>This is good policy. Chinese students in particular seem to have terrible english language skills. An American with the same communication skills would never be admitted to a flagship university for undergrad, let alone grad school.

Surely there are better ways of dealing with this than banning an entire country? A standardized English test doesn't seem too hard to administer, for instance, and would have the benefit of being applicable to other countries.

>I'm not sure how these Chinese students are gaming the system to get admitted, but I'm glad someone is finally doing something about it.

So you're not even sure what the problem is, but you're okay with banning it? That dumber than banning them because they might be CCP spies or whatever. At least that vaguely makes sense and there are isn't really a mitigation (there's no standardized tests for non-CCP spies, for instance).

What about this policy has anything to do with English language skills? And how is this “good policy” if it penalizes important next-generation researchers even when they speak English well? I am not denying your observation re: English language skills among Chinese graduate students—it’s just unclear what this solves that checking for English language skills during the live video interview stage does not.

If you have grievances with some foreign students having terrible English language skills, regardless of how well it generalizes to the student's country, why would you complain about those students? Wouldn't you rather complain about how badly standardized tests like TOEFL are at evaluating admitted students? Or complain about how universities don't set the standard high enough? Foreign students need a good enough score on a standardized English test to study in US universities. Overall this is a confusing comment.

Those chinese also have better science and math scores. Acting like english is some super barrier is absurd jiongoism.

No buts.

The article says nothing about English language skills. It says:

'University officials have described the unwritten policy as a prudent response to the current uncertainty facing Chinese and other foreign students when they apply for visas to study in the United States. “They are telling us that these foreign students may not show up if we offer them a position,” the faculty member says. “And that could jeopardize our research.”'

My wife teachers in universities in London, and the issue of Chinese students turning up with little or no English is real, often having paid for someone else to take the required English language tests for them. She has had students write their essays in Chinese and then just copied and pasted from Google Translate, generating utterly unintelligible dross. But that is definitively not the explanation here - this is all Chinese students, proficient in English or not.

> gaming the system to get admitted

Probably money. Foreign students will almost always pay sticker price.

>Chinese students in particular seem to have terrible english language skills.

English, not english.