The graph compares how many students from China, Japan, the US, and Russia applied to universities in a country in Europe between 2004 and 2008.
Overall, it can be seen that Chinese and American students constituted the majority of overseas applicants throughout the entire period. While there were significant changes in application numbers for both nationalities, with the former falling and the latter rising, Japanese and Russian applicants experienced a reverse pattern, nearly stabilizing almost 5 years.
In 2004, Chinese students held the top position, applying to European universities in large numbers, exceeding 25,000. This figure was more than doubled the number of applications from the United States, at around 13,000. Meanwhile, Japan and Russia recorded dramatically lower application counts, approximately 6,000 and 3,000, respectively.
Afterward, a downward trend in Chinese applicants was evident until 2006. The figure leveled off at around 17,000 for two years before reaching its lowest point, which was nearly half the peak seen in 2004. Conversely, universities in the country consistently received an increasing number of American applicants, reaching parity with China in 2006, before surging ahead to finish at China’s initial figure of about 27,000. Japanese students showed minimal growth, contributing an additional 4,000 applicants, whereas applications from Russian students consistently stayed stagnant.