Squeezed Out in India, Students Turn to U.S.

High_Gravity

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Nov 19, 2010
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Squeezed Out in India, Students Turn to U.S.

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NEW DELHI — Moulshri Mohan was an excellent student at one of the top private high schools in New Delhi. When she applied to colleges, she received scholarship offers of $20,000 from Dartmouth and $15,000 from Smith. Her pile of acceptance letters would have made any ambitious teenager smile: Cornell, Bryn Mawr, Duke, Wesleyan, Barnard and the University of Virginia.

But because of her 93.5 percent cumulative score on her final high school examinations, which are the sole criteria for admission to most colleges here, Ms. Mohan was rejected by the top colleges at Delhi University, better known as D.U., her family’s first choice and one of India’s top schools.

“Daughter now enrolled at Dartmouth!” her mother, Madhavi Chandra, wrote, updating her Facebook page. “Strange swings this admission season has shown us. Can’t get into DU, can make it to the Ivies.”

Ms. Mohan, 18, is now one of a surging number of Indian students attending American colleges and universities, as competition in India has grown formidable, even for the best students. With about half of India’s 1.2 billion people under the age of 25, and with the ranks of the middle class swelling, the country’s handful of highly selective universities are overwhelmed.

This summer, Delhi University issued cutoff scores at its top colleges that reached a near-impossible 100 percent in some cases. The Indian Institutes of Technology, which are spread across the country, have an acceptance rate of less than 2 percent — and that is only from a pool of roughly 500,000 who qualify to take the entrance exam, a feat that requires two years of specialized coaching after school.

“The problem is clear,” said Kapil Sibal, the government minister overseeing education in India, who studied law at Harvard. “There is a demand and supply issue. You don’t have enough quality institutions, and there are enough quality young people who want to go to only quality institutions.”

American universities and colleges have been more than happy to pick up the slack. Faced with shrinking returns from endowment funds, a decline in the number of high school graduates in the United States and growing economic hardship among American families, they have stepped up their efforts to woo Indian students thousands of miles away.

Representatives from many of the Ivy League institutions have begun making trips to India to recruit students and explore partnerships with Indian schools. Some have set up offices in India, partly aimed at attracting a wider base of students. The State Department held a United States-India higher education summit meeting on Thursday at Georgetown University to promote the partnership between the countries.

Indians are now the second-largest foreign student population in America, after the Chinese, with almost 105,000 students in the United States in the 2009-10 academic year, the last for which comprehensive figures were available. Student visa applications from India increased 20 percent in the past year, according to the American Embassy here.

Although a majority of Indian students in the United States are graduate students, undergraduate enrollment has grown by more than 20 percent in the past few years. And while wealthy Indian families have been sending their children to the best American schools for years, the idea is beginning to spread to middle-class families, for whom Delhi University has historically been the best option.

American universities have now become “safety schools” for increasingly stressed and traumatized Indian students and parents, who complain that one fateful event — the final high school examination — can make or break a teenager’s future career.

This admissions season, students exchanged exam horror stories. One knew a boy who was sick with typhoid but could not reschedule. “I know a girl who saw the physics paper and she fainted,” said Nikita Sachdeva, her eyes widening.

Ms. Sachdeva, 19, graduated from Delhi Public School in 2010, with a 94.5 percent exam score, one point shy of the cutoff to study economics at St. Stephen’s, one of the top colleges at Delhi University. She decided to take a year off and work as an intern at a nonprofit group affiliated with the World Health Organization, while applying to American universities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/w..._r=1&hpw&gwh=CF9B1B98AC372F522D0FE32197F04F76
 
Send 'em on over. Our Universities are superior anyway, so it's a win-win.
 
good for her and us. now if we can get her to stay that would be better, she starts with an F1 and M1 ( vocational education) visa, which can lead tio citizenship.

Its also pretty much insane to limit HB1 visas ( foreign worker) too 85,000 a year ..*shrugs*
 
good for her and us. now if we can get her to stay that would be better, she starts with an F1 and M1 ( vocational education) visa, which can lead tio citizenship.

Its also pretty much insane to limit HB1 visas ( foreign worker) too 85,000 a year ..*shrugs*

I agree, I don't know what it is about India but they are cranking out geniuses left and right.
 
Student and parent motivation. You talk to Asian students they are internally driven like crazy.

When I was taking classes last year at the local community college the student body was more than 40% foreign, and all those foreign students were concentrated in the technical side. American students couldn't give a rip
 
good for her and us. now if we can get her to stay that would be better, she starts with an F1 and M1 ( vocational education) visa, which can lead tio citizenship.

Its also pretty much insane to limit HB1 visas ( foreign worker) too 85,000 a year ..*shrugs*

I agree, I don't know what it is about India but they are cranking out geniuses left and right.

I'll tell you what it is about India.

But first you gotta watch Slumdog Millionaire.

[youtube]lIaq_5GNI1I&feature=related[/youtube]
 
Student and parent motivation. You talk to Asian students they are internally driven like crazy.

When I was taking classes last year at the local community college the student body was more than 40% foreign, and all those foreign students were concentrated in the technical side. American students couldn't give a rip

I had a couple friends in high school that were from India and 2 from Bangladesh that were brothers, all of them studied their asses off, went to really good schools and now have outstanding jobs and careers, their parents would not accept anything less than total success in academics.
 
Student and parent motivation. You talk to Asian students they are internally driven like crazy.

When I was taking classes last year at the local community college the student body was more than 40% foreign, and all those foreign students were concentrated in the technical side. American students couldn't give a rip

I had a couple friends in high school that were from India and 2 from Bangladesh that were brothers, all of them studied their asses off, went to really good schools and now have outstanding jobs and careers, their parents would not accept anything less than total success in academics.

Less than total success in India means spending your life (which will be mercifully shortened) working in a sweatshop 18 hours a day, and watching your kids play in feces.

Less than total success in The Land of the Free means you have to go to work at your dad's Chevy dealership, or spit out kids so you can collect higher welfare checks and you can afford to watch Jerry Springer on Cable TV.
 
Student and parent motivation. You talk to Asian students they are internally driven like crazy.

When I was taking classes last year at the local community college the student body was more than 40% foreign, and all those foreign students were concentrated in the technical side. American students couldn't give a rip

I had a couple friends in high school that were from India and 2 from Bangladesh that were brothers, all of them studied their asses off, went to really good schools and now have outstanding jobs and careers, their parents would not accept anything less than total success in academics.

Less than total success in India means spending your life (which will be mercifully shortened) working in a sweatshop 18 hours a day, and watching your kids play in feces.

Less than total success in The Land of the Free means you have to go to work at your dad's Chevy dealership, or spit out kids so you can collect higher welfare checks and you can afford to watch Jerry Springer on Cable TV.

Very true Samson, very true, except that now that job at the Chevy dealership probably won't be there.
 
I had a couple friends in high school that were from India and 2 from Bangladesh that were brothers, all of them studied their asses off, went to really good schools and now have outstanding jobs and careers, their parents would not accept anything less than total success in academics.

Less than total success in India means spending your life (which will be mercifully shortened) working in a sweatshop 18 hours a day, and watching your kids play in feces.

Less than total success in The Land of the Free means you have to go to work at your dad's Chevy dealership, or spit out kids so you can collect higher welfare checks and you can afford to watch Jerry Springer on Cable TV.

Very true Samson, very true, except that now that job at the Chevy dealership probably won't be there.

I was using the analogy to describe the wide range of trustfund babies.

OK, Hundai dealership. Better?
 
Less than total success in India means spending your life (which will be mercifully shortened) working in a sweatshop 18 hours a day, and watching your kids play in feces.

Less than total success in The Land of the Free means you have to go to work at your dad's Chevy dealership, or spit out kids so you can collect higher welfare checks and you can afford to watch Jerry Springer on Cable TV.

Very true Samson, very true, except that now that job at the Chevy dealership probably won't be there.

I was using the analogy to describe the wide range of trustfund babies.

OK, Hundai dealership. Better?


LOL, maybe.
 
good for her and us. now if we can get her to stay that would be better, she starts with an F1 and M1 ( vocational education) visa, which can lead tio citizenship.

Its also pretty much insane to limit HB1 visas ( foreign worker) too 85,000 a year ..*shrugs*

I agree, I don't know what it is about India but they are cranking out geniuses left and right.


Parental involvement. Parental expectations. Strong motivation and a desire from both parents and the children to do well in school, compete and succeed.
 
good for her and us. now if we can get her to stay that would be better, she starts with an F1 and M1 ( vocational education) visa, which can lead tio citizenship.

Its also pretty much insane to limit HB1 visas ( foreign worker) too 85,000 a year ..*shrugs*

I agree, I don't know what it is about India but they are cranking out geniuses left and right.


Parental involvement. Parental expectations. Strong motivation and a desire from both parents and the children to do well in school, compete and succeed.

That and like Samson said, they really don't have a choice, if you don't succeed in school in India you will be living on a garbage dump begging for change, India does not have welfare, unemployment, food stamps etc. if you don't have money, you don't eat.
 
I agree, I don't know what it is about India but they are cranking out geniuses left and right.


Parental involvement. Parental expectations. Strong motivation and a desire from both parents and the children to do well in school, compete and succeed.

That and like Samson said, they really don't have a choice, if you don't succeed in school in India you will be living on a garbage dump begging for change, India does not have welfare, unemployment, food stamps etc. if you don't have money, you don't eat.

However.........It also must have a lot to do with the government of India recognizing that education is a way out of poverty. African nations are only beginning to recognise this, but once they do I predict our Universities will be over-run with Nigerians and Kenyans.
 


Parental involvement. Parental expectations. Strong motivation and a desire from both parents and the children to do well in school, compete and succeed.

That and like Samson said, they really don't have a choice, if you don't succeed in school in India you will be living on a garbage dump begging for change, India does not have welfare, unemployment, food stamps etc. if you don't have money, you don't eat.

However.........It also must have a lot to do with the government of India recognizing that education is a way out of poverty. African nations are only beginning to recognise this, but once they do I predict our Universities will be over-run with Nigerians and Kenyans.

I think you are spot on.
 
I agree, I don't know what it is about India but they are cranking out geniuses left and right.


Parental involvement. Parental expectations. Strong motivation and a desire from both parents and the children to do well in school, compete and succeed.

That and like Samson said, they really don't have a choice, if you don't succeed in school in India you will be living on a garbage dump begging for change, India does not have welfare, unemployment, food stamps etc. if you don't have money, you don't eat.


I agree....maybe we should follow that lead. It may light a few fires under the entitlement crowd.
 
I agree, I don't know what it is about India but they are cranking out geniuses left and right.

Oh boy, here we go again, equating academic performance or even technical expertise with ingenuity.

I'm a student in India and education here is a joke. It involves no reasoning. All you're required to and expected to do is regurgitate and classroom experience involves literally narration of obsolete notes which the students have to copy down (mind you, there's no interaction or discussion or even explanation) and even respect is a one way street, the professor/teacher is basically God! and the copied down notes have to be reproduced in the exams as they are. Whether you understand what you're writing in the answer sheets is nobody's concern. So, how come we excel and kick your butt? Well, like most of you here already figured out, we have no other option. Either we excel or we kill ourselves (check out the student suicide rates in India - I'm not allowed to post links yet..grrr) OR if we choose to live, then we get eternally ridiculed and work for peanuts...like Indian peanuts, not what peanuts amount to in the US.

There's tremendous amounts of either fear-based motivation or incentivization involved in scoring in exams. This leads to the carrot-and-stick kinda motivation for education. There's no space for intrinsic motivation to come to picture. And guess what happens? As extrinsic motivators always do, they narrow down your focus and allow you to excel in doing monotonous tasks easily, which is what Indian education constitutes all the time. But you just cannot incentivise seminal work or work that involves creativity. Here check this out on how motivation is found to work - Google for Daniel Pink's science of motivation ted talk. You will LOVE what you learn from that video!

It may seem like Indian students are internally driven. Some really are. But most of the time, it's all a result of brainwashing and narrowing down of priorities to the point where students are like zombies. They begin to lose their personality and become paranoid over scores in exams. And this is precisely what parents want because scores are the ultimate indicator of your worth in the Indian society. Read my article about how examinations work here - go to stopmanufacturingus dot com and look for an article titled examucation: The reality behind the "system".

My point here is that the results that you see Indian students come up with is a consequence of their tremendous amount of incentivised HARD WORK. HARD WORK! NOT SMART WORK! I would define smart work as something involving creativity and non-linear thinking. This just doesn't constitute what Indian students are required to do.

To get Indian students making more impact in the world of ideas and not just sticking with their stupid jobs at the IT sweat shops, they need to be given more chances for being driven by intrinsic motivators, be given more autonomy and be allowed to develop mastery over something of their choice. That's when you'll be seeing Indian products that will rule the world.

Why is it that Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and a gazillion other awesome enterprises are out of the US? Precisely because there isn't so much external pressure and extrinsic motivators to which an American youngster has to comply. This allows for creativity and non-linear thinking, which are the driving forces behind world-changing enterprises. Precisely why Americans turn out to be way more creative than Indians. Don't believe me? Just check out products of Indian television and compare them with American television. Indian TV is mostly stuff copied off American TV...stuff like Indian Idol, who wants to be a millionaire, smarter than a 5th grader etc. And the rest of the original Indian programming is so disgustingly unsophisticated that you'd rather want to join the suicide parade rather than be in a position where you have to watch it.

At the moment, all the hard work that Indian students do will get them is monotonous IT jobs where they do software debugging and testing tasks [Ever seen a Indian software product in the mainstream software market?] for American companies that are driven by the dreams of American kids. Indian kids sadly just aren't allowed to dream. They're grown in an atmosphere where they have to figuratively bend over and let others with dreams to saddle them and ride on them. Indian kids are merely performance machines, not drivers of performance machines. And unfortunately, this gets seen as something admirable everywhere.

Anyway, my point is - please don't call us geniuses! I rest my case.

PS - Owing to the poor educational philosophy in countries like India, I've started a website - stopmanufacturingus dot com Check it out and let me know what you think!

Thank you for your input, its good to hear an opinion from someone actually in India.
 
I agree, I don't know what it is about India but they are cranking out geniuses left and right.

Oh boy, here we go again, equating academic performance or even technical expertise with ingenuity.

Anyway, my point is - please don't call us geniuses! I rest my case.

PS - Owing to the poor educational philosophy in countries like India, I've started a website - stopmanufacturingus dot com Check it out and let me know what you think!

Thanks for this insight: it has inspired me to consider another factor:

Population.


You probably know that India has a few more people than the US.

How does the government intend to employ vast numbers of people? By making them all innovative or by making them all IT geeks?

The USA is finding out the hard way that producing innovation doesn't necessarily product jobs. Rote memorization might not be fun, and might not inspire creativity, but it does promote an ability to concentrate on mundane tasks; a skill necessary for workers in many manufacturing environments where human labor is cheaper than robots.

But really, who wants the job that a machine could do? People who have no alternative.

Americans, on the other hand, have had alternatives: Simply do not work.
 
Thanks for this insight: it has inspired me to consider another factor:

Population.


You probably know that India has <b><u>a few more people</b></u> than the US.

Lolz, thanks for the laughs.

How does the government intend to employ vast numbers of people? By making them all innovative or by making them all IT geeks?

The USA is finding out the hard way that producing innovation doesn't necessarily product jobs. Rote memorization might not be fun, and might not inspire creativity, but it does promote an ability to concentrate on mundane tasks; a skill necessary for workers in many manufacturing environments where human labor is cheaper than robots.

EXACTLY!!! The rote memorization and monotonousness of the stuff we go through in school isn't a product of poorly framed nature or some dent in the educational policy. It is there for a reason. Majority of education systems worldwide try to habitualize students with routine that they would have to go through at work. Much of schooling is training in behavior, not some mythical training in "learning" as they advertise it to be. Indian education system specifically was put in place by the British who wanted to mass manufacture Indian clerks. And as you all know, clerks don't need any innovative quality or even independent thinking ability. And that's precisely what the Indian education turns over year after year - Clerks. Now they just happen to be IT geeks.

But there's a unique advantage that Indian kids have through their highly laborious training throughout school. They now have the alternative to go to America, study and benefit from the higher education in the US and settle there! That's really something...

And that is a win/win situation, Indian kids can go to a place where their talents can be utilized and the US Gains new motivated immigrants.
 
Thanks for this insight: it has inspired me to consider another factor:

Population.


You probably know that India has <b><u>a few more people</b></u> than the US.

Lolz, thanks for the laughs.

How does the government intend to employ vast numbers of people? By making them all innovative or by making them all IT geeks?

The USA is finding out the hard way that producing innovation doesn't necessarily product jobs. Rote memorization might not be fun, and might not inspire creativity, but it does promote an ability to concentrate on mundane tasks; a skill necessary for workers in many manufacturing environments where human labor is cheaper than robots.

EXACTLY!!! The rote memorization and monotonousness of the stuff we go through in school isn't a product of poorly framed nature or some dent in the educational policy. It is there for a reason. Majority of education systems worldwide try to habitualize students with routine that they would have to go through at work. Much of schooling is training in behavior, not some mythical training in "learning" as they advertise it to be. Indian education system specifically was put in place by the British who wanted to mass manufacture Indian clerks. And as you all know, clerks don't need any innovative quality or even independent thinking ability. And that's precisely what the Indian education turns over year after year - Clerks. Now they just happen to be IT geeks.

But there's a unique advantage that Indian kids have through their highly laborious training throughout school. They now have the alternative to go to America, study and benefit from the higher education in the US and settle there! That's really something...

And that is a win/win situation, Indian kids can go to a place where their talents can be utilized and the US Gains new motivated immigrants.

You watch the NBC Comedy Outsourced?

Outsourced - All Episode Guides - Newest - Episode Guide - NBC.com
 

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