About 20% of foreign students fill up the Cornell University

Ithaca: At Cornell University, one student out of every five is from abroad, are there to study at the Ivy League school. About 19.1% of the school's students comprise of international students. This has increased from 15.95 back in 2003. A similar nationwide increase reflects from the outpour of overseas students in Ithaca.

There was an increase in the number of foreign students attending colleges and universities in the U.S, from 9.8% to 820,000 between the years 2012 and 2013. About half the foreign students hail from three countries: India, China and South Korea.

The largest number of foreign students amongst the three nations, come from China, who are well off to do and can bear to sent their students to expensive schools in the U.S, like Cornell.

Over 230,000 of the 820,000 foreign students are from China, as per the report from IIE.

Andrea van Niekirk, Brown University's former associate director of admissions said,"The number of undergraduate students from China has surged by more than 300 percent between 2006 to 2007 and 2009 to 2010, when they numbered almost 40,000."

Niekirk proclaims that, just a few of the nations' dominating presence in the campuses of the U.S is in-fact turning the schools more homogeneous, instead of increasing the diversity. The condition has come to a point where the head hunters of the universities are being prompted to look beyond the general feeder countries of Asia.

It so has happened that the foreign students too are more like their US compatriots, focusing on studies that are work-related. At least half the foreign students are interested in only four fields: engineering, business and management, physical sciences and life sciences, as found by the American Council of Learned Societies.

"I think it is really important that Cornell has a network of alumni who are well-placed in foreign countries who are helping spread the word about Cornell and encouraging other talented students to come to Cornell," said Brendan O'Brien , International Students and Scholars Office Director.

Just about 283,000 students from the U.S went to other nations for education. This results in less than 10% of the U.S college undergrads.