介绍:
Anchor:
Chinese students have long had a strong presence in American university campuses, looking for better opportunities outside of China.
And now, with almost a third of international students in the United States coming from China, growing numbers of teenagers from wealthy Chinese families are getting a head start on the competition by starting high school in the U.S. Liu Min has the story.
Reporter:
With more than 333,000 of its students in U.S. colleges and graduate schools, China has long been the top supplier of international students in America.
Now Chinese high school students are following suit in astonishing fashion: Last fall, the U.S. issued nearly 31,900 F-1 student visas to Chinese youth planning to attend American high schools, up from just less than 650 in 2005.
Xu Yi is the CEO of Focus Education, a Beijing firm specializing in training Chinese students to study in the U.S.. He sees growing demand in China for a U.S. high school education:
(act. Chinese student 1, male, English)
"More and more people are going to the United States for high school. So those students are leaving home at the age of thirteen or fourteen, and they spend four years in America for high school. Then they migrate on to college for another four years. A lot of them might even do a Ph.D. or masters after this. That's a big trend for us."
Some of the high schoolers want to escape the extra pressure at home, where students often study late into the night with little opportunity for extracurricular activities.
Others, like 18-year-old Dan Xu who is studying for the SAT test to enter a U.S. college, believe studying in the U.S. will help them snag coveted spots at more prestigious American colleges.
(act. Chinese student 2, male, English)
"The whole reason why I went to U.S. for high school is because I want to go to a better college."
Chinese education puts emphasis on discipline and memorizing texts, and Chinese students find the education in the United States more flexible, where they can study the subjects that really interest them.
Aurora Guo is one such student. She is only 16, but has been studying at an elite private boarding school in Philadelphia for two years.
(act. Chinese student 3, female, English)
"I'm in Philly, the Baldwin School. And, yeah, I like the US, because I can learn more over there than just studying and preparing for tests in China."
According to the U.S. State Department of Homeland Security, China is the biggest source of international students. It also has overtaken South Korea as the number one origin country of students coming to U.S. high schools.
Though international surveys have shown that Chinese students perform well ahead of their American peers in subjects such as maths and reading, top-level U.S. schools remain highly regarded among educated Chinese for developing critical thinking and communication skills.
18-year-old Eric Xu from Beijing spent part of his highschool in the United States as an exchange student, and decided then that he would not spend the rest of his high school years preparing for the arduous, yet all-important, Chinese college entrance exams.
Instead, he got a place to study at the prestigious Columbia University in New York where he is about to start classes.
He says is looking forward to that:
(act. Chinese student 4, male, English)
"In the U.S. they emphasise in class discussions, and your opinion, and the capacity to debate with others, such as professor or teacher, and that is an atmosphere I want to experience."
Young Chinese like Eric with US college degrees can usually expect broader career prospects, as China's economy diversifies, creating more internationally focused, high-skilled professions.
And that means more opportunities for China's foreign-educated youth.
I'm Liu Min.
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