If this is your experience, it sounds like you are baselining your opinions on less reputable U.S. universities (and there are quite a few of them around. The U.S. has over 3000 colleges.)
In most decent universities, you absolutely cannot be admitted without the right grades. In most competitive state colleges, international students actually require better (average) grades than locals for admission because they are placed in a separate, smaller pool of applicants. In-state applicants are often given priority.
It was an average state college. Not sure the "less reputable" sounds right but I guess you can put it that way. And that's mostly what the article at hand is talking about anyway.
> you absolutely cannot be admitted without the right grades.
Is the Kentucky State going to call a school in Bangladesh to verify the transcript? Wealthy people who can afford to send kids to school in US with full tuition can probably find a way to "buy" a good transcript from a local school. Maybe you meant that SAT is a requirement, then yes, it thing might have changed and it is more challenging.
Fair enough, the article does mention some very mediocre colleges. I was thinking of decent colleges like Ohio State or Iowa State.
> Is the Kentucky State going to call a school in Bangladesh to verify the transcript? Wealthy people who can afford to send kids to school in US with full tuition can probably find a way to "buy" a good transcript from a local school. Maybe you meant that SAT is a requirement, then yes, it thing might have changed and it is more challenging.
Most decent colleges admit international students based on some standardized test like the SATs, IB, A-Levels or equivalent. High school transcripts are rarely acceptable due to variability in standards.
But you are right about Kentucky State. Its website states that it accepts "Official SAT/ACT OR TOEFL scores" from international students with their high school transcripts. This is utter garbage.
http://kysu.edu/administration-governance/student-engagement...
They often do. And admission committees learn from experience: if they admit students from a school and they don't perform well, they recruit less from that school the next year. Conversely, if they have students performing well, they will continue to admit more. There is a chain of trust.
A backwater program at a good university is going to be worse than a flagship program at a backwater university
There's only a few well known schools that attract students from all over the country. Note that we're not talking about the top 5 or even top 50. The typical example is Wright State University in Ohio. I don't think anyone from NY, CA or Texas would be interested in paying more and going to that school.
> Well yeah international students also incur an additional administrative cost to manage. Having lots of them also means needing to hire more staff in international students services department.
Look, I'm not going to argue with you for the sake of argument. Like I said before you can invent reasons. This is just so far fetched... really? Admissions officers and the International Students department is colluding to increase number of international students to increase the budget of the latter? Oh please. Gimme a break.
> It seems not. Why is it crazy to think someone might want to go to school in a different state, and you're convinced only international students would do it? If people half way across the world want to fly out and study here paying double the tuition, why wouldn't people from other US states?
Because there aren't enough US students. Why is it so hard to understand that even after so many fucking incentives, low interest loans and whatnot, many US citizens just don't want to go to college? The US has a shit ton of Universities and there is more than enough room for all students, domestic and international. And like I said before, if American students did apply, I find it hard to believe that they would not get preference over international students.
> Not sure what you mean by "kernel of interest". OP was talking about undergraduate research as one of the top reasons US is losing out to other countries and so on. The point is there is minimal undergraduate research compared to graduate. Especially at the state colleges they are talking about. Kentucky State or Oklahoma State undergrads are not driving US research forward.
Now you're conflating things. The OP was talking about research in general. Graduate research programs frequently employ undergrad researchers, to give them a taste of what research is like, in hopes that they will be interested in pursuing graduate research later. That is the "kernel of interest", and US undergraduate programs are incredibly good at accomplishing that. Many of the grad students I worked with started graduate research because they did a little research undergrad and that got them hooked. Without that taste, they might have never known.
> Whose hope? Not being sarcastic here just wondering. Do you think it is the US government's hope, universities or students? Maybe a combination of those? At the end of the day it is not a permanent residence track. It's H1B visas, marriages and other tracks which lead to permanent residence. Getting an F-1 and J-1 won't. Quite the opposite J-1 visas used to explicitly require students return and spend some time in their home countries with the "hope" of sharing the experience.
Of American society. Civilizations move forward on the back of innovation and innovation is possible only with the smartest, hard-working people living, contributing ideas to your society.
> Besides passing TOEFL and showing up with a full tuition check what are the merit requirements is needed. You'd probably say high school grades, but I remember just handing them a hand written note from my high school principal which I translated myself and he signed. They didn't need SAT or ACT scores even. Maybe they do now, I didn't check.
Again, please don't use these hand-wavy anecdotal arguments. Maybe some Universities are like that. I was rejected by basically all the undergraduate programs I applied to in the US (even after showing proof of ability to pay tuition) and was accepted only later for a Graduate Program after applying to 12 places. It. Is. Not. Easy. Its really hard and these kids who do get in, they're very smart. They also happen to have parents willing to pay. Why exactly do you want to punish them for it?
Did I say that? I thought I was agreeing with you there that universities might prefer American students in general because they _don't_ have to incur the additional admin cost. But you turned it around into universities want to get international students so they can incur the extra cost and hire more people. How does logic even make sense, do they get paid more state money if they have more admin staff?
> many US citizens just don't want to go to college? The US has a shit ton of Universities and there is more than enough room for all students, domestic and international. And like I said before, if American students did apply, I find it hard to believe that they would not get preference over international students.
Ok there aren't enough students, and universities might have to scale back.
> Now you're conflating things. The OP was talking about research in general.
Right but the article is talking about undergraduate international students and OP was talking about research setback in US in general. Yeah we can talk about general interest or kernels of interest and how some undergraduate students are involved, but that's moving the goal post. If we discuss graduate research, grants, state funds, then that's a different discussion.
> possible only with the smartest, hard-working people living, contributing ideas to your society.
Still don't see how undergraduate international students coming most likely from the wealthiest families paying full tuition to go to Kentucky State or Oklahoma State necessarily equates to a major setback in our society. There is nothing about them that's necessarily more hard working or being the smartest.
> Again, please don't use these hand-wavy anecdotal arguments. Maybe some Universities are like that. I was rejected by basically all the undergraduate programs
Ok but aren't you using the same hand-wavy anecdotal arguments? What's wrong with sharing personal experience. Thanks for sharing yours, I shared mine. You don't think that's representative that's fine. I went to college around 2000s so things might have changed since then. Also there are enough schools that everyone is going to experience something different.
Why? Give me a reason why having more smart people studying at your universities, contributing to society and research is a bad idea.
> Right but the article is talking about undergraduate international students and OP was talking about research setback in US in general. Yeah we can talk about general interest or kernels of interest and how some undergraduate students are involved, but that's moving the goal post. If we discuss graduate research, grants, state funds, then that's a different discussion.
Its not moving the goal posts as much as including more relevant points in a discussion which is certainly permissible. You don't just dismiss it simply because its "another discussion". I believe I made some excellent points about how undergraduate research has an important effect on graduate research. And cutting the former significantly affects the latter.
> Still don't see how undergraduate international students coming most likely from the wealthiest families paying full tuition to go to Kentucky State or Oklahoma State necessarily equates to a major setback in our society. There is nothing about them that's necessarily more hard working or being the smartest.
Its the admission process that selects the brightest. If you don't agree that American Universities are good at selecting the best, then you're probably right. My experience has been otherwise.
> Ok but aren't you using the same hand-wavy anecdotal arguments? What's wrong with sharing personal experience. Thanks for sharing yours, I shared mine. You don't think that's representative that's fine. I went to college around 2000s so things might have changed since then. Also there are enough schools that everyone is going to experience something different.
That's true, and I agree with your statement.
Because states are different? Wouldn't you say OK, NY, CA are different states with different universities, budgets, students, cultures etc. Why is it surprising that a student from Mississippi might want to go to UC Berkeley?
> And are you saying that the State University wouldn't prefer Americans in their undergraduate programs? University administrators are Americans, and probably prefer Americans over others
Well yeah international students also incur an additional administrative cost to manage. Having lots of them also means needing to hire more staff in international students services department.
> It seems like international students are the only ones willing to pay higher out of state.
It seems not. Why is it crazy to think someone might want to go to school in a different state, and you're convinced only international students would do it? If people half way across the world want to fly out and study here paying double the tuition, why wouldn't people from other US states?
> The kernel of interest in research is laid during undergraduate study.
Not sure what you mean by "kernel of interest". OP was talking about undergraduate research as one of the top reasons US is losing out to other countries and so on. The point is there is minimal undergraduate research compared to graduate. Especially at the state colleges they are talking about. Kentucky State or Oklahoma State undergrads are not driving US research forward.
> But the hope is that the brightest and hard working will stay.
Whose hope? Not being sarcastic here just wondering. Do you think it is the US government's hope, universities or students? Maybe a combination of those? At the end of the day it is not a permanent residence track. It's H1B visas, marriages and other tracks which lead to permanent residence. Getting an F-1 and J-1 won't. Quite the opposite J-1 visas used to explicitly require students return and spend some time in their home countries with the "hope" of sharing the experience.
> You say this as if these wealthy students have no merit.
I say this because the OP implied it is pure merit. Though I think they mostly muddied the waters confusing graduate and undergraduate programs. And I didn't imply it was bad, was just wondering if that's something we want, as you said maybe we do.
> You have to have merit and wealth.
Besides passing TOEFL and showing up with a full tuition check what are the merit requirements is needed. You'd probably say high school grades, but I remember just handing them a hand written note from my high school principal which I translated myself and he signed. They didn't need SAT or ACT scores even. Maybe they do now, I didn't check.