When Zipeng "Frank" Jiang arrived in the U.S. for the first time, he was a 16-year-old Chinese honors student with big dreams, limited English skills and no idea how to recover the carry-on bag that the flight crew had taken for last-minute check-in.
"It was my carry-on luggage, so all my important stuff was in it: my ID, a bunch of cash, my laptop," said Jiang, who came here to attend boarding school.
"I basically had my backpack and my saxophone with me. The dorm director picked me up, and he's like, 'Where's your stuff?' and I'm like, 'I lost it.' I'm pretty sure I left a bad first impression."
Jiang's next few months at The King's Academy in rural Seymour, Tenn., were similarly stressful, as he battled homesickness, scrambled to get up to speed on idiomatic English and struggled with everything from fast-food refills to classroom etiquette.
But five years later he's a Northwestern senior with a JPMorgan Chase & Co. internship ? and windsurfing lessons ? under his belt, strolling confidently across campus in red suede loafers and greeting classmates with waves, hugs and Facebook references.
"I've never regretted for a second that I came here," he said of Northwestern. "I've really enjoyed it."
Jiang is part of a new generation of Chinese students increasingly looking to America for a college education. Facing a shortage of spots at top universities at home and drawn by the prestige of U.S. schools and the opportunity for international experience, 57,000 Chinese undergraduates attended U.S. colleges in 2011, up from 10,000 in 2007.
"Five or 10 years ago, going abroad was considered what dumb rich kids did, and now it's considered what smart middle-class kids do," said Xueqin Jiang, former director of the international division at Peking University High School. "That's a huge shift right now in China."
The trend appears to be accelerating, Xueqin Jiang said, with Chinese students coming to America to prepare for college while in high school or even middle school.
Chinese students said they initially struggle to connect with classmates who speak rapid-fire idiomatic English, listen to different music, watch different TV shows, follow different sports, remember different childhood games and embrace a teen drinking culture that has no Chinese equivalent. Because Americans have trouble with Chinese tonal pronunciations, many newcomers forgo even their given names, adopting English ones during their time here.
"I do miss my name," said Northwestern sophomore Yuqing He, who is known here as Andrea.
But in a half dozen interviews, Chinese students at Northwestern said they've embraced speaking up in class, landed dream internships and taken advantage of research opportunities they wouldn't have had in the test-based Chinese system. Some live off campus and socialize mainly with other Chinese students, but He, an outgoing economics student from Beijing, is a member of the Chi Omega sorority and Jiang, a competitive hip-hop dancer, practices with the Electric Funketeers dance crew in Chicago.
That kind of adaptability and initiative is typical of the Chinese students who come here, said Peggy Blumenthal, senior counselor to the president at the nonprofit Institute of International Education, which tracks international enrollment at U.S. colleges and universities.
"These are extraordinary kids," she said. "Taking the risk of studying outside the culture has weeded out the ordinary kids. They bring something very special: a willingness to be out there and live a little bit dangerously and experimentally, and they do thrive."
There is a potential for problems, experts say. In the cash-strapped University of California system, some parents have alleged that Chinese students, who are not eligible for financial aid and typically pay full tuition, are being chosen over qualified Americans. And experts acknowledge that schools may see a financial incentive to accept less adventurous and accomplished Chinese students who are ill-equipped for study abroad but can pay full tuition, which can come to more than $30,000 a year at some private schools.
"I think it's a calculation that U.S. universities and colleges are now grappling with: There's a short-term gain, perhaps, in taking students that aren't going to thrive, but a very big long-term risk," said Blumenthal, pointing out that if students have a miserable experience at a particular U.S. school, they will tell their friends and relatives and the school's reputation will plummet.
Northwestern has one of the largest and most established Chinese undergraduate populations in the Chicago area, with about 132 undergraduates from China attending, according to data supplied by the university. The University of Chicago has 101 undergraduates from China, up from 38 in the fall of 2007, according to the university. The University of Illinois at Chicago had 18 Chinese undergraduates last year, up from 11 in 2002, according to a representative.
The growth has been especially explosive at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign which has 2,112 undergraduates from China, up from 93 in the fall of 2007, according to the university.
This year Northwestern had 55 entering freshmen from China, up from 21 in the fall of 2008, according to associate provost Mike Mills. The school's Chinese students are doing very well academically, and are well represented among the top 12 percent of their classes, Mills said via email.
Many Chinese students hope to work in the U.S. for two or three years after college before returning to China, according to Xuezhou "Jodie" Zong, vice president of the Chinese International Student Association at Northwestern.
Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-met-chinese-students-20121119,0,7881599.story?track=rss
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