Why Harvard is easier to crack than IITs or IIMs for Indian students

U.S. President Donald Trump has halted funding to universities it disagrees with ideologically and temporarily suspended visa interviews required for foreign students planning to enroll this year.

This move directly impacts Indian students, who make up nearly one-third of all international students in the United States, as per The Economist report.

India has been losing academic talent to America for decades. At the famed Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), over 60% of the top 100 performers migrate abroad, mostly for America.

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The Economist report says that Trump’s policies might cause Indian students’ applications to American universities to plummet by a quarter from this year to the next.

Easier to get into Harvard

India is home to half the world’s university-age population. On paper, India’s top universities have a lot to offer. But getting into them is much harder—some accept as few as 0.2% of applicants, compared to 3–9% for Ivy League schools like Harvard, as per The Economist.

Meanwhile, after Trump’s stark steps, many parents who had been set on sending their children to the US are rethinking their plans.

ALSO READ: Harvard vs Trump: As fresh salvos are fired, international students live in anxiety and fear

Looking for options

Indian students primarily went to the US to study STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering and maths – and so the focus had shifted to other countries strong in these areas, Piyush Bhartiya, a co-founder of the educational technology company AdmitKard told the Guardian.

“Germany is the main country where students are shifting to for Stem subjects,” he said. “Other countries like Ireland, France, the Netherlands, which are also gaining substantial interest in the students. At the undergraduate level, the Middle East has also seen a lot of gain in interest given parents feel that it is close by and safer and given the current political environment they may want their kids closer to the home.”

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What is happening at Harvard?

Harvard University has sued the Trump administration to preserve its ability to enroll international students and restore draconian cuts in research money, two matters that threaten the core functions of the centuries-old institution.

The same federal judge in Massachusetts, Allison Burroughs, an appointee of President Barack Obama, is presiding over both cases. She has often sided with Harvard, including on Thursday when she issued a temporary restraining order against the administration's latest move to bar international students.

On both fronts, the Trump administration has said that it is punishing Harvard because it has failed to keep Jewish students safe by allowing antisemitism to flourish. It has added on to these accusations as the court fights have drawn on, saying that the university has used racial preferences in admissions in defiance of a Supreme Court ruling and that it has broken rules related to foreign gifts.

Harvard has denied the accusations. It says the administration is ignoring its efforts to protect the civil rights of its Jewish students, for example. And Harvard has argued that the federal government has violated its First Amendment rights and has ignored due process as it pursues its vendetta against the university.