University of the Pacific Rim

[randy_byers]

I'm doing statistics for the International Student Services office, and I'm always fascinated by where our international students come from. We have students from 112 different countries. The top countries are all Asian, except for Canada:

1. People's Republic of China (3324)
2. Republic of Korea (630)
3. Taiwan (ROC) (426)
4. India (354)
5. Hong Kong (209)
6. Indonesia (196)
7. Japan (154)
8. Canada (141)
9. Thailand (123)
10. Vietnam (88)
11. Malaysia (86)

Singapore comes in 13th at 59 students, but what's also interesting is that there are two Middle Eastern countries before we get to our first European country: Saudi Arabia (85) and Iran (55). Then we get to Germany (48) and the UK (46).

We don't seem to draw very strongly from Latin America, with Mexico being the top one at 21 students, and then Chile at 19 and Brazil at 18. Only 27 from Australia and 19 from New Zealand.

Countries that have only sent us one student: Albania, Botswana, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Haiti, Iraq, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Moldova, Mozambique, Rwanda, Syria, Trinidad & Tobago, and Yugoslavia.

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Europeans are sometimes not very aware of the farther end of the United States. Too many think that if they've been to NYC, Boston, and DC, they've seen the US.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

It's also true that the UW is actively recruiting in Asia, far more so than in Europe. I'm curious whether we're recruiting in Indonesia. I was mildly surprised to see that we have more Indonesian students than Japanese students, but that may simply reflect the population differential. Then again, Japan has over twice as many people as South Korea, and we have four times as many Korean students as we do Japanese. There's a similar discrepancy with Taiwan, which has half the population of South Korea.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

.. and here I am , actively recruiting in Asia this second. Just rather amateurishly..

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Are you tempting them with haggis and Irn Bru?

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

SAdly not. DAta protection and environmental law. I did buy some tablet in the airport to present to the guy in Hangzhou..

[kayxh.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Here at Imperial in London our top 10 nationalities are China, France, Malaysia, Singapore, Germany, Italy, Greece, India, Thailand, and Spain, with the USA coming in 16th with 133 students. And an amazing 126 nationalities.

Countries that have sent 1 student: Albania, Argentina, Angola, Bolivia, British Ocean Territory, Cambodia, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Falkand Islands, Fiji, Georgia, Jamaica, Macao, Montenegro, St Kitts and Nevis, San Marino and Somalia.

Lots of Singaporeans and Malaysians (400ish each) because the ties of empire are still strong in those countries, and they send them on sponsored schemes where they have to go back and work for the government for 4+ years afterwards.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I was a little surprised at how many Malaysian students we have, because I don't think of Seattle having a strong Malaysian connection. Then again, I work with a woman who is an immigrant from Malaysia. (That office also has a Laotian woman, a Vietnamese woman, and a woman who's from Jamaica or somewhere in the Caribbean.)

The Commonwealth connection makes sense for a British university. Especially one that calls itself Imperial!

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Even Strathclyde has a lot of Malaysians or at least used to - like he said, they do indeed like going to English speaking/Commonwealth countries and have good language for entry requirements - sadly their currency collapsed a bit back leading to draining of Malays from courses I was teaching at the time - is it ok now I wonder..

I'm not surprised you've only got one Yugoslavian given it doesnt exist anymore :-P I've got a Bosnian so we're evens.

Japanese students notoriously dont go abroad to study (have own decent unis plus language/xenophobia issues) so you;re doing pretty well there :)

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Do you think the one Yugoslav is a Serbian who hasn't given up the dream?

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

What percentage of students are from Asia? Sometimes it feel like half or so, but I bet it's much smaller than that.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I'd have to double-check the numbers, but part of what feeds into that perception is that there's a very large percentage that's Asian-American as well.

Ha! I just downloaded one of my own public reports (I'm at home) to check this. Percentage of total student body that's Asian-American is 22.5%. It would take more work to figure out the percentage who are international students from Asia, particularly since I don't have a data element for "Asian" and would have to create a list of countries. Anyway, percentage of student body that's international is 14.3%, so the Asian population would be less than that, but probably still a significant portion of it. I wouldn't be surprised if the percentage of the student body that's Asian or Asian-American is over 30%.

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

That's still much less than half. I read somewhere that when a neighborhood gets to be 30% black, white people think it's mostly black; and when a group is about 40% women, men think it's mostly women.

So I'm not surprised about my thinking the Asian (and Asian-American) population at the UW is "about half" when it's closer to 30%.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

" I read somewhere that when a neighborhood gets to be 30% black, white people think it's mostly black; and when a group is about 40% women, men think it's mostly women."

Thats funny. And accurate.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

I'd love to know the China /HK figs for Vancouver (UBC) actually - it was the most Chinoisified campus I have ever seen.. prob partly cos I was there just around HK handover and Canada was happily taking refugees, for a price :-)

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I'd also be curious about Berkeley. Will you be at the university, or just in town?

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Uni. Library. Ostensibly hoping to write in lib.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

ps I forgot to deliver the obvious piece of info: you dont get EU because a we have our own world class unis at UG and b at PG where you would be appealing, we have no money to send any but the most brilliant to the US - and your private schools by EU standards re mindbogglingly expensive. . Most PhD/Masters students in UK are guess what, Chinese, Indian, Arab, Nigerian etc etc.. we have essentally destroyed our own homegrown next gen of academics.(At least in my discipline, I suppose I should add. I'm not sure how many Chinese they get coming to do Eng Lit PhDs for example.)

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

That all makes a lot of sense, as did your similar comment about the Japanese. The UW has talked about opening a branch in China itself. Apparently the Chinese are interested in a way to bootstrap their own university system.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

THis is pretty much exactly why I am here. Lots of Oz unis, some US unis and one or 2 UK unis (Nottingham is one I know of) have opened Chinese campuses. Very lucrative and much admired by UK Tory plc etc. Strathclyde wants in on this and this is when I discovered that raher than being a good citizen by coming out to entertain the locals, my entire dept now hated me (slight overstatement)cos they view links with China as link to institutional breach of human rts. I d think frankly given almost every world class uni in world has links with China now (money talks!), they really won;t give a shit if Strathclyde cold shoulders them :)

Sorry I live and breath this stuff..

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I find it quite fascinating myself!

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

I like knowing about it but as an overall view of how the world works vs idealised pursuit of knowldge it's a bit depressing..

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Last datum and then you can work out EVERYTHING in your stats: non Anglo/Commonwealth countries insecure about English language skills mostly go to countries speaking their own language - so Lat Americans go to Spain/Italy not US or UK (tho this is changing -current Brazilian generation eg speaks v good English cos of US tv/Internet) which is why you aint got them, and why we still get less Spaniards than Greeks (who really have nowhere else to go that speaks their language except Melbourne :)even tho until recently youth unemployment was as catastrophic in Spain as Greece.

Also I'm curious about your quite high Arab intake. We hear we (UK) do well on them because they fear anti Islamic prejudice in US. Though it may well be just as bad in UK now..

Why Imperial has a high French intake is a true mystery to me tho! Maybe nowhere teaches science very well in FRance? Or maybe they're all exchange (one year or one term) studnts. It is a dark art..

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure why we have such a large Middle Eastern population here either. (We also have 38 from Turkey.) Possibly our school of International Studies has some kind of outreach program. One of the members of the transitional government of Libya, Ali Tarhouni, taught here in the business school and was very outspoken during the civil war over there.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Also the reason why Imperial has France, Spain, Greece high on its list and you dont is cos by law UK unis have to admit EU students at same prices as home students (as opposed to the gouging we give overseas non EU). And right now all UK unis are swamped with Greeks and to less extent Spaniards fleeing the economic desert of their countries. I have 3 greek students like this who have all more or less been told not to go home at any price and who are having nervous breakdowns as result. Its devastating - like running a refugee escape route but knowing escape isnt really there.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Our system has different tuition rates for residents of Washington and non-residents (who pay approximately three times as much), but there's talk of yet another (even more costly) tier for international students. Don't know whether it will actually happen. Tuition in general has been going through the roof, even at public schools, but I think it was just frozen for the next two years.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

hey what time is it at yours right now?

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Well, right *now* it's 9:29 AM.