The chart depicts the figures for international pupils applying to a European university from 2004 to 2008.
Overall, there are explicitly different three tendencies in the survey, including an upward trend in USA student numbers, a downward trend in Chinese numbers, and a fluctuation in the two others. Notably, the number of Chinese and USA students had significant changes.
To commence with Chinese and American pupils in numbers, it is obvious that the number of the former led first at around 27,000 in 2004, while that of the latter were recorded at approximately 13,000. Moreover, Chinese and USA statistics had a completely opposite pattern, involving the former plunging to about 16,000 in 2008 and the latter soaring and reaching its peak at 26,000 in the end.
Moving to Japanese and Russian students in numbers, they had the same tendency, yet those of Japan were higher than the others. While the former data varied gently from around 7,000 in 2004 to 9,000 in 2008, that of the latter just fluctuated during the examined period and turned back to its beginning data at 3,000.