At this time each year, thousands of aspiring international graduate students apply to graduate programs across the US. I have advised some of them over the years. This thread is an appeal for greater transparency to reduce applicants’ wasting time and precious resources 1/

Despite much more transparency in the process since 1992, when I applied to grad school, many aspects of the application process are still a complete mystery. Some grad programs recruit large numbers of international grad students; others recruit very few. 2/

Yet, this information is not readily visible on departmental webpages. This means international students often have to apply ‘blind’ without really knowing whether they have a fighting chance to get into programs they really like, to work with PIs they really like. 3/

Why this bias? Many rotation-based grad programs pay the first year of graduate student stipends with a training grant or University funds, which are limited to US citizens or permanent residents. In such cases, there are only limited options for international students 4/

Other programs have unwritten rules about admitting international students if they have not trained in ‘English-speaking’ countries, independent of the fact that many folks who grew up in India, or Germany, might have better English-speaking and writing skills 5/

Even in a University, things can be heterogeneous; some departments/programs recruit many intl. students while others do not. So even folks with good TOEFL/GRE scores are at a disadvantage if they have not had a period of training or education in an English-speaking country. 6/

I don’t have an issue with individual grad programs having their own rules for admitting students, based on their own experiences. I also acknowledge that some of these ‘rules’ might not be able to be transparently advertised on websites for legal reasons 7/

However, the net effect in the absence of this information is that students often apply to well-known programs (on the coasts mostly) that they may not have a great chance of getting into, independent of how good their record is. This is cruel and unnecessary 8/

Applying to each US university (including transmitting GRE/ TOEFL scores etc) is time-consuming. It is also very expensive, each application is the equivalent of a third to half of a monthly graduate stipend in India! How to resolve this ‘conflict’? 9/

My suggestion: make clear what fraction of your graduate offers and grad student population is international. Let international students have access to this information so they can decide for themselves whether it is worth taking the risk to applying to your school 10/

There ARE many fantastic US schools that do rely on and admit many international students. I know; I went to one at University of Rochester. It was a fantastic (albeit cold) experience for me. There are many schools that would be great training environments 11/

Increased transparency would thus not only greatly reduce frustration of intl. grad student applicants, they would also help our colleagues recruit fantastic applicants to their schools. I hope grad programs at my own institution and others will consider this apeal /fin