Admissions promotes Yale abroad
Admissions promotes Yale abroad
Friday, April 8, 2011
International students considering Yale face a unique range obstacles in applying, but University admissions representatives said they are having increasing success in portraying it as a tangible option.
Admissions officer said they travel to every corner of the globe to encourage top students to think of Yale as a possibility, and to tell them about the social, intellectual and creative opportunities available. Though American universities cost much more than those in many other countries — not including financial aid — and the liberal arts model is unfamiliar to international students who have grown up in professionally-oriented systems, admissions officers said their efforts are beginning to pay off.
“Even countries that used to have the reputation for not being interested in studying abroad have really opened up recently,” said Jean Lee, co-director of international admissions. “It shifts and changes. Culturally the idea of staying home is stronger in some countries than others.”
Rebekah Westphal, co-director of international admissions, said international students get excited about applying to Yale when admissions officers spread the message that Yale is about much more than an education in the classroom.
“Yale can offer so much beyond just your academic education,” she said. “The kind of community that exists here doesn’t exist elsewhere in the world.”
Lee said international students often do not want to apply to Yale, or any college in the United States, because in their home countries, students have to begin career training at the undergraduate level in order to become a professional. Because the idea of a liberal arts education is unfamiliar, diverging from traditional paths can seem daunting to these students, she added.
Indeed, six international students interviewed said the idea of a liberal arts education seemed strange to them when they first encountered the concept.
But three did say that once they learned more about the liberal arts model, it became an attractive feature of education in the United States.
“I decided to come mostly because I didn’t know what I wanted to study,” said Carolina Cooper ’11, who attended an American high school in Brazil. She added that she did not feel ready to choose a specific professional degree to pursue during her first year of college, which she would have been expected to do if she had stayed in Brazil.
International applicants can also be deterred from choosing to apply to college in America because universities in their home countries are highly subsidized or free, admissions officers and international students said. Westphal said she and other admissions officers try to counter these concerns by emphasizing that Yale is an investment that frequently pays off in career opportunities down the road. They also spread the word of the University’s financial aid offerings — Yale is “one of only a small handful of U.S. institutions” with need-blind financial aid for international students, Westphal said in an email.
Sunnie Tölle ’12, who attended a public high school in Switzerland, said there is little incentive for Swiss students to study abroad, because Switzerland offers free upper-level education.
“People see the $200,000 for four years of schooling, and there’s no way they’re going to choose that,” she said.
But Eva Guadamillas ’14, who is from Spain, said that after she researched Yale’s financial aid policy she realized that it could be an option for her after all. Cooper added that the University’s need-blind approach for international students gives it a particular edge over some of its peer institutions, which do not share that policy.
When choosing students from its international pool, Yale also does its best to bear in mind the circumstances those applicants grew up in, Lee and Westphal said. For example, they said, international students simply may not have the time to participate in extracurricular activities the way domestic applicants do.
“If students are required to be in school ten hours a day, there just isn’t time to be debating or playing on a sports team,” Westphal said. Lee added that admissions officers travel not only to share information with prospective applicants, but also to learn about the worlds in which those applicants live.
Still, some barriers cannot be overcome. Lee and Westphal said they conduct their information sessions in English because students who plan to apply and come to Yale must speak it fluently.
Senem Cilingiroglu ’13, who went to an international school in Turkey, said that in her experience, students who attended private, international schools are far more likely to meet the necessary standard than those who went to domestic schools.
Last year, 17 percent of 25,869 applicants to Yale College were international students.
Comments
ma11 1 year, 1 month ago
The YDN has to move beyond stories that basically say internationals exist, now let's take a moment to reflect on their situation.There is absolutely nothing new in this story. The headline suggests that Yale is making a new push for recruiting internationals, but there really isn't anything about that in the story. All we have is the same old thing about barriers, liberal arts education, tuition costs etc. These may be true, but they are not news!! Good job with the map/table though.
vgperrelli54 1 year, 1 month ago
Mmmmmm. Too bad their trips don't originate out of Tweed.
Yokel 1 year, 1 month ago
Gotta keep those yield numbers low...the more applicants the merrier...lol.
sep092 1 year, 1 month ago
We have loads of international students already, and an impossibly-low admit rate for both international and domestic students. Why is Yale increasing recruitment efforts? They want the admit rate to drop to 3 percent? who does that benefit?
anon82 1 year, 1 month ago
obviously all or almost all of the best students in the world are going to apply to yale regardless of marketing. helps employ some bureaucrats though.
JEThirteen 1 year, 1 month ago
@sep092 - The question is not whether Yale can fill its class with 1300 well-qualified students, which it has always been able to do. Rather, it is whether Yale will get the best class 1300 students. Presently (I think) it does not. After all, international students account for less than 10% of all undergraduates. In an average year, roughly 15 students matriculate from China. Are you telling me that the 16th best student in China (or even the 100th, to be more generous) isn't as promising as the marginal American Yalie? If Yale were to be citizenship-blind, as it is needs-blind, I think that we would have a very different student body indeed. Of course, there are arguments for preserving the American character of the university. Still, I think that the university should look to take some more international students, and to this end they should keep recruiting.
As for who the recruiting efforts benefit, I would point to those people around the world who would otherwise miss out on coming here. Yes, it sucks for the person whose offer disappears when someone else more accomplished is encouraged to apply. But what would you prefer? A closed shop?
@anon82 - "obviously all or almost all of the best students in the world are going to apply to Yale regardless of marketing". I'm sorry, but you simply have no idea. In my country (highly developed and English-speaking), people don't even think of coming to Yale. Nobody has a clue about the financial aid available, and nobody knows how to apply. I only began to consider applying to places like Yale because one day I happened to be given a prospectus by a uniquely-enlightened teacher. It had been sitting unloved in a filing cabinet for six years and was definitely out-of-date, but it got me thinking about studying in America. I found as much information as I could on the internet, negotiated the application process myself and sat the SATs with no preparation because I didn't realise they were actually important; I thought they were more of a formality. Keep in mind that I went to one of the more prominent schools in my country. I have no idea how much harder applying to Yale would have been for someone at a more typical school.
The best students in the world will only apply if they are given encouragement to do so. In particular, they need help negotiating the application process and information about financial aid. They also need role models, either in the form of admissions officers visiting their countries and giving talks, or in the form of current Yalies reaching out to create informal networks with prospective applicants. All of this fosters a feeling that Yale is a realistic destination. I had very little of this kind of support. In fact, I felt like a complete idiot when I first talked to others about my nascent applications. Several of them actively discouraged me. Going somewhere like Yale was (figuratively as well as literally) half a world away.
attila 1 year, 1 month ago
ma11 is right. Why not some real reporting? Here's a few questions for you: Why so many econ and engineering majors among the internationals? Looks to me like they are not really buying the liberal-arts concept. Despite the English requirement, I know a few internationals whose English is pretty bad. How does that happen?
And the big one: once this deal with Singapore is in place, will Yale be taking a lot of students from there as visiting students?
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