Myths About Studying Abroad

The Myth: Admission abroad is really difficult

One of the biggest misconception that students have about admissions to universities abroad is that it is a very difficult process. Let us put things in clear perspective on why and how this idea is not true

We will be starting a section in our blog, English Planet, about studying abroad in different countries, but before we go into it, let us address one of the major myths that students have. They think that applying to universities abroad is a difficult process and sort of a competition and getting admission into the top universities is the only way to do it as one of these universities will give you a bright future.

If you want to know the honest answer to this, this idea is mistaken and misguided. Why do we believe the process has to be difficult? Why do we think that the options of colleges and universities are limited? The answer to these questions is simply because that is what we hear all the time. When you look at the mainstream media outlets like news articles, movies, and the internet, everywhere we are told that admission abroad is difficult and only a few top colleges are mentioned like Yale, Harvard, Oxford, etc.  

The Truth

The mainstream media is known to give attention and make only a few colleges/universities popular, just like they do with celebrities. The focus is always on the best schools, but these best schools accept only a small fraction of their applicants. Media creates the narrative, but it is the society that reinforces this narrative. It could be our parents or friends. Getting their kids admission to only the top Indian universities like IITs, IIMs, ISB has been known to be a sort of obsession with Indian parents. This pursuit of collecting brand names continues even while considering universities outside of India.   

The top League colleges and other universities which rank high on “top colleges” form only just 1% of the universities abroad. This means we have been programmed to ignore the rest of 99% of colleges. These universities are considered highly selective and the acceptance rate is less than 20%.

Next are universities featuring in the top 200 rankings. They accept between 25% and 50% of the applicants. They all form hardly 5% of the universities abroad. What do these figures mean? That more than 90% of colleges and universities accept half or more than half of the students that apply there.

Follow this blog by clicking on the follow button to be the first to be notified whenever we post