All good!

> Visas are back up

Yep!

Now that the US is processing Chinese visa applications again (and Zero Covid ended) people are applying again, but ime most Chinese nationals I've seen or interviewed at American programs tend to be those who are Chinese nationals but studied abroad (eg. In the UK or Canada).

I don't really see Tier 1 Chinese STEM graduates at lower tier American programs anymore compared to say 5-10 years ago.

If there was some dataset to parse, I'd love to test my hypothesis that most Chinese F-1 applications are now for Chinese who aren't graduates from Chinese STEM programs.

The tier 1 graduates don't need to go to lower tier American programs anymore. They've already leveled up beyond that. They are going to tier 1 programs abroad, or just going to work at a FAANG or a Chinese-equivalent (when I worked for Microsoft Research in Beijing, we lost a lot of tier 1 undergraduate new graduates to Google in California, and that was 10 years ago)

Fair point!

I guess my question is whether statistically speaking a MS Research Beijing caliber researcher in 2024 (or 2019) would prefer to work abroad in Bellevue or prefer to stay in China.

This is an open question and I'm not sure we'd have the granular level of data needed to test either hypothesis for at least a decade.

All I can use is anecdotal information, but that of course has biases.

2019 they preferred to stay in China. 2024, I think the pendulum swung back again given COVID zero's fall out, but who knows how long that lasts.