BW Online | December 6, 2001 | Foreign MBA Students Beware

DECEMBER 6, 2001

B-SCHOOL NEWS

Foreign MBA Students Beware
Even if you're admitted to a U.S. B-school, getting a visa these days is no snap, especially for those from certain countries

STORY TOOLS

Shortly after September 11, Pamela Black-Colton, assistant dean for MBA admissions at the University of Rochester's Simon School of Business, began receiving e-mail from applicants who live outside the U.S. Rather than ask the usual question -- whether they had a chance of being admitted -- they wanted to know something more basic: should they even bother? If they were admitted to the school and decided to enroll, they wondered, would they "get a [student] visa?" Black-Colton says she still gets such queries at least twice a day, and three months after the attacks, she's still not convinced they all will.

Had applicants asked before September 11, the answer would have been simple: Unless a prospective student messed up the paperwork, the State Dept. would grant a student visa through the local U.S. embassy anytime from a few hours to as long as three weeks later. Now the answer is less clear-cut. "There's so much legislation pending that we have no idea what will happen," says Robin Catmur, adviser to international students and scholars at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H.

CLOSE WATCH. Since mid-September, business schools have been watching Washington closely to determine if their foreign students will face problems when they apply for visas in 2002. Since it became known that at least one of the terrorist hijackers was in the U.S. on a student visa, much attention has been paid to how easy the visas are to obtain (see BW Online, 10/12/01, "Student Visas Aren't Making the Grade"). On Nov. 30, four senators -- Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) -- reintroduced the Enhanced Border Security Act and the Visa Entry Reform Act of 2001 as a single bill, which proposes to tighten the guidelines for admitting international students.

The bill has yet to be voted on or even sent to a committee, and its endorsers aren't sure if the legislation will be discussed on the floor before the Senate goes on recess in mid-December. If enacted, the law would prohibit visas from being "issued to any alien from a country that is a state sponsor of international terrorism unless it has been determined that such alien does not pose a threat to the safety or national security of the United States according to standards developed by the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Attorney General, and applicable to nationals of such states."

It would take a student who lives in one of those countries -- Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria -- more time and more effort to get into the U.S. The bill also would establish "terrorist lookout committees" at each U.S. mission abroad and would require that academic institutions report to the Immigration & Naturalization Service if a student fails to register for or attend classes.

TENSIONS WITH CHINA. Even if Congress doesn't approve the bill, B-schools have reason to wonder if it will be harder for students to come to the U.S. in the wake of the terrorist attacks. Tensions mounted between China and the U.S. after an American reconnaissance plane crash-landed in Hainan in March. While there was no official policy stating that fewer student visas should be awarded to Chinese applicants, several B-schools report they had to deal with Chinese students who were denied visas, something that rarely happened before the incident. "We had one student who ultimately didn't get his visa," says Rose Martinelli, director of MBA admissions and financial aid at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. "We deferred him, and he'll enroll in 2002," she says, optimistic that he'll get his visa next year.

In late September, Ira Weiss, dean of Northeastern University's School of Business Administration in Boston, learned that two of his MBA students -- from Lebanon and Saudi Arabia -- couldn't obtain student visas. Dartmouth is advising students from at least 20 countries that they should anticipate delays when they apply for visas. In addition to those nations on the Terrorist Countries List, others include Afghanistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

The irony is, this is happening at a time when more international students are studying for MBAs on American soil. Among the reasons U.S. schools encourage noncitizens to apply is the desire to infuse their classes with global business perspectives. At BusinessWeek's top 30 U.S. B-schools, non-U.S. students account for 34.3% of the average MBA class, up two percentage points from 2000. Rochester's B-school has the highest share of international students this year: 52%. "The global perspective is something we actively seek," says Rochester's Black-Colton. Yale University's B-school says 43% of the class of 2003 is from abroad, and Wharton and Maryland each report 42%.

COOPERATION. In the wake of September 11, schools are vowing to help the INS be more vigilant. Northeastern's Weiss says each fall at least five international students don't show up for classes, and he can't always explain why. Also, "some people come for the first week of classes, and then leave. We don't know where they go," he says.

He'd like to see a greater partnership between the INS and universities so that his classrooms can remain as global and diverse as possible. Many schools report that the INS requests information about their students only infrequently, but they add that when it does send them a form to complete, they do so.

INS spokesperson Eyleen Schmidt says until now, "schools were required to keep information [about their international students] but not required to report to the INS actively. Rather [the schools had] to respond to [INS] requests." And those rarely came, she concedes. No law says so, but universities and the INS did come to an agreement in mid-October that the schools will contact the INS if a student doesn't report to classes. The INS hasn't determined how the schools will file such notices. "We're trying to nail down exactly how that would work," says Schmidt.

To keep up the flow of foreign students, many B-schools are taking a more aggressive role in helping them obtain visas. At the University of California, Los Angeles' Anderson School of Business, Linda Baldwin, director of MBA admissions, has altered some deadlines so they can get visa documentation earlier. "A few more international students will be admitted earlier, and the deadlines for deposits [toward tuition] will be pushed forward for international students to the end of February [from Apr. 18] so that there's enough time to take care of problems before people have to be here," she explains.

TRACKING SYSTEM. While all this is getting sorted out, international applicants are advised to apply as early as possible. "Last-minute [visa] forms won't get you to Hanover [N.H.] in one week," says Dartmouth's Catmur. Once students are accepted, have enrolled, and can prove they have adequate funding, the B-school will send them an I-20 form that confirms their status as a new student at the university.

That's the point at which visa applicants from Middle Eastern and other countries can expect extra legwork, such as having to submit to additional interviews at foreign embassies or consulates. Foreign applicants can also anticipate that they'll be charged a $95 fee to help cover the expenses of a new tracking system that will help embassies share information and monitor students not only during the application process but while they're in the U.S. The INS expects to have this in place in 2003.

Schools won't know how disruptive the new rules -- or even greater scrutiny, if no law is enacted -- will be until sometime next year. "It may take additional work in the spring to make sure these people get their visas," says Wharton's Martinelli. "I completely agree that we need a much more rigorous method of tracking student visas, but if the U.S. government overturns my admit decisions by denying a visa, that would upset me."

Surely, it would also upset many MBA hopefuls as well.

By Mica Schneider in New York

Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds. XML

Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed.

Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video.

To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here.

Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page