Admittance Rates

Competition for slots at selective colleges has always been fierce, even before international applications picked up pace. Last year, Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, accepted just 5.9 percent of applicants last year, Penn 12.3 percent, and both Tufts and Berkeley 21 percent.

The increase in foreign applications doesn’t necessarily mean tougher acceptance standards for Americans because international applicants may be vying against each other, said Sally Stevens, associate director of college guidance at the Roxbury Latin School in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.

“You can’t leap to the conclusion that it’s more competitive for U.S. kids,” Stevens said in an interview. “I’m not sure these universities want to become so overweighted with foreign students at the undergraduate level that they lose the ambiance they’re trying to create.”

China often dominates schools’ foreign applications. Tufts received 708 applications from China this year compared with 39 in 2004, Coffin said. The college, which has bolstered its international recruiting staff 10-fold to 10 people since about 2004, began recruiting in Africa some five years ago, and admissions officers also travel to Bangladesh and Vietnam.

Unlike most colleges, Tufts meets the financial need of foreign students that it admits.

International Recruiting

Penn started recruiting outside the U.S. Northeast and Mid- Atlantic regions decades ago and also looks internationally, Eric Furda, dean of undergraduate admissions, said in an interview. The Philadelphia-based school received 5,689 international applications this year, up 94 percent from 2006.

The gains in overseas applicants helped Penn stave off a decline in total applications this year. The school received 31,244, according to preliminary data -- an increase of just 26 from last year, Furda said.

Georgetown University, in Washington, had a similar experience. Total applications dipped less than 1 percent this year, though the decline would have been greater without a 10 percent increase in international applications, according to Charles Deacon, the dean of admissions.