Andrew Bradkin ’29 was too young to remember much of applying to Eton College.

He was 13 — not thinking about Harvard, or even the United States. His decision at the time was about school, not his trajectory.

Eight years later, he sat in front of a camera and opened a different kind of letter.

“I was really happy,” Bradkin wrote. “But a friend told me I should try to avoid reacting in my reaction video for as long as possible, so I definitely tried to underplay how I truly felt.”

Bradkin’s path to Harvard began at Eton College, the all-boys boarding school in Berkshire, England, known for educating British royalty and more than 20 prime ministers. Tuition now exceeds $80,000 a year. Over the past 17 years, the school has sent roughly 30 students to Harvard College.

Bradkin, whose family is American, said he had long imagined studying in the U.S. Eton, he wrote, gave him the academic preparation — and the extracurricular profile — to make that possible. He now plays for Harvard’s club rugby team.

Eton is one of several schools around the world that regularly send students to Cambridge. But it is not the largest.

That distinction belongs to Raffles Institution, a government-affiliated school in Singapore that has sent 33 students to Harvard over the same period — more than any other single high school worldwide.

Harvard’s reach abroad is vast. More than 10,000 international students from roughly 150 countries are enrolled across the University, according to the Harvard International Office. At the College, about 15 percent of each incoming class comes from outside the U.S.

But that reach is uneven.

Over the past 17 years, nearly one in three of Harvard’s international admits come from just three countries — Canada, the United Kingdom, and China — according to a Crimson analysis.

To map how the College’s international pipeline works, The Crimson analyzed 17 years of freshman register data for the Classes of 2013 through 2029. The register, a self-reported directory of incoming students, includes information on students’ high school, offering one of the few available windows into the College’s admissions pipeline.

The data is incomplete. Each year, roughly 10 to 15 percent of students do not submit entries.

“Because non-reporting is unlikely to be random, these gaps introduce systematic bias that compounds when aggregated over 15+ years,” Faculty of Arts and Sciences spokesperson James M. Chisholm wrote.

Still, the register offers a view into the schools and regions that show up most often on Harvard’s international rosters — and the ways students reach Cambridge from very different starting points.

The Top Countries

In countries where applying to U.S. colleges is relatively common, Harvard’s admits come from a wide range of schools.

Canada sends more students to Harvard than any other country outside the U.S., with 536 admits between 2009 and 2025. Those students come from more than 240 high schools, spanning large public systems and private institutions across the country.

The top seven Canadian high schools account for approximately 20 percent of all admits. University of Toronto Schools, an independent day school, leads with 22 students over the time period — about four percent of the national total. Upper Canada College, a selective private school with both boarding and day programs, sent 18, and St. George’s School in Vancouver, another private school, sent 16.

At these schools, applying to American universities is a routine part of the process.

“Our graduates are well-rounded students who earn admission to top-tier universities and colleges around the world,” wrote Marine Peters, executive director of marketing and communications at Upper Canada College.

At St. George’s, students work closely with a dedicated counseling team.

“Our student-centred approach prioritizes fit over prestige, motivating students to embrace fulfilling lives where they contribute positively to society,” wrote Christine Wessler, the school’s head of university counseling.

Public schools appear in the rankings as well, operating with different resources.

Bayview Secondary School, a large public school in suburban Toronto with grading classes of more than 450 students, has sent 14 students to Harvard over 17 years.

“We are just a regular public secondary school with IB and other programs in the suburbs of Toronto,” wrote Maureen Garito, the school’s head of guidance, adding that she had “never really looked into how many students have gone to Harvard.”

At Marc Garneau College, another Toronto public school which saw 16 students admitted to Harvard, one counselor, Priscilla J. Solorzano, handles all international applications. She said she submitted 38 applications abroad in a single admissions cycle.

“Lots of club involvement, extracurriculars and outside of the school, volunteer hours beyond,” she said. “You kind of see the same type of student.”

In the U.K., the register shows a tighter grouping at the top.

Eton College, Westminster School, and St. Paul’s School together account for more than 19 percent of all British admits. Eton alone sent 31 students over 17 years.

The American School in London, which follows an AP curriculum and sent 19 students, represents a different kind of pathway — one aligned with U.S. admissions.

“We have over 100 institutions from all over the world that attend,” said Anne Richardon, the school’s director of advising, describing college fairs where representatives are required to speak about programs.

Elsewhere, A Handful of Schools Dominate

Across much of the world, Harvard’s international pipeline runs through a small number of schools — institutions that offer the academic preparation, language access, and institutional familiarity that U.S. applications typically require.

In parts of Asia, that pipeline can take two forms. Some students come from nationally elite institutions that admit the highest-performing students through competitive exams. Others come from international schools that follow Western curricula and are designed, in part, to send students abroad.

Singapore shows how the two systems can sit side by side. The country sent 99 students to Harvard over the past 17 years. Raffles Institution, a government-affiliated school known for its rigor, sent 33 of them — one-third of the national total. Its students are selected through a competitive academic track and routinely place at top universities around the world.

Alongside it are institutions like Singapore American School and The Anglo-Chinese School, which sent 14 students. These schools follow international or U.S.-aligned curricula, with instruction in English and college counseling geared toward American admissions.

In other places, one track tends to dominate. In South Korea, schools including Seoul International School, Daewon Foreign Language High School, and Hankuk United Kingdom Academy of Foreign Studies account for a large share of the country’s 62 admits.

China registers dozens of schools, with 122 admits in total, many from institutions in major cities like Nanjing, Shanghai, and Chengdu where international programs and foreign-language instruction are more widely available. In Japan, the American School in Japan sent 11 students — roughly 20 percent of the country’s total. Nearly three-quarters of its graduates attend college in the U.S.

In countries that send fewer students to Harvard, the pipeline narrows further, often concentrating in a single school.

The Philippines offers one of the starkest examples: International School Manila sent 23 of the country’s 33 Harvard admits over the past 17 years — nearly 70 percent of the total. The school follows an American curriculum, and the majority of its graduates attend universities in the U.S.

A similar pattern appears in Turkey. Robert College — an English-language private school founded in 1863 — sent 19 of the country’s 67 admits, while the Koc School contributed another 13. Together, the two institutions account for nearly half of all Turkish students at Harvard.

In Romania, the International Computer High School of Bucharest — known for producing top competitors in international mathematics and computer science competitions — sent 13 of the country’s 45 admits. Pakistan shows a comparable concentration: Aitchison College, a boarding school in Lahore, sent 13 of its 45 admits as well.

Kenya stands out as a rare exception. Alliance High School, a public institution that admits students based on national exam performance, sent 10 of the country’s 65 admits — more than any other school. Unlike most top feeder institutions elsewhere, Alliance is government-funded, with students selected through Kenya’s national secondary school placement system rather than private admissions or international curricula.

Harvard’s admissions office acknowledged that the shape of its international pipeline is, in large part, not of its own making. The composition of any given class, Chisholm wrote, reflects conditions that precede any application — whether a country’s schools teach in English, national policy permits students to study abroad, and whether the SAT is available nearby.

Chisholm pointed to the pandemic as one illustration of how external forces can reshape the pool. Technologies like Zoom, he wrote, allowed admissions to more effectively reach prospective international students and counselors — but the more significant driver of the spike in international applicants was the pause in standardized testing requirements.

But those shifts did not fundamentally change how applicants are evaluated.

“Harvard College admits students, not high schools,” Chisholm wrote, “whether those students are down the street or across an ocean.”

—Staff writer Celine Muir can be reached at [email protected] or Signal at celinem.33. Follow her on X @celinemuir1.

—Staff writer Alexa M. Schmitt can be reached at [email protected] or Signal at alexaschmitt.15. Follow her on X ​​@alexa_m15_s.