International students on the rise at College of Wooster

The College of Wooster has taken another significant step in becoming a “truly global campus,” said Reon Sines-Sheaff, fourth-year director of international admissions.

The college has a record-setting incoming class of international students for the third year in a row as it will welcome 110 international students to the Class of 2022, bettering last year’s record of 91, a group comprising almost 20 percent of the total first-year class of 570 students.

Those 110 enrollees started from 1,600 international applicants, another record, a 40-percent increase over last year, which followed a 31-percent jump from the previous year.

“I am grateful to be part of such a vibrant, flourishing and international community of learners and grateful to all those who choose to come to Wooster from around the world. Our diversity of national origins and cultural perspectives is one of our greatest strengths,” Wooster President Sarah Bolton said.

These back-to-back-to-back record-setting international classes fly in the face of what many U.S. college and university admissions offices are encountering. According to a survey of nearly 500 U.S. institutions by the Institute of International Education, the number of newly arriving international students declined an average of 7 percent in fall 2017, and higher-ed experts expect an even greater drop when fall 2018 numbers become available.