At my undergraduate institution, speech pathology and audiology constitute one department. My major classes have around 80 students total. Of those students 3 or 4 are audiology, the rest are speech pathology. Rarely do you find a male in any undergraduate audiology/speech pathology class. Now, the graduate school accepted 8 Au.D students; 6 male 2 female and the speech department accepted 20 or so females and 1 male...not to mention all of the foreign "exchange" (although I never hear of any American students exchanging to China to study) students accepted. In addition, according to a study by the University of Texas, foreign students have a distinct advantage getting into Audiology programs. According to their data a recommended score of 550 on the TOEFL would put you in the 39th percentile. While English speaking students have to take the GRE and score 500 verbal and 500 quantitative which is the 70th percentile. So, a foreign student has to do about half as well as an American student. With the current emphasis on diversity in universities, should highly qualified applicants be bypassed just for the sake of diversity and or gender?
I'm a little confused..... Is your argument about non-English international students getting into programs, or admitting under-/ non-qualified students for the sake of diversity??
I'm going to try to address the international student aspect....
As complex as the English language is (and considered one of the hardest languages to learn), we've developed its syntax, semantics, morphology etc., etc fluently and effectively (oral & written) at a young age. The same goes for any native learner of their language.
So what's wrong with learning approx. 50% of English?? It's functional for our society! As the student matriculates, they will pick up the fine details of English. By the end of the program, they'll probably master 70% of English. Academically, they also have to take the same comprehensive exam/thesis/dissertation we take at the end of their program and pass! At that point, no professor will allow 50% of correctly written/oral English.
Maybe this student will be going back to his/her country to practice audiology, in which learning and/ or mastering the English language is not a necessity.
Aside from English, international students need to be competent in other fields (science, math) to be admitted into a program, and they, excuse my English, "blow us (Americans) out the water" re: math & science skills, and sometimes our own English!
I look at it this way, students are admitted because a committee felt they were qualified enough to complete an advanced degree. They are admitted b/c they were meant to be there and not b/c of a quota!
