NYU interviews international R1's with R2's in Feb-Mar. This is definitely one disadvantage of using all adcom for interviews.
Just a note: last year NYU interviewed 23% of the total applicant pool and acceptance rate was 13%.
Re: LS - A Chinese applicant already has Chinese "international exposure." to the eyes of American Adcom. You just need to make sure your TOEFL score is high to prove you can handle curriculum in English.