|
|
The small Minnesota colleges of St Olaf (left, top centre) and Carleton (bottom centre, right), like many other US institutions of higher learning, are increasing their enrolments of international students this year and would like to welcome even more. |
While precise data on international student enrolment is not yet available, initial indications are that the worries were largely misplaced. A wide-ranging survey conducted late last month by the Washington-based Institute of International Education (IIE) indicates that applications from international students are steady or rising with a few possible exceptions from some Islamic countries. In some cases, however, visas are being issued more slowly, raising the possibility of eventual denial or delayed admission.
 Dr Allan E. Goodman, President and CEO of the International Institute of Education — photo courtesy of IIE |
"Our doors are not closed," IIE President and CEO Dr Allan E. Goodman reassured during his recent visit to Bangkok. "Student visas will be issued." As head of the organisation which invented the non-immigrant student visa in 1921, Dr Goodman can be safely considered a true authority on the subject.
"The biggest change in the wake of September 11," he says, "is that you will not be able to come to the United States first as a tourist and while there, change your status to that of a student. Now you have to come near the time you start and you have to come as a student. If you enter as a tourist, you have to go back to your country, back to the US embassy and get a student visa.
"Once you get to the United States with a student visa," Dr Goodman, says, "there are virtually no restrictions on what you can study. There are only a relatively few countries where restrictions pertain like Iran and Iraq, yet we have Iranian students and Iraqi students, students from the Sudan and other countries that are known to support terrorism."
Conflicting attitudes
Americans, say Dr Goodman, have traditionally had conflicting views on immigration. For example, there is often opposition to open immigration in areas where large immigrant communities are perceived as taking away American jobs.
At the same time, he says, "there are some industries that lobby very strongly for open immigration like those hospitals that depend on Philippine nurses. Almost no Americans now enter nursing."
Still, there is little question, says Dr Goodman, that September 11 has had a negative effect on the attitude of many Americans towards open immigration, even regarding students who enter the country temporarily.
"A Fox News public opinion poll revealed that after September 11, 65 percent of our people thought we ought to close our borders and stop immigration and issue no student visas until the war on terrorism was over. I expect that if you did it today, people would still feel about the same," he says.
Dr Goodman feels that sentiment is misguided, particularly in regard to student visas. "In fact, the academic student visa is probably the most closely tracked of all the categories of visas which are issued by the United States," he explains.
"To apply to an American college or university, you have to demonstrate who you are. You have to write essays about yourself and your feelings. You have to take tests that are internationally monitored. Your school principal has to write an essay about you, an official transcript has to be generated, letters of reference have to be made."
The system does have problems, however, Dr Goodman readily admits. "There are over 70,000 other schools in the United States: schools of beauty, schools of flight training, schools of golf, that have also been authorised to issue (the I-20 papers necessary for) academic student visas. And the Immigration and Naturalisation Service has never audited those institutions. The application process to them is much more lax and, as a result, the public perception is that every student visa is a bad student visa.
Dr Goodman expects that such schools will undergo much closer scrutiny in the future. This may well extend to the commercial English language schools, he says, and prospective students should check carefully to see if study at these schools will allow them to transfer into colleges and universities without having to return home to obtain the proper visa.
Too big and important
Practically speaking there seems to be little likelihood that international student enrolment in accredited US colleges and universities will be – or even can be – substantially reduced.
Last year there were over 500,000 international students in the United States, making higher education the country’s fifth largest export earner. More significant, perhaps, is the fact that foreign academics and graduate students form the backbone of many college and university teaching staffs in key fields such as mathematics, chemistry, and physics.
Says Dr Goodman, "most of the people who teach chemistry, physics and mathematics to American college students are Indian or Chinese, because Americans, by and large, do not get PhDs in these fields. If suddenly they were to disappear, Americans would be unable to add or mix chemicals because there’d just be no teachers."
But the benefits to opening the doors to international students goes far beyond the classroom, he says. "If you think about the future, it’s likely that in the United States, we will discover a cure for cancer or a vaccine against HIV Aids. It’s probably also likely that it will be discovered by a Chinese student or an Indian student or a Thai student in an American laboratory. And I would never want to close the door to that one student or to any student that might come with that genius and be able to discover something that would be able to benefit our society and the world."
A Minnesota perspective
Northfield is a small town of about 17,000 people located in southeastern Minnesota about 50 kilometres south of the Twin Cities of St Paul and Minneapolis. It is an unusual town in that it hosts two top-notch liberal arts colleges. Both have relatively small, but growing international student populations and, as such, they are useful places to gauge the post 9-11 environment for international students.
In general, the situation has been very positive say officials from both schools. Thus far, not a single hostile or untoward incident has been reported by the international students enrolled there.
St Olaf College occupies the high ground on Northfield’s west side overlooking the town below. Only about 50 of the school’s 3,000 students come from overseas, but, says International Student Advisor Angela Goehring, "we would love to have more."
The trend, in fact, is up, she says, despite September 11. "We had 19 entering last year and this year we have 25. The increase is in the degree students."
Interestingly, at least one of the non-degree-seeking students attending St Olaf each year comes from Chiang Mai University as part of a well-established exchange programme. The CMU students receive full one-year scholarships which include tuition, room and board and health insurance – the most generous of any offered at St Olaf. The scholarship stems from St Olaf’s almost 40-year-old relationship with CMU in which a group of 15 to 20 St Olaf students spend several months studying on the Thai campus each year.
"We also have half-tuition scholarships ($11,100 or B466,200)," says Goehring. "They are open to all of our international students and almost all of our international degrees have half-tuition scholarships.
"Funding comes from donors and the endowment. We have some specific scholarships that are named for a specific kind of student – a Slovakian student, a German student scholarship. We have many Norwegian student scholarships," Goehring says. (St Olaf was originally founded in 1874 by Norwegian immigrants.)
Goehring says that St Olaf requires entering students to have at least a 213 computer-based TOEFL or a 550 on the paper-based version. The Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) is also a requirement for degree students. "We don’t have a required minimum," she adds, "but our average for American students is about 1280.
"There are some concessions for international students – if they pass the TOEFL, if they have good or excellent grades at the high school level, good transcripts and they are taking classes that we feel prepare them well for success at the college level. The SAT math would also be weighed more heavily than the SAT verbal because we have the TOEFL for that," Goehring explains.
Understanding Transcripts
Like most of her counterparts at other US colleges and universities, Goehring has become adept at reading secondary school transcripts from secondary school systems around the world. All of the main programmes available at Thai international schools are well understood and Goehring says she would be able to cope with a transcript from Thai public schools as well.
"First we would require an English translation," she explains. "We also request on our application the student’s rank in the class, the passing grade – percentage-wise and in letter-form. That’s often included on a transcript regardless of the country. We have resources that are printed here in the United States for grade conversions for most countries of the world and we have other resources as well that help in that."
 Luyen Dinh Phan and Angela Goehring of St Olaf |
In the case of a Thai applicant, Goehring would receive considerable help from Luyen Dinh Phan, St Olaf’s Director of Admissions. Phan himself spent a term at Chiang Mai University during his undergraduate days at St Olaf. He speaks Thai well and earlier this year he gained a Thai wife.
According to Phan, St Olaf could be an attractive option for serious Thai students. One of the reasons he cites might easily be overlooked by prospective students and their parents.
"We do a really good job in graduating students," he says. "About 80 percent of the students will graduate in four years. If you compare that to large state schools around the US, the big schools would be lucky to graduate, on average, probably about 20 percent of the students (within that time frame)."
Phan mentions the small class size (22) and an excellent support system as two of the reasons. Tutors are available for difficult subjects like math and English writing. "Students don’t pay anything more, he says. It’s part of their fees."
Phan also guarantees that Thai students will develop their English. They have no choice. "We have this introductory (ESL) course, introduction to college writing. Apart from that, they’re just like any other student."
Obligation to the world
 Carleton’s Charles Cogan |
Unlike St Olaf, 1900-student Carleton College, located in the river valley adjacent to Northfield’s small business section, actively recruits international students. As such, its proportion of international students is somewhat higher, and it too is growing.
According to Charles Cogan, Director of International Recruitment, "36 of this year’s freshmen out of a class of about 500 will be international students. Last year it was more like 22, the year before it was about 18 and the year before that it was about 11.
"It’s an intentional trend," he adds. "Carleton and St Olaf students study abroad at an incredible rate. We’re among the nation’s leaders. The only way we can do that is that the world has to provide hospitality for our students.
"So I think we’ve felt there’s an obligation that if the world is taking care of our kids when we send them out, we should also be willing to do the same for students from other parts of the world.
"We’ve been lucky in the last seven or eight years," Cogan says, "that we’ve gotten a very wonderful scholarship programme. For example, the Starr Foundation gave us a $5 million grant several years ago to begin bringing in somewhere between 10 and 15 really good Asian students a year."
 Carleton freshman Adipong Brickshawana |
Interestingly, one of the 11 Starr scholars attending Carleton this year is former Ruamrudee International student, Adipong Brickshawana, the very same Adipong the Learning Post interviewed for a feature published last March.
As you may recall, at that time Adipong was finishing up a very rigorous IB diploma programme at RIS. He must have done extremely well because his scholarship is nothing less than remarkable. It includes the college’s comprehensive fees, books, personal expenses and even air fare – a package Cogan estimates to be worth about $37,000 (B1,554,000) annually!
As one of the top liberal arts colleges in the United States, Carleton is quite selective with relatively stiff entrance requirements.
"We like students to have at least a 250 on the computerised TOEFL or a 600," Cogan says. "We look at a lot of things, not only TOEFL score. Over the years, we’ve considered students who are very close to 600 but haven’t quite made it yet, but who had really strong promise – maybe from an IB curriculum or something (comparable).
"Our average (range) for the SAT is about 1280 to 1480. If the English score is weak, but the TOEFL is very solid, we might think that was a competitive candidate."
The heavy reliance of US colleges and universities on the TOEFL is often a source of dissatisfaction among prospective students here in Thailand, but Cogan says that – in Carleton’s case at least – the reasoning is sound.
"We’d like to see a good strong TOEFL not only because this is a good college," he explains, "but it’s also a liberal arts college which means that if you’re a chemistry major or a physics major or a geology major, you’re still going to do a lot of English and history and social sciences. We want students to be prepared. It’s not so much screening students out as it is trying to make sure students have a productive four years."
Final Note
Neither St Olaf and Carleton are on the list of US institutions offering the most scholarships and there are bound to be many other similar schools with hidden opportunities available. Careful research is the key.
terryfrd@ksc15.th.com |