Moving from elite international schools to elite(ish) universities: the pathway leading to Toronto rather than Harvard

ABSTRACT

The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) celebrates its 60th Anniversary in 2022 as an international mobility “passport”, offering potential entry to universities around the world. Globally, 3,600 schools in July 2022 offer the IBDP. Within these, there is a sub-grouping of well-established private “elite traditional international schools” (ETISs), epitomised by the International Schools of Geneva and Yokohama. Using matriculation data mined from the websites of individual ETISs, this paper reveals the major university destinations. The emergent dominance of relatively few destinations (five in particular), mainly in Canada and England, offers an interesting avenue for research inquiry. Conversely, the relatively low entry level of ETIS graduates into the world’s most prestigious universities, such as the Oxbridge pairing, can be compared. A seemingly “natural pathway” to Toronto rather than Harvard has emerged and warrants much further discussion and investigation.

KEYWORDS:

• International school
• International Baccalaureate
• university

Introduction

The summer of 2022 is the 60th anniversary of the development of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (Tarc 2009). The IBDP is offered by 3,600 schools (in July 2022), of which almost 1,000 are based in the United States, and 23% are public schools. Of the dominant body of private schools authorised to deliver the IBDP, a sub-grouping of about 700 institutions are accredited by the Council of International Schools (CoIS) and might be termed “elite traditional international schools” (ETISs). This body of well-established K-12 schools teaching the globally mobile expatriate community in English largely outside an English-speaking nation (Bagnall 1997), epitomised by the 1924-established International Schools of Geneva, and Yokohama, are “notable for their global orientation in terms of student and staff, curricula offered (i.e. the IBDP), and the destinations of graduates for university studies” (Lee and Wright 2016, 121). My paper will report on the situation regarding the university destination of graduates from the ETIS using matriculation data mined from individual school websites.

One of the key architects of the IBDP in 1962, Alec Peterson at Atlantic College in South Wales, had described in 1983 how the (then) 150 (mainly ETISs) had sent 19,000 students since 1970 to 400 universities, “from Harvard to Heidelberg and Berkely to Budapest” (Peterson 1983, 15). This statement indicates that the IBDP in its early years acted as intended as a substantial global curricula “passport”, providing entry to prestigious universities (such as Harvard) everywhere. One noted researcher on the IB’s history (Hill 2006, 101) has remarked upon how from the very beginning “the new program had to satisfy the most stringent university entry requirements so that it would become a recognised passport to higher education, thus facilitating international mobility”.

The IBDP does facilitate international mobility, for example, the graduates from the American International School in Vienna between 2017 and 2021 received offers from 379 universities in 21 nations, whilst the graduates had subsequently entered 145 different universities in those 21 nations. It appears quite normal for graduates of the ETIS to enter, over a time-period of 2 to 5 years, more than 140 different universities, in more than a dozen nations. The graduates from the International School of Kuala Lumpur between 2020 and 2021 entered 154 universities in 20 nations, whilst those from the International School of Amsterdam between 2017 and 2021 entered 159 universities in 15 nations. The graduates from Western Academy of Beijing between 2018 and 2021 entered an even higher number of destinations, 192 universities in 21 nations. In all three cases, we can see graduates entering university in nations overseas such as Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, Sweden and The Netherlands, and especially so in Canada, England and the United States.

Those latter three ETISs had sent their graduates in recent years to an average of 169 universities. By contrast, the graduates from King’s College Wimbledon (a member of England’s prestigious “Eton Group” and offering the IBDP) between 2015 and 2021 entered 77 universities in three nations (Canada, UK and USA). Further, half from that school in London entered just five universities in England, showing a very strong clustering of localised destinations.

However, despite the entry to a large number of universities in numerous nations worldwide, we can see from a closer look at the matriculation data that many graduates from ETISs move together along the same university pathway. In other words, they are not evenly spread out among the numerous destinations but are clustered together. Although we will see later in this paper that the proportions are (currently) much smaller than that found in King’s College Wimbledon, there is a relatively large proportion of clustering taking place in a small grouping of university destinations and a “Big 5” emerges. Moreover, this pathway does not usually involve the most prestigious destinations, such as Harvard and Berkley, and involves instead a clustering on campuses in cities such as London, New York, Toronto and Vancouver, although Boston, Edinburgh and Exeter also feature highly. The nature and potential implications and outcomes of this clustering phenomenon by the graduates of the ETIS require much further discussion and investigation.

The emergence of a distinct pathway

My paper will directly build upon the assertion, based on a study of IBDP alumni at ETISs in Hong Kong, that there is “an elite circuit of international student mobility as students move from elite schools to world-class universities abroad” (Wright and Lee 2019, 682). The study of 1,612 graduates from the “Class of 2012” in 14 ETISs had revealed that they “function as a channel for international student mobility to leading universities around the world” (Lee and Wright 2016, 120). Note the words “world-class” and “leading” here, as this forms the basis for examining the extent to which graduates enter the most prestigious institutions, such as Harvard.

Using matriculation data, I can reveal that a relatively small “circuit” of “leading universities” does exist in 2022. Further, I will also reveal in my paper, for the first time, the extent to which the graduates from ETISs globally enter the most prestigious universities in the world, such as Oxford and Cambridge (dubbed “Oxbridge”), and Harvard (plus the other seven universities that are identified as the “top 10” in TTHEWR 2022: these being Berkeley, California Institute of Technology, Chicago, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Yale).

To provide an immediate example, consider the fact that the 589 graduates from the 1957-established Bangkok Patana School between 2019 and 2020 entered 113 universities. The major destination (King's College London: KCL) accounted for 5.4%. The second major destination (University College of London: UCL) accounted for a further 4.9%, meaning the two London destinations accounted for 10.3% of all the graduates. This “London bias”, involving KCL and UCL, can be seen elsewhere among the ETISs and has recently been noticed, in the context of a school in Lisbon (Schippling and Abrantes 2022).

The six biggest destinations from that school in Bangkok are all in the UK (namely, in rank order: KCL, UCL, Bath, Manchester, Edinburgh and Warwick), accounting for 27.6% of all graduates. The other two major destinations are in Canada (University of British Columbia: UBC, and the University of Toronto), and they accounted for a further 7.5% of all the graduates. In other words, 35% of all the graduates between 2019 and 2020 had entered just eight universities (whilst 65% had entered the other 105 universities), revealing a distinct clustering pattern.

Conversely, the world’s “Top 10” universities received just 1.8% of all the graduates from the Bangkok school (one student entered Harvard, and four went to Oxbridge). As a comparison, take the example of two members of England’s prestigious “Eton Group”. Dulwich College’s “Class of 2021” entered 58 universities, of which 72% are in the United Kingdom. A total of 12.7% of all graduates entered Oxbridge, whilst the biggest grouping entered the University of Durham. At Westminster School, the “Class of 2021” entered a relatively tight grouping of 38 universities, and the two biggest blocs of students entered Oxbridge, which together accounted for 43% of all the graduates. We can see a similar trend among less prestigious private schools in England; for example, the “Class of 2020” from The Manchester Grammar School sent 18% of its graduates to Oxbridge, whilst the biggest bloc (15%) went, like Dulwich, to Durham.

The university destination landscape

The emergence of a “Big 5”

We can identify the clustering trend of the ETIS as being at least 5 years old. A report in 2018 about matriculation destination from ETISs gave us a first glimpse of a relatively new phenomenon. ISC Research’s 2018 Pathway from International School to University report had collected data from 132 schools and revealed UBC in Vancouver to be the number one destination, followed by Toronto. Those two were followed by UCL and KCL. In fifth place was NYU. This finding supported the report that 70% of undergraduates at UBC emerge from ETISs (Keeling 2015).

A second report validated the 2018 findings. ISC Research’s 2020 Higher Education Report had revealed the major destinations of students in 2019 from 126 international schools, including eleven in China, eight in India and six in Vietnam. The report showed the same five destinations, in the same order, representing a global ”Big 5”.

These two reports were the stimulus behind a study (Bunnell, Donnelly, and Lauder 2021a) of seven ETISs. Using matriculation data mined from the schools’ websites (which showed that most schools list the universities that graduates attend but do not reveal the number, or proportions, of students who enter each university), it was shown that the ETIS sends graduates to an average of well over 100 institutions worldwide each year. In fact, one school in mainland China in that study had sent graduates to 208 different universities in 5 years, showing that the IBDP at an ETIS does offer a truly “international” pathway to university. Despite this globalised pathway, 11.3% of all graduates from the seven ETISs had entered the “Big 5”, as recognised by the aforementioned ISC Research reports. In other words, a definite clustering phenomenon was being observed. However, the ranking in that study was slightly different, with NYU coming in first place, and UBC second. A second study (Bunnell, Donnelly, and Lauder 2021b) using yet more matriculation data mined from the websites of individual ETISs, and a bigger proportion of schools in Asia, had revealed a slightly higher figure for the “Big 5”, of 15%.

The dominance of the “Big 5”

The “Big 5” are key destinations for graduates in many ETISs. For example, between 2018 and 2021, the biggest bloc of graduates of Western Academy of Beijing (WAB) entered Toronto, followed by UBC, and then NYU. The biggest bloc of the “Class of 2021” from Hong Kong’s Chinese went to Toronto, and 21% of the cohort in 2021 entered the “Big 5”, a much higher proportion than the figures of 11–15% that was revealed by the previous studies. Between 2020 and 2021, the Renaissance College in Hong Kong sent its biggest bloc of graduates (outside of Hong Kong) to UBC and Toronto. Together, those two destinations accounted for 15% of all graduates. A further 11% entered UCL, KCL and NYU, meaning that 36% overall entered the “Big 5”. Overall, the ETIS in Asia does seem to send a bigger proportion of its graduates to the “Big 5”, which warrants further investigation.

The biggest grouping of graduates between 2019 and 2021 from the International School of Geneva went to Exeter (5.4% of all graduates) showing that there are often anomalies in terms of the biggest destination. However, a further 8.5% went from Geneva to either KCL or UCL, and 6% entered a university in Canada, of which 3% went to the University of Toronto. The biggest grouping who entered the United States went to New York University (2% of all graduates). In other words, almost 20% of the graduates entered just five universities.

The appeal of two Canadian universities

The appeal of two Canadian universities in particular is now becoming very clear from matriculation data. Two-thirds (68%) of Western Academy of Beijing’s graduates who entered a university in Canada between 2018 and 2021 went to either Toronto or UBC. The biggest bloc of graduates from Yokohama International School, between 2018 and 2021 went to Toronto, followed by UBC. The 1894-established King George V School in Hong Kong, between 2017 and 2021 sent the biggest bloc of graduates to Toronto, followed by UBC, and Exeter. Even when graduates are choosing among many universities in Canada, the “big 2” is still apparent; for example, Bangkok Patana School sent 102 graduates to 20 universities in Canada between 2018 and 2019, and 40% entered either UBC or Toronto. This seems to support the findings by Fitzgerald and Waks (2015), and Fitzgerald (2017) that Canadian universities are increasingly attracted towards IBDP graduates.

The University of Toronto in particular shows up in matriculation data as a dominant destination. Of the “Class of 2020” from the International School of Paris, 14% entered Toronto. Between 2018 and 2021, the biggest grouping of graduates (5.7%) from the Washington International School entered Toronto. The biggest grouping of the graduates in 2020 from the International School of Paris went to Toronto, followed by UCL and KCL. Suzhou Singapore International School, an IB Continuum School established in 1996, had 34 graduates in the “Class of 2021”. The 34 received 119 offers from 77 universities in 11 nations, showing that the students apply to, and receive offers from, a global range of universities. In terms of matriculation outside Asia, 33% of graduates from Suzhou Singapore International School in 2021 entered Toronto. Bangkok International School sent its biggest bloc from the “Class of 21” to Toronto, whilst the second largest grouping entered NYU. St. John’s International School in Brussels sent its biggest group of students from the “Class of 2021” to Toronto.

The ’British bias’ and the appeal of NYU

The ’British bias’ (Schippling and Abrantes 2022, 2) can be seen among many ETISs. Vienna’s American International School, between 2016 and 2021, sent its biggest bloc to KCL, and the next biggest went to Warwick, followed by UCL. We have already seen from the data how the University of Exeter, despite being ranked 143^rd in the world, is often a major matriculation destination.

The appeal of NYU to graduates of ETISs in Hong Kong appears to be relatively strong. The 1966-established Hong Kong International School, between 2019 and 2021, sent it biggest grouping to NYU. The 1983-established Chinese International School in Hong Kong sent its graduates to 64 colleges in the United States between 2017 and 2019, and the biggest group (6%) entered NYU.

The world’s most prestigious universities

A comparison will now be made with entry to the world’s “top-10” universities as identified by TTHEWR 2022. Washington International School between 2018 and 2021 sent 10.5% of all its graduates to the “top-10”, although only 0.8% entered Oxbridge (compared to the nearly 6% entering Toronto, the biggest single destination). Yokohama International School between 2018 and 2021 sent one student to Oxbridge, and a further four entered a “top-10” destination. At the same time, 13 graduates from Yokohama went to Toronto, and 9 entered UBC (these being the two biggest destinations). Western Academy of Beijing (WAB), between 2018 and 2021, sent just two students to the Oxbridge destinations. A further six from WAB entered one of the “top-10”, including two at Stanford. At the same time, the biggest grouping went, again, to Toronto. Three students from the International School of Amsterdam (ISA) entered Oxbridge between 2017 and 2021. No other students from ISA entered a “top-10” destination.

It is often the case that very few graduates from the ETIS enter Oxbridge. The United Nations International School (UNIS) in New York, between 2017 and 2021, sent three students to Oxbridge institutions (all three entered Oxford). At the same time, the largest bloc from UNIS over the same 5 years entered NYU, followed by Northeastern (in Boston), and Toronto. Suzhou Singapore International School did not send any students to Oxbridge between 2017 and 2021, although eight entered Toronto. The Chinese International School in Hong Kong, in 2021, sent no students to Oxbridge, yet six entered Toronto. Renaissance College in Hong Kong might have sent 36% of its graduates between 2020 and 2021 to the “Big 5”, but only 2% entered one of the world’s “top-10” universities (none entered Oxbridge).

Of course, we are focusing here on matriculation data so have no sense of the extent to which the graduates from these ETISs sought or wished to enter Oxbridge. However, the relatively low position of the Oxbridge destinations is supported by the two major ISC Research reports into matriculation from the ETIS. The 2020 Higher Education Pathway Report (involving 111 ETISs) showed that Oxford was ranked equal 21st (Cambridge was not in the list). The previous ISC Research report, from 2018 (involving 132 ETISs), had shown that Oxford was ranked equal 19th, and Cambridge was equal 22nd.

Further validation of the relatively low matriculation rates at Oxbridge comes from the Council of British International Schools (COBIS). This is a network of 260 schools in 79 nations, although only 30% offer the IBDP thus they are not all of the ETIS type. The 2019 Annual Research Survey gave data from 96 schools, revealing that the main university destination is Exeter (5.9% of all students), followed by Warwick (5.5%). Oxbridge accounted for only 1.7%. These figures are very similar to the International School of Geneva’s “Class of 2021”. The COBIS 2018 Annual Research Survey involved 139 schools and showed that 1.9% of students entered Oxbridge whilst 6.7% went to UCL.

Discussion

We can now identify a distinct clustering pattern emerging, with relatively high rates of matriculation from the ETIS at a handful of universities in Canada (especially Toronto and UBC), England (especially two in London) and the United States (especially NYU), alongside a relatively low rate of matriculation at the prestigious Oxbridge institutions and the wider “Top 10” such as Harvard.

This clustering pattern does look different from that to be found among elite private national schools, in England at least. For instance, between 2015 and 2021 slightly over half (52%) of all the graduates from King’s College Wimbledon (to reiterate, this is an IBDP school), entered just five universities (Bristol, Cambridge, Durham, Oxford and UCL), giving rise to the notion of another “Big 5”. Here we have UCL, a major destination from the ETIS, but the other four destinations in England rarely feature in ETIS matriculation data.

Table 1 shows how the entry into Toronto is nearly always relatively high, especially in Asia, and the entry to Harvard is negligible. The six ETISs listed below sent 74 students to Toronto between 2017 and 2021, whilst only one entered Harvard. A total of 22 went to Oxbridge (although half had come from a single school) whilst 49 entered UBC. A further 51 entered KCL.

Table 1. Entry figures among six ETISs.

ETIS	Period	Toronto	UBC	KCL	Harvard	Oxbridge
United Nations International School New York	2017–2021	11	7	3	1	3
International School of Amsterdam	2017–2021	3	2	7	0	3
Suzhou Singapore International School	2017–2021	8	3	0	0	0
American International School Vienna	2017–2021	1	1	12	0	2
King George V School, Hong Kong	2017–2021	48	37	24	0	13
Yokohama International School	2017–2021	13	9	5	0	1

This clustering pattern is also to be found within the newer “elite non-traditional international schools”. This type is characterised by being profit-driven, branded and catering for local children. Korea’s Jeju Island is home to five overseas branches of private schools from England, Korea, the United States and Canada, within its “Global Education City” education hub. The branch there of North London Collegiate School (NLCS) had a “Class of 2021” where the biggest grouping (11%) entered UCL, followed by NYU (7%), Toronto (6%) and KCL (5%). Together, the “Big 5” accounted for almost 30% of all NLCS Jeju Island’s 2021 graduates, a much bigger proportion than normally found at the ETIS. The “Class of 2022” has already received 26% of all its offers from the “Big 5” (7% of all the offers came from Toronto alone). At the same time, only one student entered Oxbridge in 2021, and only 1.1% of offers in 2022 came from Oxbridge. No offers were made in 2022 by Harvard (note: we do not have access to application data which might help to ascertain whether the graduates seek entry to Harvard or are simply not getting offers made).

Elsewhere on Jeju Island, the overseas branch of the Korean International School between 2018 and 2021 sent none of its (American College Board Advanced Placement) graduates to Oxbridge or Harvard whilst only 3% entered a “top-10” university. Conversely, the biggest grouping (5%) went to NYU, followed by Toronto (3.4% of graduates), showing a very similar trend to the average ETIS. The trend is broken through by a third school on Jeju Island. The 2017-established overseas branch of Vermont’s St. Johnsbury Academy sent none of its “Class of 2021” to the top-10 universities, although 9% of its College Board Advanced Placement graduates went instead to University of California, Irvine (ranked 98th in TTHEWR 2022).

London’s Dulwich College has seven overseas branches within its Dulwich International arm. The Beijing offshoot, between 2018 and 2021, sent the biggest group of its IBDP graduates to Toronto, followed by UCL and NYU. Elsewhere, the Suzhou offshoot, between 2018 and 2021, also sent the biggest bloc of its IBDP graduates to Toronto. The branch of Shrewsbury School in Bangkok sent its biggest groups from the “Class of 2021” (outside of Thailand) to Bath (8%) and UCL (8%). A further 6% entered Oxbridge, and the same proportion entered Toronto or UBC.

This pattern shown by overseas offshoots of English private schools, with a high proportion of graduates going to Toronto, UBC and NYU and relatively low numbers entering Oxbridge, is in contrast to the normal trajectory of private “elite traditional national schools” in England. In fact, the London-based NLCS, a girls’ school founded in 1850, saw 19% of its “Class of 2021” enter Oxbridge. This seems more like the “Road to Oxbridge” (Donnelly 2014) that we can normally associate with private elite schooling in England. For further comparison, consider that Sevenoaks School in Kent, England (a well-established private IB World School, authorised to offer the IBDP since 1976) had 226 students in the “Class of 2021”, of which 12% entered Oxbridge. Again, UCL was the biggest single destination (receiving 14% of all graduates). The biggest groupings in 2019 and 2020 from the German Swiss International School (GSIS) in Hong Kong went to UCL (13.5% of graduates). The appearance of a large Higher Education Institution such as UCL as a major destination is not unusual for an elite British private school. The biggest bloc (15%) of graduates from Dulwich College’s “Class of 2021” went to UCL, quite similar to the proportion from GSIS. Of course, we need to acknowledge here that UCL is a large institution, the second biggest by enrolment in the UK. The point to observe here is that the high levels of entry to UCL (and KCL) seems to be the main item in common between the elite international schools and the elite private national schools. High levels of entry to the University of Toronto, UBC and NYU seem to be particular to the ETIS, as are the relatively low entry levels to Oxbridge.

Wright and Lee’s (2019, 682) study in Hong Kong had found that IBDP alumni “highlighted the appeal of a global city, and international environment”. The ISC Research Pathways Report in 2018 had concurred with this and had found that the college counsellors felt the “location of the university” was the major factor, whilst the following report, in 2020, had said that the “cultural environment of the host nation” was the top deciding factor in choosing the university. We can now begin to identify with some precision which locations and environments are the most appealing, and they seem to be London, New York, Toronto and Vancouver. These are what might be termed “global cities” as identified by Sassen (2002), having global links and affiliations, and the links between universities there and the overseas ETISs might be seen as a logical extension of this global networking. They are also “cosmopolitan cities” (Raco and Tasan-Kok 2020), likely to appeal to graduates of elite international schooling. Toronto, in particular, is acknowledged as being a safe, tolerant, multicultural city (Bonnerjee 2013). Significantly, the ISC Research Pathways Report in 2018 showed that “safety of the country” was important (it was the reported as being the sixth biggest factor). Toronto is identified, along with New York, as a global multicultural city (Qadeer 2016) and has been described as “emblematic of a new stratum of global cities” (Hamlin and Davies 2016, 186) that has deliberately set out to attract inward investment from education.

At the same time, we can see (at www.nyu.edu) that NYU sees itself as “a leader in global education” and has international branch campuses in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai. Does this help promote an image or perception of being “cosmopolitan” and “international” that appeals to graduates at the ETIS? However, we can also see that minor, “non-global cities” such as Bath, Exeter and Warwick are also appealing. From the latter three destinations, might we proffer a hypothesis that a campus destination is an appeal?

Conclusions

The study in Hong Kong (Lee and Wright 2016) had shown that 30% attended one of the top 50 ranked universities globally and 7.7% attended one in the top 15. I can now add some precision to that statement with data from ETISs in China, and elsewhere. By examining The Times Higher Education World University Rankings (which Wright and Lee 2019 used as the proxy measure and I have also used in this paper), I can confirm that the destinations appear to be dominated by five universities that are outside the top-ranked 15 but within the top-ranked 50.

In fact, they are mainly within the 20–40 ranking range. UCL is ranked equal 18th, alongside the University of Toronto. NYU is ranked 26th, followed by KCL at 35th place, and UBC in 37th place. Together, these five universities, “The Big 5” as shown by the two ISC Research reports, now consistently account as matriculation destinations for 10–15% of the annual cohorts from the ETIS, and even more in schools in Asia despite the graduates often entering over 100 different universities.

A recent study (Wu and Koh 2022, 59) had concluded that graduates from the ETIS in China “usually proceed to study in universities in the US, UK or Canada respectively”. We can now add more precision to which universities they proceed to enter, although Canada quite often seems the major destination followed by the UK and then the USA. The reports by Fitzgerald and Waks (2015) and Fitzgerald (2017) had shown that Canadian universities have an increasingly favourable image of the IBDP and so the emergence of UBC and Toronto as major matriculation destinations for graduates from the ETIS might not be as surprising as first seems.

We can also see that relatively low-ranked universities are a major destination, such as Bath (ranked 201–250 in The Times’ World Rankings 2022) and Exeter. One of the previous studies (Bunnell, Donnelly, and Lauder 2021b) had shown that the proportion of graduates entering the “Big 5” plus other British universities such as Bath, Exeter and Warwick were 20% on average, per school. In other words, many ETISs send one-fifth of their graduates to less than 10 universities, of which at least five are in Britain. Conversely, we can now begin to see that Oxbridge and the other globally “Top 10” universities consistently account for less than 2% of a cohort of graduates from the ETIS.

The matriculation data from the overseas branches of NLCS and Dulwich College (on Jeju Island, Korea) also reveal that the “Big 5” feature heavily for this type of “elite non-traditional international school”. This is another avenue of research that can be further followed. At the same time, the data from NLCS and Dulwich College does show a big contradiction between the entry into the most prestigious universities from the England-based institutions and their overseas offshoots in Asia.

There is still much we do not know. Currently, the entire topic stands as a rich avenue of research, waiting to be explored. The process of choosing the university needs a lot more inquiry. In particular, we need access to data showing the applications, and offers made, before we can assume that the graduate from the ETIS wants to enter the “Big 5” or does not want to enter the “Top 10”. Moreover, we need a study asking the young people how they made the decision, and why.

It would be especially interesting to see how much “power” the college/university counsellor in the ETIS holds. We know that in general that the internal school processes often have a large bearing on university choice-making (Donnelly and Evans 2016). The ISC Research Pathways Report from 2018 had shown that the college/university counsellor in the schools felt their advice and guidance was the main reason why their students chose a university, followed by the students doing their own research. However, we seemingly have little information in the public domain from the students themselves, about how and why they made the choice they did. There is clearly a rich avenue for research here. There is also scope for moving the analysis beyond the ETIS into schools that offer curricula other than the IBDP. For example, the biggest group of American College Board Advance Placement graduates of the “Class of 2021” from Seoul International School entered NYU (8%), revealing a similar pattern as many ETISs in Asia. Further, a broader analysis would bring into the discussion other “global cities”. For example, the American School of Paris sent the graduates of its “Class of 2021” to 97 colleges in the United States yet 8% entered one institution, Northeastern University in Boston (this university in Boston, ranked 176th in TTHEWR 2002, also features quite heavily in ETIS matriculation data).

How can we begin to make sense of this trend, with relatively large clusters of graduates transitioning from elite international schools towards a similar grouping of elite(ish) universities? There is evidence emerging from within China how some (local) parents (and the students) rely heavily on advice from people in the school whom they perceive to be the “experts”. One study (Ying and Wright 2021, 1), which “examined the strategies of a ‘new rich’ class in China to transmit advantages to their children through admission into highly ranked overseas universities” had revealed through interviewing children and parents at a school in Shenzhen that much knowledge is “outsourced” to the school’s personnel as “presumed experts”. A recent study (Glass, Streitwieser, and Gopal 2021, 43) has interviewed 40 international students to explore the role of funding in the university experience and found that “well-financed, single-resourced students took a more cosmopolitan, intrinsic approach to engagement in the formal and informal curriculum”. In this context, it would be interesting to investigate what role scholarships and funding plays in attracting graduates from the ETISs towards places such as University of Toronto and NYU, rather than the world’s top Higher Education Institutions.

The implications of the trend towards matriculating at a few universities by relatively large cohorts of young people with a similar schooling experience and academic credentials have yet to be explored. This points to a more critical sociological analysis. Lee and Wright (2016, 2) had made the point about how “little is known about the post-secondary experiences and outcomes of IBDP alumni studying at leading universities around the world”. In particular, what are the potential outcomes of the clustering in places such as University of Toronto and UBC? On the one hand, there is the possibility of forging close networks and friendships with similar people from around the world, which might be advantageous in the global labour market. A study of families residing in four cities around the world (Beech et al. 2021, 527) has concluded that there is a “Global Middle Class” characterised by a long-term educational strategy involving accumulations of cosmopolitan start-up capital’. Moreover, Wright and Lee (2019, 684) had suggested that entry to the ETIS “may be considered as a strategy to enable their children to join the ranks of the Global Middle Class”, and it would seem logical to extend that trajectory into university and perhaps beyond. An investigation into the backgrounds and aspirations of the young people leaving the ETIS for the “Big 5” universities might help to shed further light on the strategies and features of this “new class”.

At the same time, the manner by which large numbers of young people are entering the labour market with similar attributes, experiences and credentials might cause tensions, and increased competition. How will the university graduates differentiate themselves within the global labour market? There is the possibility of the graduates from the ETISs entering a labour market together, at the same time, chasing the same jobs which will increase competition whilst also potentially reducing wages and career prospects. There is wider comment already being made (Brown, Lauder, and Cheung 2020) regarding the imminent breakdown of the linkage between entry to university and high-paid jobs, the premise of Human Capital Theory. We are already starting to see reporting from Ecuador (Bittencourt 2021) about a sense of frustration and disengagement among IBDP students in public schools as the promises of doing the IB have failed to materialise. Similarly, it has been shown in the United States (Grose and Sanchez 2021) that doing the IBDP involves in young people a very high level of expectations in terms of future outcomes.

There is another trend that needs investigation, involving the non-appeal of provincial and inner-city universities in Britain. Although the University of Manchester (the biggest university in Britain in terms of student numbers) came sixth in the ISC Research Pathways Report in 2020, and Edinburgh was ninth, no other major British city was represented in the top-30 destinations (aside from London, of course). Between 2017 and 2021, only one student left the International School of Amsterdam to enter the university in Liverpool yet eight entered Warwick. No student from Amsterdam had entered the University of Newcastle or Cardiff University yet 14 went to either UCL or KCL. We see this trend elsewhere. No students left the Western Academy of Beijing, between 2017 and 2021, to enter the universities of Birmingham, Durham, Liverpool or Newcastle, yet 26 entered either Toronto or UBC. A further hypothesis begins to emerge here that it is the city and its perceived image or reputation that attracts the students, rather than the university. This warrants further study. The trend is certainly different from the typical elite private national school in England. For example, Dulwich College in south London sent 5% of its graduates in 2021 to Manchester, and 8% went to Durham yet these two destinations rarely feature in matriculation data from the ETIS.

Finally, there is a need for a study of entry into the labour market of graduates from the ETIS. The implications of the clustering phenomenon will only become clear once we have begun to study where the young people enter the (global) labour market, and how they make that choice. The educational trajectory is becoming clear, with relatively high proportions of graduates from the ETIS entering a similar bloc of universities (namely Toronto, UBC, UCL, KCL, NYU, and to a lesser extent Bath, Edinburgh and Warwick) in a handful of “global cities” (such as London, New York, Toronto and Vancouver), yet we do not know if (or how) this clustering trend feeds into the labour market. For instance, do the graduates of the ETISs in Asia who enter university in Canada stay there, or do they move back to Asia for work? Do they move together, or even work with/for each other? A longitudinal study is clearly needed to identify the long-term, perhaps unintended, effects of the clustering trend.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).