A message from the Vice-Principal Students
A message to our global community of students from Colm Harmon, Vice-Principal Students.
People often ask me what the best things are about the University of Edinburgh. It’s quite a long list, but high up on it would be our vibrant internationalism.
The diversity and cultural knowledge that our international students bring to the University allows us to travel the world all while staying put in one city, enriching the learning experience for everyone in our community.
While they’re with us, international students also make significant contributions to University life, as well as the wider city and community.
Take, for example, recent graduate Julian Mashingaidze, who joined us from Zimbabwe. While studying with us Julian worked on the Planetary Health Meal Plan – a month-long collection of recipes created to be affordable and easy to follow, yet nutritious and environmentally sustainable. During his time in Edinburgh, Julian also volunteered with the charity Just Love to promote social justice amongst students in our local community.
I’m also inspired by Taylor Goldman and Nicole Medina, vet students from the United States, two of our many international students who volunteer with All4Paws. This student-led outreach project provides support and advice to homeless people with animals in Edinburgh. They work closely with hostels accepting companion animals in Edinburgh, and with other support organisations.
The list of contributions that our international students have made on a local and global scale is vast. But they begin in the classroom, the café with friends, the School office talking with our advisors, the academic engagement with teachers. Fundamentally, this starts with choosing to be with us in our University of Edinburgh community.
For all these reasons – and many more – it makes me sad to see a growing narrative that risks creating an artificial wedge between our international students and those joining us from closer to home, and perhaps even more critically, the community of the city. These claims are largely founded on misinterpretation of data resulting in misleading headlines.
We’re incredibly lucky that our students choose to come to us. Entry to the University of Edinburgh is highly competitive and we attract some of the brightest and best minds in the world. I want to be absolutely clear that the number of places we offer to international students has no bearing on the number of places available to students from Scotland or the rest of the UK, and that our offers are made no less stringently depending on where you are applying from. Put another way, no applicant to Edinburgh is without talent, and all accepted students at Edinburgh are the best of the best – academically excellent, diverse, interesting, exciting and thoughtful.
You’re here because you deserve to be, as every student at Edinburgh is. There is no preferential treatment for international students as some of the headlines and commentary have suggested. The only thing that matters is you and your talent to thrive. The decisions we make are solely based on your desire to be here, your background and ability, and the enrichment that you can bring to us and we can bring to you. That’s how it should be – for you, and for every student regardless of where you come from.
There are also claims about us making more offers to international students than other student groups. Put simply, we make more offers than we have places regardless of where you are from because not all students will accept our offer and even when they do, not all students will matriculate at the start of their degree programme. This is particularly so for international students, who may be holding multiple offers from universities across the world. This is not unique to Edinburgh as a way to manage our student recruitment efforts. It also reflects the professionalism of our admissions teams, who know applicants, know how they respond and react, and are able to balance our needs as an institution with the needs of prospective students.
The one thing the commentary has been correct about, but not with the right intentions, perhaps, is that financially the international student cohort is essential to the university sector. Your fees do contribute to our ability to support ALL students and our groundbreaking research because the current higher education funding model does not reflect the realistic full costs of both. We would be a very much smaller institution, with a very different reputation for our research and scholarship, and breadth of offer, without this income
When I walk out of my office in Old College onto the street, I see not just the bustle of the street, but the languages and cultures all around me – in the people walking along, in the restaurants and food markets. You are citizens of an amazing city and an institution born of that city to enrich the world. That is part of the Edinburgh ‘DNA’ as we turn ourselves towards half a millennium of life and contribution built around a scholarly community which is one without barriers, built around commitment and talent.
So, I say to our international students, on behalf of the University, thank you for choosing to be here. Thank you for bringing the world to our doorstep. You enrich our community, and help to make the University the prominent global presence that it is. The contributions that you all make on a daily basis not only make our University a better place, but society as a whole. Whatever noise you hear or read that suggests something to the contrary, it is at odds with our beliefs and our mission. You are welcome here.
Professor Colm Harmon
Vice-Principal Students