On the first day of her freshman year in September 2006, LSA sophomore Erina Uozumi traveled from El Salvador to arrive on the doorstep of East Quad, the home of the University of Michigan's Residential College and the college's notoriously quirky residents.

Unlike most of her classmates, Uozumi hadn't been able to visit campus before her arrival. She said she had no idea what the RC was before she came - she assumed it was just another housing option.

When she walked in to see the liberal atmosphere of East Quad, she said she started having doubts.

"I come from this little conservative country - people don't usually dress up for Halloween for classes," she said.

But despite the initial culture shock, Uozumi, an international student from Japan who attended American high school in El Salvador, said she's happy with her choice to come to the University.

"I am becoming more open to things," she said.

Uozumi's induction to college, along with that of the University of Michigan's 5,429 international students, was like a typical freshman's first-day experience amplified several times over. Whereas first-year students might struggle with the awkward transition to the irregular pace of college life, international students face that in addition to the challenge of mastering a foreign culture in time to graduate. A missed step academically, which often sets back the post-college plans of students who don't deal with language and cultural barriers, becomes that much more of a problem when home is across the ocean.

But despite the apparent challenges of attending college in another country, American colleges continue to draw increasing numbers of international students - enrollment nationwide went up 10 percent in 2007.

Among American universities, the University of Michigan has the sixth largest population of international students with 13.6 percent, according to the Institute of International Education's 2007 Open Doors report. The report said the University of Michigan trails behind the University of Southern California at Los Angeles, Columbia University, New York University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Purdue University for international students in attendance.

The report said the top five foreign countries the University of Michigan draws its international student population from are China, India, South Korea, Taiwan and Canada, respectively. LSA sees the highest enrollment of undergraduates from other countries, followed by the College of Engineering and the Ross School of Business. The post-graduate engineering program sees the highest number of international graduate students.

International Center Director John Greisberger said most universities in the country want to attract international students, because having students from all over the world is an indicator that the university's academic programs are strong enough to attract them. A diverse student body also helps attract the best faculty members as well, he said. But most importantly, more international students means more places worldwide where the university's name is well known, something that any institution conscious of its prestige wants to foster.

But while the University benefits from increased attention abroad, there are no official programs for recruiting in other countries. Instead, students work to encourage others from their countries to apply to the University.

Hsien-Chang Lin, president of the Michigan Taiwanese Student Association, said his group does its own recruiting by holding workshops during the spring in Taiwanese high schools to introduce aspects of American culture and answer questions from prospective students.

While American students often look to studying abroad to experience another culture, international students are drawn to the University of Michigan for academic reasons.

Lin said he decided to study in the United States because a Ph.D. earned here is highly respected around the world. Now in his third year of the Public Health doctoral program, he said the main challenge he faced coming to the United States was the language barrier. It's difficult to meet professors' expectations while struggling to discern what they're saying.

Engineering junior Sustrisno Kurniawan said he followed his older brother to the University of Michigan from Indonesia after his brother had raved about the experience. Kurniawan went to high school in Singapore, which he said had a much more rigid program of study than he's encountered at the University. He said he likes being able to take as many credits as they think they can handle and not being forced to graduate within a specific amount of time.

In Singapore, students are expected to finish undergrad curriculums in two years and aren't able to decide between different times for classes, Kurniawan said