campusreview. com. au international education you, as well as family background. This holistic process and the degree of competition make it quite a hurdle.
So what does it take to get in if you meet those requirements? The fascinating thing about, say, the American process, and also the UK one too, is that unlike Australia, where there’ s fixed ATAR cut-offs in many degree programs, in the US / UK it’ s more like a relative cutoff where they’ ve got a particular number of students they want to recruit from particular parts of the world and also the general class pool. So there’ s no absolute cut-off. What that means is that there’ s not really a point where you can tick every box and guarantee you’ re going to get into a place like Yale or Princeton. It’ s really needing to differentiate every year.
That’ s why we spend a long time with our students on things like leadership consulting, which is a program we write that supports students taking their interests and turning them into projects and campaigns, whether it be a charity event for cerebral palsy awareness or youth engagement in politics, which we’ re doing now in New Zealand with the election. It’ s many of these differentiated activities at a very high stage as well as great academics, amazing essays and so on. All of that comes together to make a stellar application.
Should Australian universities be worried? I think competition is healthy, because ultimately what generates the best outcomes for Australia is amazing, well-educated youth that can come back and add value in their communities.
And we’ re seeing amazing work coming out of Aussie universities – they’ re doing very well in international rankings. Many of these universities are having to compete, and that’ s making their programs better, more rigorous.
Given the already occurring disruption in higher education, will the brand-name universities continue to be as prestigious in the future? I actually think they’ ll become more prestigious. If you look at the trend of applications to these universities over time, the applications are skyrocketing. Many of the schools are seeing double the number of applicants today than they did five or six years ago, at the top end. And that is a function of demand.
For many years a university degree was viewed as valuable, but where you got it from didn’ t matter much. Recruiters from companies were less likely to focus on that. But now many companies around the world are very focused on university degrees and the calibre of the programs. As a result, the more demand there is for the prestigious programs, the more prestigious these programs become.
And the other thing is these universities have already developed a recruiting message for donors. Traditionally they have very large endowments. Harvard has an endowment of around $ 35 billion. This means they continue to reinvest in amazing facilities and professors – they can recruit top students without them needing to pay any tuition. All of this creates a powerful self-fulfilling cycle, where many of the world’ s best universities become progressively better and better.
Are there any political threats to universities, especially those in America, on the horizon? In the year following Trump’ s election, the numbers at many US universities actually continued to increase dramatically. What we’ ve seen is an international student base that has continued to grow rapidly. Australia has spiked dramatically in the last year. Trump is not having any impact on demand.
In terms of his policies, he’ s talked a lot about international visas. His policies are focused on cutting down on migration of low-skilled workers, but he’ s generally supportive of highly skilled labour, and on the campaign trail mentioned many times how he thinks it’ s nuts that people can come to the US, get a great degree, then the US doesn’ t try to keep them in the country.
If anything, his work on tax policies may make it marginally more attractive for international companies to move their HQs to America. And that may actually increase the interest in going to these top universities.
As for Brexit, what do you think the flow-on effects might be on the UK’ s university system in terms of international students? It’ s interesting because many of these programs in the UK are well funded, but still nowhere near as well funded as some of the American schools. And many of the students in the EU can currently study at these universities for domestic rates. So I think what you’ ll see is that some of the lesser ranked universities in the UK may struggle to get the student numbers they previously did, as now students staying inside the Eurozone may find cheaper options elsewhere.
But when it comes to, say, the Russell Group and the top competitive universities in the UK, I think it’ s not likely to change much. In fact, it might increase revenue to universities because students in, say, Germany, who want to go to Oxford, want to do so because it’ s such an awesome experience. Even though the universities are free locally, they’ re still going in droves to Oxford because of the great degrees. So the fact that they can now charge international student rates may actually be a more sustainable option for the most competitive schools.
I think it’ ll be a situation where the market will bifurcate. The top universities will probably become marginally better off with more revenue and hence more funding. Universities that are less well off will start losing out to Eurozone universities.
The other thing I would add is we also support many Australian students applying to smaller schools throughout the Eurozone. There are many options in, say, Germany, for free or dramatically reduced university degrees for international students. We’ re sending many students to various parts of Europe. We even sent a student to a Russian university recently.
Growing up, we often hear about the universities that are well known through movies, places like Harvard and Yale. But there are amazing places in, say, the Middle East, like New York University Abu Dhabi. There are schools in Singapore that are like Yale in the US. There are places like Swarthmore, Amherst, Williams, which are top liberal arts colleges in America.
The key thing for university is fit. Find a university you will really succeed in that matches your interests, character and qualities, and that isn’ t just based on rankings.
Many of our students heading to America are opting for the competitive Ivy League schools, but many are opting for equally competitive but unique programs, whether it be the Rhode Island School of Design or Juilliard or places like that. So I would encourage students and teachers to consider what the student is best fit for. And that’ s definitely been part of our success: focusing on the student’ s needs rather than just the rankings. ■
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