“The trend for the last 10 years has actually been the rise of the dominance of US universities – with the number of institutions with admissions rates below 8% growing dramatically,” explains Beaton, as he outlines how competitive US admissions are for prospective students.
“Schools like NYU, the biggest international recruiter in the US, have gone from a 40% admissions rate down to a 7% admissions rates. Johns Hopkins has gone for 15% to 5%. Duke University has seen double the number applications,” Beaton continues.
The Kiwi entrepreneur has first-hand experience, having himself graduated from Harvard, Standford and Yale in recent years, along with studying at Oxford and King’s in the UK and Tsinghua in China.
Crimson Education, the company he founded as a 17 year old Harvard student is now valued at over USD $1 billion, specialising in supporting families to apply to the world’s most prestigious universities.
Beaton believes that the appeal for US education is linked to curriculum design. While many countries have increasingly opted for degree pathways preparing students for specific industry careers, the US system offers more flexibility.
“People need multifaceted subject experiences” he explains. “18-year-olds don’t know what they want to do and it’s hard to even guess what the jobs will be in 10 years post their graduation.
“Interest in liberal arts is ascending, and I would say the era of the single degree where all classes are one area is relatively declining – it is a structure disadvantage in a world that’s moving fast.”
There is no better example of fast-paced change than US politics, where sweeping changes to legislation are being proposed at break-neck speed.
The US government recently made global headlines by suspending student visa appointments and limiting the powers of institutions like Harvard University – so what are students making of these news headlines and is it impacting US appeal?
“My average family in China or in Korea or in India [applying through Crimson Education] is not blinking” reveals Beaton.
“Basically, they’re really resolute. You can’t just wake up one day and decide to apply to America – you normally have a lot of planning, often for four years before you go. What that means is that you need to be default-preparing if you want to go to the US.
“Often my students will apply to Oxbridge and the US top schools, but the optimal strategy continues to be you build a great US profile and indirectly you’ll build a very good Oxford-UK profile as well.
“If you need to, you can take a gap year from the US and if you still want to graduate in four years, you can do advanced standard, which means you do APs and A-levels and you can finish your degree in three years rather than four – which is what I did.
“That means you’ve got up to 18 months past when you apply if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, a full year plus your gap between applications being submitted and the result, or in the Northern Hemisphere you have 14 months which is plenty of protection [from any political disruption] and even in a really apocalyptic situation like Covid-19 you can still take online courses from Harvard, or begin an exchange semester.
“The number of scenarios where a determined US student has to ‘blink’ is not that high. You can’t be a Canadian-bound applicant who adds Yale the last minute – but you can be a Yale applicant who adds Canada at the last minute.”
The US economy has often been seen as a gold-plated environments for graduates, where they can graduate from top colleges and then progress directly into graduate jobs in finance, tech, medicine or law.
“The US is incredibly resilient,” continues Beaton. “I would say the American dream is alive and well – the problems we’re seeing are a function of the fact that the American dream is not as accessible to everyone.
“President Trump is creating an opportunity for future politicians to ruffle feathers in a way that creates elevated risk for some institutions, but ultimately, I think it’s largely noise, a way of dominating the news-cycle.
“Even if a certain administration was trying to take a wrecking ball through some of these universities, it will be very hard to structurally dislocate how influential and desirable they are on the world stage.
“If you look at this from the media, Harvard is getting bombed out in all directions. Funding cuts, international student bans, it should be reeling. But I was at the graduation there and it was jubilant excitement. There was a sense of consolidation behind the University president and while there are clearly challenges, the core university is incredibly strong and durable.”
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