Curiously, I had the same experience with Chinese MSc/PhD students. My graduate-level CS discussion sections and labs skewed heavily Chinese, American, and Indi

Curiously, I had the same experience with Chinese MSc/PhD students. My graduate-level CS discussion sections and labs skewed heavily Chinese, American, and Indian. The Indians seemed most prepared, the Americans right behind, and the Chinese were way behind. Group readings of recent research papers were an exercise in torture. Poor comprehension, near zero communication skill, and a total inability to find flaws/ask questions. None (that I know of) made it out of the program. I have no clue how they ever got in the door, as this was a international top 100 program. I actually finished the semester by skipping the discussion section altogether, doing the readings in my own time, and going straight to the professor's office hours with my notes and questions. He understood completely. I think he actuall envied me my freedom. On the flip side, my partner (whom I met in college) was a refugee with poor English her freshman year. Yet she graduated -- with honors -- in a shade over three years, with two degrees in the soft sciences and better written and spoken English than myself. Then she got a degree in a hard science. Then a masters. And that's the problem with anecdotes. I could choose either to be representative of my experience, but I'd be wrong either way. Without some quantitative data, we really can't know if this is a real phenomenon or not.