The Impact International Admissions on Domestic Applicants

Last week, the U.S. State Department released data indicating a significant 36% drop in F-1 visas from May to August of the previous year. This decline was much steeper than initially anticipated and highlights a challenge faced by colleges and universities that depend heavily on international students. Although the data also indicated a recovery in scheduling student visa interviews following the visa issuance freeze last June, the extent of this recovery was somewhat muted .

While families should expect some recovery in international students attending U.S. universities, with international conflicts and concerns over the stability of research dollars and opportunities at U.S. universities it is possible that international students will be less of a presence over the next few admissions cycles. The lack of international students at U.S. universities will limit the diversity that many universities desire but may also be a bit of good news for domestic applicants in the hyper competitive admissions process at selective and highly selective schools. When considering the potential impact of fewer international students, it is also important to consider that international students typically pay more for college than their domestic peers, with Karen Fischer of the Chronicle of Higher Education quoting a level “sometimes two to three times as much”. With a tuition loss far larger than the number of missing international students, colleges can either grow their student body, which will result in additional costs, or look to increase their mix of more affluent domestic applicants.

The vast majority of international students needing visas to study in the United States come from India and China with Indian students seeing some of the steepest F-1 visa declines. Because of the concentration of international students, it is worth considering that in addition to the general conditions that may impact the granting of F-1 visas the relationship between the U.S. and both countries could also play a role in the ability of colleges to recruit from them.

In the highly competitive world of selective college admissions where even the smallest advantage can matter, we thought it would be worthwhile highlighting schools that have more recently had a larger percentage of their international students coming from India. While good data on these students can be surprisingly hard to find, schools like Carnegie Mellon, New York University and Johns Hopkins stand out with large populations of Indian students. While not as significant, Harvard, Michigan, Rochester, Boston University, Northeastern, Columbia, Cal Tech and Rice may also see some headwinds due to any ongoing sluggishness in F-1 visa applications from India.

Schools with significant exposure to Indian students who also have significant exposure to Chinese nationals and run the risk of seeing greater headwinds would be schools like Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Michigan and Columbia.

It is important to understand that the impact of international students is likely to be marginal and that many things can change between now and the next admissions cycle. However , when competing for slots at selective institutions little things can matter and any advantage can be significant. We believe international demand is one of many factors that may come into play in the year ahead and are another factor that should be considered by students applying to top colleges .