Band 6+: The chart below shows the number of students from four different countries applying to European universities. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

The bar chart illustrates how many international students from China, Japan, USA and Russian applied to European tertiaries from 2004 to 2008.

Overall, it is clear that there were upward trends in the number of students from Japan and USA assigned to European universities, while of that the number of Chinese students witnessed a downward trend over the period.

In 2004, there were more than 25000 Chinese applicants to European universities, making it the highest among all the categories. The number of Japanese and USA students were lower than 15000 and higher than 5000 applicants, respectively, while the figure of Russian was lower than 5000 applicants, which was lower than the figures for other categories.

Thereafter, European universities witnessed a consistent drop in the number of Chinese students to roughly 15000 applicants in 2008, while there were gradual growths in the number of USA and Japanese students with 1000 and more than 25000 applicants in 2008, respectively. However, international students from Russian maintained its lowest with under 5000 applicants over the period.