The number of Chinese students attending Fairmont Preparatory Academy in Anaheim, California, has increased in recent years. [Photo: China News]

The amount of students from the Chinese mainland attending private schools in Southern California range between 10 percent and 50 percent per school—and those figures are growing.

One school that has a large international student body is Fairmont Preparatory Academy, located in Anaheim, California. More than half of the students at Fairmont Prep are from the Chinese mainland. Robert Mendoza, who has been the principal at the high school for 10 years, said that Fairmont Prep to recruit international students 12 years ago; the purpose was to implement the school's idea of global education.

"Compared with other private high schools in South California, we have the biggest number of Chinese students, who are the major student group among our international students," said Mendoza.

International students that want to attend Fairmont Prep go through an online application process, which each student to submit a translated transcript for the past three years, recommendation letters from both English and Math teachers, and a TOEFL score. Students who get admitted will be put into different classes based on their respective scores on the school's entrance exam.

Fairmont Prep provides other services to help their international students get acclimated to life on the other side of the Pacific.

The school provides international students with host families, which are strictly selected by the school's home-stay service managers to ensure that every student is placed in a safe environment.

However, some families are looking to take advantage of Southern California's influx of international students. Li Zixiang, who is in charge of Fairmont Prep's home-stay service, said that more families applying to host an international student see the experience as an opportunity to make money, rather than a way to help a newcomer get used to an unfamiliar environment.

The high volume of Chinese students being sent abroad for education is also leading some schools to loosen or bend their own admission restrictions.

Southwestern Academy in San Mario is one of the few boarding schools in South California. Although the school's website indicates that it only accepts 35 international students a year, China News, citing unnamed sources, report that the amount of Chinese students admitted to the school for each of the past two years has exceeded this number.