Overseas applications are partly driven by rapid population growth in the sending countries, Nelson at Moody’s said.
“Some of the increase relates to the pure demographics of the sending countries, not just more aggressive marketing by U.S. colleges,” Nelson said.
University of California
Total freshman applications to Berkeley, near San Francisco, climbed 9.7 percent, the school said in a statement.
The nine undergraduate campuses of the University of California system, which also includes UCLA and UC San Diego, drew 18,659 international applicants, a gain of 34 percent from a year ago. The increase builds on a 66 percent surge the year before.
At Duke University, applications from foreign students this have risen by a greater percentage than domestic ones over the past few years, Christoph Guttentag, dean of undergraduate admissions, said in an interview. Duke, based in Durham, North Carolina, doesn’t release statistics for international applications.
“The American post-secondary education system is very appealing to a lot of individuals outside the U.S.,” Guttentag said. “It makes sense that they would cast their eyes here.”