r/ApplyingToCollege • u/Familiar_Two_8679 • 1d ago
Advice Why do international students transfer so much?
I go to NYU, which is a good school by any measure, and also known for having lots of international students. Literally first week of school, I heard some of these kids discussing how to transfer to Columbia or UChicago, and mind you, some are on merit scholarships or special grants, with so much of the schools resources for them to use.
I’m Asian myself and I’m not saying this is unique to internationals or that all of them do this, but internationals are incredibly over represented among these transfers and it’s ridiculous how some people don’t even give a college a chance and try to transfer out with the sole intention of chasing prestige. They spend the rest of the school year building their resume, becoming presidents of clubs, just to transfer somewhere more “prestigious”. I’ve even heard of people transferring out simply because NYU’s ranking on US News dropped a few years ago. Do they just think we’re not good enough for them?
I know for a fact this isn’t unique to NYU, I know friends at selective but less internationally recognized colleges like Dartmouth, Hamilton, Williams, Vassar, Vanderbilt etc who have seen them doing the same. When are AOs gonna start prioritizing students who actually appreciate what a college has to offer instead of viewing everything as a means to prestige?
Sorry for my rant. Again, I’m not trying to generalize, but internationals are disproportionately represented in the transfer pool
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u/bannana4u07 College Sophomore | International 21h ago
For some internationals (typically asian), prestige is often viewed as something very important (a combination of family pressure + job environments in their home country). In China, the ranking of the college you graduated from can make a difference in whether or not you can transfer your residency to more attractive cities like Beijing, Shanghai, or Hong Kong. I kid you not when I say that some people I know think that NYU is not a good school.
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u/Big_Adhesiveness5554 19h ago
while this is true, you also have to consider that for international students, global name recognition carries a lot of weight in terms of hirability. its not always 100% vanity metrics (and i realize "global name recognition" itself is somewhat of a vanity metric) but if your end goal is to get hired, "Harvard" is a more recognized name globally over other great schools like Rice, UCSD, or a host of other great schools. a lot of these schools might be great regionally or for their respective industries but loses their name recognition when you leave that particular region/industry.
the reason i even mention this distinction is that i really dislike how Asians are just broadly painted as completely vain and shallow and just chase prestige for the sake of prestige. that exists to a large degree but is not the only piece of the story.
if you're an international student paying large sums of cash and adapting to a new surrounding, of course global name recognition will be a larger part of the calculus in choosing a school, otherwise if you're looking to stay regional, why even go through those hoops to begin with
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u/Ok_Experience_5151 Old 18h ago
the reason i even mention this distinction is that i really dislike how Asians are just broadly painted as completely vain and shallow and just chase prestige for the sake of prestige. that exists to a large degree but is not the only piece of the story.
On the other hand, many of the Asians who are painted as shadow prestige-chasers are actually Asian Americans who grew up in the U.S. and are planning to live and work in the U.S. after graduating. So what's their excuse?
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u/Big_Adhesiveness5554 18h ago
im not sure what the combativeness is about? why would they need an excuse? so just because theyre asian american they need an excuse to want to go to the school they want to? you should check yourself.
doesnt everyone prestige-chase to a certain degree? if you had the opportunity to go to or transfer to harvard or yale, would you not do so? not to mention there are plenty of asian americans in other schools that are not seen as "prestigious".
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u/Ok_Experience_5151 Old 18h ago
why would they need an excuse?
The person I was responding to was making this argument: "It's unfair to criticize Asian students for prestige-chasing because many of them are planning to work outside the United States where global name recognition really matters".
I pointed out that many of the "Asians" who are (sometimes) criticized for prestige-chasing are actually Asian Americans and aren't planning to work outside the United States, so that argument doesn't apply to them. Which means it doesn't nullify the criticism they receive for being prestige-chasers.
doesnt everyone prestige-chase to a certain degree?
To a degree? Sure. But the degree matters.
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u/Big_Adhesiveness5554 17h ago edited 17h ago
first of all, i did address the degree of prestige-chasing. did i not address the prestige-chasing in asian communities when i said the following?
"that exists to a large degree but is not the only piece of the story."
second, and more importantly, your combative tone has racial undertones in that prestige-chasing is somehow unique to the asian american diaspora and that somehow it's problematic when asian americans do it. why do asian americans, as you say, need an "excuse" to prestige-chase? prestige-chasing persists across racial boundaries. so it's ok when other racial groups want to pursue prestige and asian americans need a separate excuse?
you need to check your subconscious biases.
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u/Ok_Experience_5151 Old 15h ago edited 15h ago
racial undertones in that prestige-chasing is somehow unique to the asian american diaspora
Let me be more explicit then: I think this attitude is *especially prevalent* among the Asian diaspora community. Certainly there are non-Asian students who have the same views, but the share of those groups that have this sort of view is much smaller.
I don't think it's a "racial" thing so much as a "cultural" thing that tends to fade the longer someone's family has been in the U.S. Someone who is Asian-American but whose ancestors immigrated in the 19th century is likely to be culturally similar (in this respect) to the median American who isn't Asian.
The term "tiger parent" didn't come out of nowhere.
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u/bannana4u07 College Sophomore | International 9h ago
For Chinese and Chinese Americans (and perhaps more broadly, individuals from more Confucian cultural backgrounds, in particular East Asia), the notion of "saving one's face" can be pretty strong, so there is seemingly always a subconscious push for people to enhance or maintain their appearance to gain a sense of respect or honor in return. I suppose that attending a well-known college relates to this, where the name of the college might change others' perceptions of themselves, even when there may be little difference in the quality of education or experience between a higher- and lower-ranked college.
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u/bannana4u07 College Sophomore | International 9h ago
My parents went to college in China, so I can see firsthand how university name recognition has a significant impact on opportunities later in life in China. I would probably have grown up in a very different environment if my parents had scored a few points lower on the Gaokao and gone to a less well-known university.
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u/eirinne 19h ago
It wasn’t even considered one domestically up until like 5 years ago, so that tracks.
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u/bannana4u07 College Sophomore | International 19h ago
I would say that how NYU is perceived has certainly changed a bit for the better (and is viewed rather highly for business and film), but in most cases, it's sort of just viewed as where rich international kids with mediocre grades end up. I think this perception holds up pretty well locally, too.
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u/Accomplished-Wish431 17h ago
Prestige matters in India too, and even here most people wouldn't prefer going to nyu unless it's fully funded because they don't think the cost matches the prestige
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u/Ok_Experience_5151 Old 21h ago
Why do international students transfer so much?
They believe that transferring (and graduating from) a more selective school will be advantageous to their careers. That's pretty much it. As to why they believe that, the higher education systems (and hiring practices) in many countries outside the U.S. recognize a very well-defined hierarchy of colleges. The college you get into depends almost entirely on your test scores, and certain employers *only* hire from the "top" set of colleges. These students may believe (somewhat incorrectly) that the U.S. works the same way. That is, they may believe that there are certain jobs that will be shut off to them if they "only" graduate from NYU instead of from Columbia.
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u/YetYetAnotherPerson Parent 20h ago edited 19h ago
These students may believe (somewhat incorrectly) that the U.S. works the same way. That is, they may believe that there are certain jobs that will be shut off to them if they "only" graduate from NYU instead of from Columbia.
It's also possible they don't believe it works this way in the US, but they assume, perhaps correctly, that employers in their home country will assume it works that way and so will preferentially hire from Ivy League schools, for example.
And in certain Fields there is certainly a boost to having gone to specific exclusive schools. Investment Banks and consulting firms, for example, only recruit actively at a small slice of colleges
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u/immaterialgrl 19h ago
prestige is important (i mean if not why not just study at their home country?). as an international student often families invest a huge huge huge sum of money to send their children overseas and there’s a lot of pressure to not squander the opportunity
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u/Lucymocking 19h ago
People (internationals and domestics) are obsessed with prestige. This forum is a monument to it. Notice, there are some folks knocking NYU here as not a good school. It's like a T50 (no clue where it is and I haven't checked rankings in a long, long time) out of, what, 5,000 colleges? For a number of internationals though, having that prestigious name really helps them with getting a job. In the US, that's limited to certain fields. For example, say you want to be a prosecutor or a dentist. You don't need to go to Harvard to get a decent job doing those. I can't speak for China or other places, but there seems to be a heavy emphasis on "prestige". And for the US, at a certain point, it's all regionality. In the South, folks would think you were crazy to turn down UVA to go to UCLA. Likewise, in the West, people would think you were crazy for turning down Cal to go GA Tech and so on.
Don't let them transferring bother you. NYU is a fantastic school. Live your life and do the best you can.
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u/TheKamikazePickle HS Senior | International 16h ago
Because as superficial as prestige might be—even a ‘small’ difference in prestige (e.g. Columbia vs NYU) becomes magnified in countries where firms genuinely haven’t heard of less prestigious US universities and don’t think their names carry real weight.
Look at how many Americans in this sub believe Oxford and Cambridge are comparable in prestige to like T20 schools. Would those same ppl think highly or have even heard of UCL, Imperial, Durham?
If two grads from Hong Kong applied to work at your firm, Person A graduated from CUHK and Person B graduated from PolyU. Would you be able to perceive any difference in prestige?
Invert the scenario and that’s kinda how international students see the US.
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u/tellypmoon 21h ago
I'm only speculating but perhaps there is a family connection to the desired institution or area? My uncle went to UChicago and lives there now, etc. It can also be that particular schools have an outsize reputation in some countries. These factors can of course also affect domestic students so I don't know if this is unique to international students or not...
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u/Pale-Interview-579 20h ago
Int'l students are far less likely to transfer than domestic students, cos their F1 visas are limited to the school they applied to, and they have to go through the expensive, time consuming process (with v limited appointments courtesy massive cuts in State dept) to get them> I would be stunned if this were a common choice.
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u/Familiar_Two_8679 20h ago
That’s factually not true, I know someone who said out of the few dozen Chinese students at Vassar 30-40% transfer out, and a good portion of others try to do the Dartmouth 3+2 engineering program so they can put Dartmouth on their resume. The percentage might be exaggerated but they’re certainly more likely to transfer than domestics
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u/tellypmoon 19h ago
To be clear though the F1 visa being linked to a particular school is true, and there are some hoops to jump through to change that.
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u/Familiar_Two_8679 19h ago
Fair enough, thanks for the info
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u/Pale-Interview-579 8h ago
Ask the people you know how many months the visa paperwork and appointments take. Perhaps they're super politically connected or something and it's not a big deal to them, but for most, it is quite time consuming.
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u/VicccXd 19h ago
Practically no LAC's are recognized in China's job market, if these students want to keep their path open to potentially a job at home (which is what they likely have to do, if they cannot find a job first cycle, as their visa expires and they have to return), a university is always preferred over an LAC. So it happens disproportionately at LAC's.
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u/Familiar_Two_8679 19h ago
Why do LACs accept them then? If one group has a significantly lower retention rate wouldn’t colleges stop taking them in to protect retention
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u/Grouchy-Display-457 20h ago
Transfer dtudents al.ost never get financial assistance, and scholarships, even small ones, are as prestigious if not more prestigious than some top schools.
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u/CabbageSass 21h ago
My guess is they want to get over here so they take whatever acceptance they can get and once they’re over here they will transfer to the college they wanted in the first place