to do so.’
International students are also becoming increasingly proficient in English and are often ‘well qualified to start a college education’ in the United States, Burak said. Many are hardworking, come in with good SAT scores and see a U.S. education as a ticket to success, she said.
Burak, who described herself as ‘a supporter of international educational exchange,’ said SU has a ‘commitment to the world.’ Having international students on campus is valuable to the university, Burak said. She said there are students represented on campus from 115 different countries.
‘Each student who comes here represents their world, their country, their way of life,’ Burak said.
Chao Dou, a junior architecture major from Singapore, said she was attracted to the strength of SU’s architecture program. Many of her international friends are in Whitman or schools that offer professional programs, such as the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the iSchool.
But Dou said a school’s reputation isn’t the only thing that affects a student’s choice in an institution. It is also a growing trend in the students’ native countries to apply to schools in the United States, Dou said.
Both Saleh and Burak said international students bring diversity to the educational environment, which is important in determining the strength of a class.
‘We’re looking to enroll a very strong class each year,’ Saleh said. ‘It has become an important way for us to strengthen the student body by bringing the diversity that international students have.’
Published on February 1, 2011 at 12:00 pm
