NEW YORK — After the start of the Gaza war, Shimri Winters, an Israeli who consults for Israeli students applying to US universities, started hearing from applicants who were concerned about anti-Israel protests on American campuses.

When the Trump administration started its crackdown on visas for international students last month, particularly at Harvard University, Winters fielded another round of concerned calls.

“My only advice to our candidates who are saying, ‘Should I even apply to Harvard?’ Is ‘Yes, why not?'” Winters said. “Maybe your chances will actually be higher this year because other people won’t apply.”

Winters and other Israelis who consult with Israeli students applying to US universities said the protests, and later the Trump visa policies, have scrambled the application process for students, but that the recent visa restrictions have not caused a slowdown.

Winters’s company, Aringo MBA Admissions Consulting, focuses on helping students apply to international MBA programs. The company is based in Israel, but also assists some students from other countries. The number of Israeli applicants has been climbing since around the time the Netanyahu coalition announced its judicial overhaul plans at the start of 2023, Winters said.

Israelis seek to study abroad because studying in the US is a way to gain entry into the US market and its potentially higher earning potential.

Students, and the parents of some younger applicants, started asking about antisemitism on campus soon after the war started.

“It’s a question I haven’t received until two years ago, but I have been receiving more and more,” Winters said.

The campus protests impacted the students in how they presented themselves and where they wanted to go, but did not stop them from applying, several consultants said.

Also, while the protests unnerved some students, university admissions officers were accommodating, which encouraged some of the applicants, said Galit Adesman, the founder and head of the educational consulting company Eshkolot. Her company works with a range of students, from undergraduates to doctoral candidates.

“They were very supportive of Israelis. They gave them a waiver from the GMAT and TOEFL,” Adesman said, referring to the Graduate Admissions Test and the Test of English as a Foreign Language. “They were very responsive to the situation. Students pick up on that.”

Winters said some schools had offered waivers to........

© The Times of Israel