The annual Institute of International Education Open Doors report ranked UCLA seventh in the nation last week for number of foreign students enrolled.
UCLA had 5,557 international students enrolled during the 2007-2008 academic year, an increase of 18 percent from the previous year, according to a university statement.
The largest number of students came from India, China, South Korea and Japan, according to the statement.
“We are very pleased to be highly ranked among higher education institutions in the U.S. It shows the leadership role that UCLA plays in this area,” said Bob Ericksen, director of the UCLA Dashew Center for International Students and Scholars.
UCLA’s reputation as a top, highly competitive, world-class university is one of the main reasons international students are attracted to UCLA, Ericksen said.
Another factor is UCLA’s location on the Pacific Rim, which is particularly attractive to Latin American and Asian students, he added.
UCLA also offers several special programs to assist international students and cohesive orientation programs are held when new students arrive.
Culture, leadership and community involvement programs are also available for the duration of the foreign students stay, Ericksen said. English conversation programs are offered to help students feel more comfortable with English if they do not speak the language.
The study also ranked the campus 11th in the U.S. for the number of students who have traveled abroad.
Nearly 1,600 students earned credit abroad during the 2006-2007 academic year because UCLA offers short-term Travel Study and the University of California Education Abroad Program, according to the statement. The largest numbers of students studied in France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain and China. Such a high number of students studying abroad is a testament of UCLA’s visibility not only in California and the United States, but around the globe, said Sergio Broderick-Villa, UCLA International Education Office travel study manager.
“Most people these days know that any good university education will have a global component to it, which means students not only understand their place locally in California, but globally as well,” he said. “And one way of doing that is leaving and studying globally,”
He said UCLA is an institution that strongly encourages all students to study abroad, and the International Education Office has a variety of resources available to assist students in finding the right program for them.