International applications rise at GS

The CGS report, which examined 157 schools, including the 10 schools with the largest international graduate student enrollments, found that the growth rate for international applicants has been decreasing since the 2005-06 academic year, when the increase in applicants was at 12 percent.

The number of international graduate school applications dipped dramatically in the 2004-05 school year, and the CGS report found that American schools are unlikely to recover soon from the decrease in international graduate applications.

Dean of the Graduate School William Russell said, however, that not only is the University’s 2007-08 growth rate higher than the national average, but it is also higher than the previous academic year’s.

“Our applications from international students increased 10 percent from last year to this,” he said.

Russell noted, though, that the CGS data do raise concerns about the nation’s ability to remain dominant as higher education becomes globalized.

“More countries around the world now welcome international grad students, and many of their home countries are investing heavily in grad education, i.e. competition continues to increase,” he explained.

Eugene Brevdo GS, who has friends at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), noted that “whereas 10 years ago, most IIT students may have chosen to come to the states for a graduate education, they now find it much more lucrative” to pursue other opportunities in India.

The CGS report also noted that the annual number of academic study visas issued to international students, “a key barometer of international student activity,” fell nearly 10 percent between 2001 and 2005. The report cited more stringent visa regulations imposed after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks as a probable cause.

The CGS report broke down the trend in terms of nationality and area of study.

Applications from China and the Middle East have increased by only 12 percent this year, as compared to 19 percent last year. No growth was seen in the pool from India this year, while there was a 12 percent increase last year. These changes are significant, according to the report, because China and India usually lead the rest of the world in application numbers for graduate study in the United States.

Sahar Sharifzadeh GS said that she felt that the quality of research at the University would likely go down if fewer international students attended as “in general, a lot of internationals have more specialized undergraduate and high school backgrounds and knowledge, so they can pick up the research really quickly.”

The CGS report called statistics for science and engineering graduate schools “steeply decelerating.”

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Physics has dropped to 7 percent from 19 percent growth last year, and engineering plummeted to 1 percent growth from 11 percent. These changes are disconcerting, the CGS said, since those fields are “critical to maintaining US economic competitiveness.”

When asked how a decrease in international graduate student applicants might affect the University, Russell noted that some departments might face problems because they “depend heavily on outstanding international students. Significant declines would require them to adopt different strategies.”

A decrease in the number of international students studying physics would heavily impact the department, Xiao Xu GS said.

“I think about one-third to one-half is international students in the physics department,” Xu explained. “I can’t say for sure, but the physics department would certainly look different.”

Russell said that the University will have to keep up its international recruiting efforts to remain competitive. He noted that while most recruiting is done by department, trips abroad by President Tilghman “raise the visibility of the entire University [and] are of great benefit.”

“At a more individual level, some faculty members have strong ties abroad and recruit effectively through them,” he added.