Record number of international students at UW-Superior

By Nicolette Helling & photojournalist Jeff Ernewein, FOX 21 News

SUPERIOR - You might be surprised to know that 8 percent of the University of Wisconsin–Superior's total undergraduate population is made up of international students.

In fact, for the past two years, UWS has set school records for the number of incoming students from foreign countries.

Something is bringing international students to UWS... and it's not the warm winters.

"Maybe Brazil is a little hotter than this in the winter," said Leo Guerson, an international student at UWS.

At a welcome picnic on park point, international students like Guerson played soccer and bocce ball, and even got to go sailing.

Guerson is coming back for his second year at UWS and says his strangest experience to date was when classes were canceled because of the cold.

"That was definitely the strangest thing for me. In Brazil i never even owned a jacket," said Guerson. "It was different."

So if it's not the lengthy, white winters, what is bringing a record 58 new international students to the Wisconsin school?

"They had a really strong international office, like, really good support. So I felt confident and came," Guerson said.

"The universities there were really expensive and they don't have that much benefits for the international student," said Anup Acharya.

Acharya is from Nepal and was studying in California for the past two years, but transferred to UWS because it was cheaper.

He also agrees with Guerson – UWS' International Admissions Office made the decision to come to Wisconsin, easy.

"He was like, really good. He helped me out," said Acharya.

Acharya is talking about International Admissions Coordinator Mark MacLean.

"We've gone from two Chinese students in fall of 2007 to over 50 this year," said MacLean.

MacLean is proud to report there are a total of 163 international students at UWS this year, from more than 30 countries.

And he says the university is happy to have them.

"They add a lot to our campus," said MacLean. "We have smalls classes, a lot of discussion based classes, so having students who are gonna contribute to those discussions, bring different perspectives, that's really important."

MacLean says that just a few years ago things didn't look so good for UWS' International Admissions Office.

They had limited staff, limited financial aid, and their english–as–a–second–language program had just been cut.

But all that changed when the university decided to dedicate more money to recruitment and clearly, it's paid off.

"Additional staff... We've offered some more waivers of the non–residential portion of tuition and we're doing more recruiting travel as well. I've probably visited seven countries in the last year and a half," MacLean said.

UWS' retention rate for international students is also up.

Ninety percent of new freshman from last year have returned to continue their studies.

"We're pretty pleased with that retention rate," MacLean said.

Anup will be among the students experiencing Wisconsin winter for the first time and says he's stocked up on good boots and a warm jacket.

"Many people have tried to scare me but this time I'll take it as adventure," Acharya said. "It's going to be a new experience."

Twenty-one of the new incoming international students are from China.

Admissions staff say the majority of foreign students at UWS come from China, Canada, South Korea, Nepal and Nigeria.