International Students in Social Sciences and Humanities

[johnnieoz]

This seems to apply especially to those of us interested in the UC schools.

Dugeonmaster's post at http://thegradcafe.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=590

tells the tale.

"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"

--------

Not sure if this was held against me from the outset - maybe I wasn't qualified in other ways - but it seems to imply that this is a MAJOR problem. I know for a fact that there are currently several int'l students in the UCLA Soc dept, and thus the same logic likely applies.

[DeWinter]

Not sure if this was held against me from the outset - maybe I wasn't qualified in other ways - but it seems to imply that this is a MAJOR problem. I know for a fact that there are currently several int'l students in the UCLA Soc dept, and thus the same logic likely applies.

It's scary about their policy on international students. I hope all other schools who say they fund all incoming students for 4 or 5 years will fund internationals, too.

[JustChill]

This is unfortunate, yes, but if you are as well qualified for Berkeley as that email makes you out to be, then you should also be very competitive at the top private universities.

[vindicated]

Yeah, I found that out after I applied to 6 American schools-4 public.

[Kathiza]

Some state schools award funding to ALL incoming students, no matter if they're American or international. So it depends on your specific school and on your program. I know for example that most of my schools also fund international students. So you'll have to find that out on your own. Best of luck to all of you.

[Shari A Williams]

Old thread but I'm bumping it...

This actually happened to me for York University....apparently their music department gets a certain quota a year and it was essentially 0 for the 2012-2013 year. Even if this wasn't quite true, I'm sure they'd be more likely to take PhD students than Masters students.