The Collegewise Guide to Admissions for International Students - Fourth Edition - September 2015 - Application Review Tips

Aug 25, 2026

Uploaded by Violet

The Collegewise guide explains how applications from international students are reviewed for U.S. colleges and universities, using a counselor’s admissions experience. It outlines the scale and growth of international applicants, the role of key supporting organizations, and why U.S. schools are highly sought yet intensely competitive. It introduces what international applicants need to know about admissions expectations and provides practical tips to make applications more distinctive.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryExam

FormatPDF

Pages32

Reading Time1 h 21 min

AccessFree to download

International Student Admissions Overview

Growth in International Applications

Where Students Seek Information

How Applications Are Reviewed

U.S. Colleges and Universities for International Students

Why Students Choose the U.S.

Selective College Admissions Context

Examples of Highly Selective Schools

The Collegewise Guide to Admissions for International Students By Tim Townley, Collegewise Counselor Copyright © 2015 by Collegewise This edition is designed to be viewed on screen to save trees and to be emailed to fellow students, parents, and counselors. You are given the unlimited right to distribute this guide electronically (via email, your website, or anyother means). You can print out pages and put them in your office for your students. You can include the link in a newsletter, send it to parents in your school community, hand it out at an event for students or parents, and generally share it with anyone who is interested. But you may not alter this guide in anyway, or charge for it, without written permission from Collegewise. Fourth Edition September 2015 Every year, more and more students from around the world apply to universities in the United States. In the 2011/12 application cycle, approximately 819,644 international students applied to an American institution of higher education (Open Doors, 2013) . While many of these students applied from a high school in their home country, a significant percentage applied from US-based high schools, both public and private. [Fairus.org](Fairus.org) states that in the 2010/11 academic year, 29,491 international students were studying at a US secondary school. These numbers are increasing every year, and US colleges and universities are doing their best to keep up. These institutions have a variety of resources at their disposal; the Institute of International Education, the Overseas Association of College Admissions Counselors, Linden International Recruitment Tours, and the US Department of Education are just a few examples of organizations a college can turn to when seeking information on international students. The options for the students themselves, however, are very limited. Outside of their counselors, their peers, and a handful of online resources, where can international students turn when they have questions about applying to US schools? This handout is a good start. It won’t answer all of your questions, but it will explain how your application will be reviewed and provide you with tips that will make the application process a little less scary and a lot more straightforward. Who Am I? Before coming to Collegewise, I spent 6 years working in the International Admissions Office at Boston University. During that time, I was primarily responsible for recruitment efforts in Eastern/Southeastern Asia. I would visit up to 13 countries in the span of a month and manage the applications from this territory. My responsibilities as a whole, however, required me to read applications worldwide, which made me very familiar with initials like IB, AL, GCSE, ICSE and ISC. I estimate that I annually reviewed 2-3,000 applications, for a total of 12-18,000 applications over 6 years. Prior to BU, I worked at The George Washington University for 5 years. I annually reviewed applications from nearly 1,200 students, less than 40% of whom were accepted. I also worked at an international boarding school in Switzerland, where I coordinated the applications for 45 seniors who represented 50+ nationalities and applied to colleges in 20+ countries. I understand the challenges for international students, and also for the admissions officers who evaluate international applicants. I’ve compiled the tips in this handout to help make your admissions officer’s job a little easier and, as a result, make your application stand out from therest. Part II: What International Students Need to Know about US Colleges and Universities As I mentioned in the intro, the numbers here are astounding. 819,644 international students were studying at US institutions in the 2012/13 academic year (Open Doors, 2013) . Of these students, 250,920 were studying in the US for the first time, a 9.3% increase from the year before. And those are just the students who were admitted. What’s

FAQs

How are international student applications reviewed in the U.S.?

The guide explains that admissions officers evaluate international applicants using a structured review process and that effective materials help an application stand out.

Why is the number of international applicants to U.S. universities increasing?

It attributes the rise to perceived value in U.S. education, global recognition of U.S. degrees, and students’ ability to return home after graduation.

What makes U.S. colleges especially challenging for international applicants?

The guide notes that many top U.S. institutions are extremely competitive for both domestic and international students, with very low acceptance rates at the most selective schools.

Aug 25, 2026

Uploaded by Violet