US News America’s Best Colleges 2008 – Do Asian Students Care?
In a post at one of my other sites TheBizOfKnowledge – I wrote the US News America's Best Colleges 2008 – 8 Questions in Need of Answers
In that post, I listed up 8 questions that were passed around to the business writers of the KnowMoreMedia network.
The last question is relevant to PanAsianBiz-
8 – Does the US News college ranking make a difference to international students?
Absolutely – Asian students look at the list as a sort of
wish list…what I want for Christmas or my birthday – to be accepted into a top school…starting at the very top and then working their way down. 
A Chinese or Indian student might not have a clue where a school is located geographically but they do know where it ranks on the list. And, that's what matter.
A very good friend of mine lived in a coastal city in southern China ended up in Kansas City because she happened upon a recruiter visiting her hometown and the college was in the top tier in one of the regions. She knew the details. I didn't care.
All, I could think of was, "she's not going to like living in Kansas." I was right. She finally graduated from a college on the west coast a few miles from the Pacific Ocean.
The rankings do make a difference to Asian students. Colleges/universities use the rankings to recruit the best of the Asian students as well. When a college gets the best China or India or Japan or Korea or Thailand or Singapore or….has to offer, it puts the pressure on American home-grown students to perform. This is good news for the college all around. More students stay, finish, perform, get better grades, better jobs, give back more to the college and so on.
International students, Asian students care about the rankings and the rankings make a difference to the college because of the students they get as a result.
What do you think?
I think it’s great–but then again my school is in the top 5
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