International vs. domestic student

[Guest jeni]

Some universities are state/public schools, like UCLA, UCBerkley, UTAustin, and they have higher tuition for foreigners. When I was applying into one of those, I was unofficially told by a profthere that they rarely accept international students with funding, more or less happens only when they are quite exceptional. Needless to say I got accepted with no funding there. I am not "quite exceptional", but I would deem myself good enough (original research done and now submitted in quality journals), so I was a bit surprised.

Can we agree that not every one of us is clearly "quite exceptional" by the end of the undergrad?! So what does one have to do to get accepted from these public universities. It looks like they hold international applicants to a completely different standard. So how right is it for these public schools to allow foreigners to apply, often charge them higher application fees, but then not give them the same chance in admissions? It is like a skewed lottery. Thankfully the private universities seem to care more about the quality of the students, rather than their citizenship.

What do you think of this double standard in admissions? Any international student here feeling the same? What do the domestic students think of all this?

[Guest Guest]

I wonder if that's the case with all state universities. The main issue is probably out-of-state tuition, which can be double that of in-state tuition. I know that my funding letters from UCLA and Berkeley said that they expected me to become a California resident by the beginning of my second year, and as far as I know, you can't become a resident of a state if you are not a US citizen or resident alien. In other states, you can't become a state resident if you are living there to go to school, so I don't see how accepting an international student would be different than accepting an out-of-state student. However, both of my parents came to the United States for grad school, and a state university had no problem giving them full funding and a tuition waiver (this was 15 years ago, though, so things may have changed).

I do think it's ridiculous, especially if they are charging higher application fees to foreignors. I suspect that many students who come to the US for grad school end up staying here and contributing to the general good, so giving them funding isn't throwing money away. If they do have that policy, they should state it outright, before anyone submits an application fee.

I also think that charging different tuition amounts for in-state and out-of-state grad students is pretty ridiculous. It doesn't actually cost a California university more to educate me because I'm from a different state, and with a tuition waiver, I don't think any real money ever changes hands. Forcing me to declare California residency wouldn't make it any more likely for me to remain in California after I was done--since the academic job market is a national one--and I'd have to pay California state taxes on my stipend money anyway.

[Guest jeni]

I think the same. Students would have to pay taxes on their stipends, and it is not like they pay tuition directly - money doesn't really change hands, as far as I know. Professors get grants from the NSF, and they can pay students alike for research. Teaching assistantships pay the same, since the rate is the same. Fellowships, yes, they can differ, but then most places fund few people through them; the bulk is done through TAships.

It could be that the state universities are required to have most of the student population be from the state, since they are state funded. But the argument becomes strange when one considers the graduate programs. They cannot claim to be selecing based on quality when considering other criteria as well.

I was also under the impression that the US universitites did so well in research in the past 50 or so years precisely because they started allowing foreign researchers - professors and students - to come to the US to work. I thought this was what gave the US the leading place in research, but I might be wrong. Let's face it, these people end up staying if given equal job opportunities. If they go back, it is ok too. International cooperation is not a bad thing and adds to the reputation of the university abroad.

[Samuel Curtis]

Actually not only State school discouraged international students, at least as biological science is concerned. Cal, UCLA and UCSF has stated that they don't admit many internationals (The UCLA one in subtle; they mention they receive 5-6 per 300 applicants.) But private colleges like Penn also do this sometimes. There's a limit on international on the program in Duke I'm applying, too, but since some professor said I am "in the right track," I go on anyway.

[johnnieoz]

Just got rejected from all four UC schools (Sociology PhD) and I'm an international student. One school's secretary told me that this was not a factor, implying that I was not admitted for academic reasons etc. Only when someone is admitted do they look at what funding they may have, how much they would cost etc. I am quite skeptical about this reply, but have no proof that I am right. Again, this is perhaps only true in Cali.

[dudgeonmaster]

I have just experienced this first hand too. I am an applicant from the UK and I just received this e-mail from UC Berkeley, and I am stunned that the website gave no hint that this might be the case for international students:

You will soon be receiving (or may already have received) a form email bearing my name, but I did want to write to you directly to say how sorry I am that we were not able to admit you to our program in Classics. As we are painfully reminded every year, the number of qualified applicants always far exceeds the number of offers of admission we can afford to make. In your case, there was an external factor that weighed heavily against your application from the outset. Because UC Berkeley is a public, state-funded institution, we operate with a restricted budget and a peculiar fee-structure. International students are much, much more expensive for us to support than students with US citizenship, because they can never establish "California residency" (thus qualifying for radically reduced fees). We can't afford to have more than a very small number of such students in our program at any given time. As a result, we often find ourselves in the position of rejecting applicants that we would otherwise be eagerly competing to recruit.

With all best wishes,

XXXXXXXX

Associate Professor, Graduate Advisor & Chair of Graduate Admissions

[johnnieoz]

Thanks Dugeonmaster! This was kind of what I suspected...wish/hope they will be this upfront with me too. The UCLA people pretended that this was not a factor at all...

[johnnieoz]

Dudgeonmaster. This is from the e-mail I got from UCLA. I specifically asked what my international student status meant:

"Our committee members generally do not know about the applicants' ability to pay for their graduate studies from personal or other sources. They do not consider financial ability as one of the criteria for admission but will take it into account when they consider the admitted students for financial support packages. In the very few cases where this information has been available (e.g., a Fulbright or Conacyt-sponsored applicant) an applicant's independent means to support graduate student does not necessarily tip the scale in favor of admission though it could if they have to select one more applicant from a small pool of equally strong and interesting candidates. As you may know, we usually have a large pool of excellent and qualified applicants for a limited number of spots. Many of the applicants we reject are qualified for graduate studies and may even have the financial resources to pursue graduate studies. Our committee members evaluate applications in a holistic way and assess the relative likelihood of success in, and fit with our program. Their decisions are based on a comparison of the applicants they review. This year our applicant pool was larger than last year and we admitted less students than last year, making admission somewhat more competitive than in the past."

Not sure what to make of it. Maybe I was never seriously considered, but if I had, this person seems to be saying that it would not have been a factor. That seems at odds with what your prof wrote.

[dudgeonmaster]

That's interesting. I wonder if the e-mail sent to me says anything about the quality of my application, though I know with these things its impossible to tell- it is my first response from a college, and it would be nice to take something positive out of it!

[johnnieoz]

California is not Oregon is not...

I mean, in e.g. California non resident domestic students can become in-state after being there for a year. The same is not necessarily true for other states, e.g. Ohio (I think it was). There both non resident domestic students and international students cost the same, though funding ops are naturally different for the two categories.

However, some state schools systems offer "waivers" to non in-state students, both domestic and international. This then makes them in-state students if not official residents of the state in question. The UC system does NOT do this for international students UNLESS they are certain kinds of visa, e.g. H1B and NOT the regular J1 or F1 student visas.

The only thing UC has going for it is that all students regardless of origin can get up to 100% tuition reduction once they begin writing their dissertation. Unfortunately you need a lot of cashola before then...it usually takes 3 years to reach that stage. And that seems to be too much funding for them to contemplate.

Anyway, the short of this is that Cali is one of the, if not the, hardest state school systems for int'l students to get their foot into. That's life.

[dudgeonmaster]

Just thought I would update this thread after a recent e-mail I received from the head of the adcom at UCLA regarding my query about the Classics program (I am a UK citizen):

However, the really bad news is that we cannot fully fund non-US citizens past the first year, because they can't establish California residency; the department cannot afford to pay non-resident tuition for students past the first year. (Let me know if you want a more detailed explanation of this boring and depressing issue.)

not good!!!

[mraig]

Just thought I would update this thread after a recent e-mail I received from the head of the adcom at UCLA regarding my query about the Classics program (I am a UK citizen):

However, the really bad news is that we cannot fully fund non-US citizens past the first year, because they can't establish California residency; the department cannot afford to pay non-resident tuition for students past the first year. (Let me know if you want a more detailed explanation of this boring and depressing issue.)

not good!!!

Wow, it really sucks that what is, for most California out-of-state students, a *benefit* (that they can become citizens and the school can charge them less) becomes a disadvantage if you're international. Since a good portion of the UCLA Classics faculty is actually from the UK, they certainly appreciate the value that broadening the base to include international students would bring. I was in the very program that you're talking about (UCLA Classics) and I remember having to fill out this silly form where you have to pretend that you're going to stay in California for the rest of your life, and it's only a coincidence that you happen to have arrived there at the moment you began graduate school.

Oh, and, just out of curiosity: I think I recognize the writing style of that email you quoted. It wouldn't happen to be from a professor whose initials are AR would it?

[ridgey]

I read this thread a few months ago, and it is the reason I'm not aplying to UC Berkeley, despite it having a programme that supports my somewhat odd combination of interests.

It seems to me that it may, in the long run, be detrimental to the school to not be able to take many internationals. They are missing out on scholars who can contribute to their prestige. Sure, they're taking the top, I dunno, 0.5% of int. applicants, and there's definitely value in that. But if another school takes applicants who are the next, say, 4.5%, then it is likely that second school is going to get more value - a comparatively large group of very, very, very good people versus only one excepetional person. Also, if each department ranks its applicannts and takes the first however many on the list, but skips over international students, then that department is deliberately choosing an incoming group less strong than possible.

I'm sure the university must have done some models and confirmed that the loss of very good students to other schools is less than what it would cost to enroll them. Still, public university systems in other states manage to enroll international students.

[fuzzylogician]

I recently had an interview with the DGS of my prospective dept at UCSC, who told me that they can only afford to admit *one foreign student* with funding, and basically wanted to know - if they accept me, would I attend. Apparently they are not able to offer admission to someone else if the person originally offered admission declines, and they would rather not have an all-American cohort, despite the costs.

[Astaroth]

I'm surprised to read about the UC thing. Is this problem of international students being unable to obtain in-state status peculiar to California? I'm pretty certain that in my correspondence with schools in other states I was told that international students can usually obtain in-state status after a year (and are actually urged to do so). I've also spoken to people who have actually studied in america as international students and obtained in-state status after an amount of time, although none from California. My dad studied in California but he was funded by Fulbright so I think he wouldn't have had to do that.

[georgica1]

While it's definitely unfortunate that the website/application for certain state universities don't explicitly detail their policies for admitting foreign students, it seems to me that these restrictions come from the state/federal governments, not the universities themselves (i.e., when it comes to residency issues in California.) I'm sure that the universities would love to be able to accept and fund more foreign students, but they're also funded by the government and as such have to follow more regulations than private universities. I don't necessarily see anything "unfair" about it, so long as the universities are up-front about an international applicant having reduced chances of acceptance. Since public universities are funded by taxes, residents have, in effect, already "paid" part of their tuition by paying taxes in the state. Non-residents haven't. Also, this isn't exclusive to the US -- one UK university that I considered applying to basically told me outright that, because the department gets the bulk of its postgrad funding from the government, I had almost no chance of getting any kind of funding from the university and, on top of that, would have to pay international tuition (significantly higher than UK resident tuition.)

[sosh]

The answer is simple. Public universities' primary mission is to serve qualified students in their state. They all receive a large amount of funding directly and indirectly from taxpayers.

Thus, you as an international student are much more likely to be paying full tuition because you lie outside the institution's target group. Private universities don't care who you are (in most cases) because their mission usually is not region specific and their tuition and fees typically are much higher.

It's the same reason why I'd be paying more money compared to the locals if I went to school in the UK or Japan.

[ridgey]

The answer is simple. Public universities' primary mission is to serve qualified students in their state. They all receive a large amount of funding directly and indirectly from taxpayers.

Thus, you as an international student are much more likely to be paying full tuition because you lie outside the institution's target group. Private universities don't care who you are (in most cases) because their mission usually is not region specific and their tuition and fees typically are much higher.

It's the same reason why I'd be paying more money compared to the locals if I went to school in the UK or Japan.

Sure. Though it seems California admits far fewer international students than the public universities in other states.

I guess this is the downside of linking admission and funding. On the one hand, at all the schools I applied to, if I'm admitted, I'll be able to go. On the other, sometimes I'll feel like a rejected loser when really it's about money.

I'd also suggest that at the grad level the uni isn't exactly serving students in the way it is in undergrad. The uni gets direct benefit from cheap labour in the form of TAs and RAs. The added prestige of having scholarship affiliated with them is difficult to gauge.

[duncandam]

I'm an international student and I'm going to private college in Indiana for undergraduate. I already got accepted to three state schools Illinois, Indiana and Penn State, so I don't really think the international status is an issue with me. I think it depends mainly on the program that you are applying to, and your quality of being a graduate student which they mainly evaluate based on your application.

[domanda]

A cal professor told me they do not usually fund international student. This is in the humanities and uc irvine's film studies program says on their website that they don't fund international student. So I'm taking it as truth. But it doesn't play off so much in other states. In New York state schools I don't think it matters for funding, even though internationals can't claim in-state either. I don't know anywhere that foreigners can claim in-state. Anybody?

[nemo]

Oh god reading this board has made me FREAK OUT. a whopping 50% of my applications are to UC schools - and I'm from the UK. how could this not have been made crystal clear from the outset?! ah well, nothing to be done about it now. i will just attempt to erase this information from my mind.

[Strangefox]

Oh god reading this board has made me FREAK OUT. a whopping 50% of my applications are to UC schools - and I'm from the UK. how could this not have been made crystal clear from the outset?! ah well, nothing to be done about it now. i will just attempt to erase this information from my mind.

So have you been accepted to any of those California schools? I am an international studend as well, planning to apply to USC

[glyvin]

So have you been accepted to any of those California schools? I am an international studend as well, planning to apply to USC

USC is a private school and would have their own policy on international students. Based on what their website says it would seem that they value having a lot of international students although I could be completely wrong.

[fadeindreams]

I currently work in the International Admissions office at a major public. Trust me, this is NOT the case for all publics. Maybe UC's, sure. They have had budget problems for the better part of a decade. The recession simply made their problems more visible.

You should always feel free to call the international admissions office at any institution you are applying to. Often the admissions offices are active as advocates for the international students that apply. You can get some good information from them about funding outcomes for their international students.

[doberman]

its so ironic. public charge international undergraduate students at least 3 times more than local residents. they should treat international graduate students much nicer... ... at least i think