The bar chart illustrates the figures for universal applicants of four nations: China, Japan, America and Russia to universities in a Europe country between 2004 and 2008 .
Overall, there was an upward trend in the number of applicants in all countries: additionally, the figure of USA saw a soar and dominated among the others in the last half of this period.
At the beginning, Chinese applicants accounted for nearly 28 000, followed by the data of USA, Japan and Russia with 14 000, 8 000 and 2 500 in turn. Besides, over the process, China and USA underwent an opposite trend. From 2004 to 2006, when China dropped significantly by 6 000 applicants, the other rose remarkably and in 2006, they were equal at 20000. After that, their directions were still remained stable to the end of the survey; in addition, the number of USA was double to China in the year 2008.
Regarding to the amount of Japan and Russia, there was a similar pattern. Both nations also remained unchanged with a slight climb by around 1 500 to 2 000 when they still kept their positions. In 2008, the figure of Japan and Russia stood at 10 000 and 4 000 respectively.
