DENVER — As a hunting ground for recruiting students, China may seem daunting. It’s vast and far away, with a difficult official language and unfamiliar culture.
But there are ways of tapping into this huge market, especially with the Internet, speakers said last week at a conference of the National Association for College Admission Counseling.
China’s sheer numbers make it enticing to recruiters. It’s the most populous nation in the world, with 1.3 billion people, a fifth of all human beings. The fastest growth is among the second and third tier cities, experts say. Even third-tier cities — there are about 160 — have populations of more than a million.
China, South Korea and India are the top generators of students to the U.S., but China is seen as the only source of growth at this point, according to Dr. Rahul Choudaha, director of research at World Education Services. A total of 56,976 Chinese students enrolled in the U.S. as undergraduates in 2010-11, compared with 9,988 in 2006-07, data show.
Entrance to the top Chinese universities is very tough, so many parents send their children to schools in the U.S. for their high quality and the chance to become proficient in English, a valuable skill, admissions officers say.
Universities in the U.S. are eager to recruit Chinese to help achieve global diversity on their campuses and benefit from the full tuition that the students and their parents are willing to pay. In fact, critics have accused financially-strapped flagship universities of giving foreign students spots that should be allocated to state residents.
Choudaha said the challenge for admissions officers is to bring in qualified applicants and build their schools’ brand despite shrinking recruitment budgets.
