[RK]

I know a number of foreign students who came to the US as undergrads and essentially threw a dart at a map of the US.

For some reason I have met a number of Japanese students that spent 4 years at schools I had never heard of (like X+State+University+Branch Campus in a tiny town). And they usually were very good students who went on to good grad programs, employment, etc.

The point being that the quality/reputation of the school will not be proportional in the same way to the quality of the domestic students versus the quality of foreign students.

A final anecdote, when I was at a university in Germany, I saw a cheesy poster advertising a scholarship to study in the UK, sort of "Apply Now! Come to England!". The scholarship: The Rhodes. I asked a few Germans and none of them had heard of the Rhodes Scholarship, which is probably the most prestigious scholarship in the English speaking world.

[telemachos]

Actually, many people think of the Rhodes as tainted (because it includes an athletic component) and rate the Marshall Scholarship more highly. (If we're ranking go-to-England scholarships, at least...)