Title.

Missing a lot of info, I don't even know how this works, just wanted to post here so I can know what to work on in terms of ECAs/grades so I could get into the top unis in the US with aid.

An international student from Nepal, starting A-Level (AS) this June

Top 5 private school until 10th grade, starting top 5 A-Level college

Income: <$10k/per year

Hooks: Female, South Asian, Middle Class, Queer, Neurodivergent, Underprivileged caste background

Major: Idk but NOT STEM, cognitive science at most

GPA: Our country does GPA differently I think, however, I got 2.9 in 9th grade (💀), 3.8 in 10th

Class rank: 7/55

Coursework: No AP/IB (unavailable)

ACT/SAT: Not taken

ECAs:

1. Chief Student Editor of school magazine
2. President of the literary club
3. Doing music for 10 years, leader of school choir, founded a band, planning to expand this interest professionally this year
4. Content writer and social media manager at 2 youth NGOs with 2k+ followers
5. Programme Coordinator at school's Social Service club, raised $2-3k+ for charity
6. Drawing with charcoal for 8+ years, planning to start a blog/shop for all my art related stuff
7. MUNS, Debates, host of other participations
8. Hopefully will volunteer more this year (signed up already), in the process of starting my own NGO

Awards:

1. Award for artistic skills (since my school is over 70+ years old, this is kind of a prestigious award)
2. Best in English award in my class, a ton of certificates in literary competitions
3. Outstanding Delegate in interschool MUN (my 1st one, hoping to do more)
4. A lot of art certificates
5. National round qualifier in Astronomy Olympiad
6. Best presentation Award in National Military Science Fair (however I did not get a certificate on this so feels a bit iffy)

Essay: considering writing is one of my special abilities, hopefully >8/10

Rec Letters: Probably awesome too

Might be missing some stuff but I dunno, I'm fine with any input you guys give me

Part of me wants Ivy Leagues but I know it's not realistic, so lmk what you think and what I should work on the next 2 years

Hi guys, I want to apply for some US Colleges which are mostly generous to intl students but something bothers me. My family's net annual income is less than 25k $ (4 people including me) and I need scholarships to matriculate into colleges I want. I am curious that if I get admitted into any college with full ride financial aid, Do I still need some money to demonstrate to visa admission office for acceptance of my visa (how much dollars if needed) or my scholarship will be enough? Cuz its unfortunately impossible for me to save thousands of dollars within 1.5 year. ty in advance

I need someone to help me for my Canadian Visa SOP. Anyone who is experienced? I would appreciate a free help. Thank you for your support!

hello everyone Ahmed here, from bangladesh. i have recently finished my A levels this January( British curriculum) with a 2.5 gpa. i want to get into an uni in usa, preferably new York. i wanted to enroll for the coming spring session, which starts from january. i want to take a business administration course. i cant pay high tuitions and looking for unis that give aid to international students. i havent given any standardized language test. i would love some advice. dont have any high demands, just a decent uni would be my target. TIA

I'm from Zimbabwe. I've finished my high school education under the british curriculum, namely the Cambridge International IGCSE & A levels. My dream school is Harvard, but idk if it possible for me to enter with these results.

A levels
Physics: 86
Chemistry: 81
Maths: 88
Further maths: 80
SAT: 1490
IELTS: 6.5
No extracurriculars

It's impossible for harvard then? What is my next best option? Please suggest me the best I can get into comfortable (with scholarship and such as my parents can't afford very high tuition, I can try to pay debt off but long run).

Demographics: White, Male, Eastern Europe (underrepresented in some colleges probably)

Hooks (URM, first-gen, legacy, athlete, etc): N/A

EFC: $15k<

Intended Track/Major: CS/Econ/Finance (Any of those, but the problem is that my ECs are mostly CS related)

GPA and Rank: around 3.9+/4 from what I tried to calculate from the 10 point system (I have bunch of 10s and few 9s). No ranks, but im in the top 3 for sure.

Pretty normal public school.

SAT: Hoping to get around 1500+ here.

Coursework: No IB/AP and stuff like that. (Unavailable in public schools)

Extracurriculars

• Founder of a financial data analytics startup that aims to democratize markets (mobile application, market research). Don't really want to share many details here, but can talk about it a lot on the common apps (should I?)
• 2 part time jobs as solo Mobile Developer, big contributions to both projects from the start to date. (20,000+ downloads on each app).
• Contributions to open source projects.
• Also trying my best to popularize/grow community of the coding framework I work with in my country (and online) by teaching/mentoring for free
• Working on very interesting and niche research project i'm really passionate about (where and how can i publish it?).
• President of the class for a year (no time + didn't like it, since then didn't really participated in a school life, is it bad?)
• Professionally played Tennis

Awards:

• Winner of National Olympiad in English Language (and russian too, should i even mention it? lol)
• Winner of National Olympiad in French
• Finalist of National Olympiad in Math
• Finalist of National Olympiad in Economics

Curious about my chances of getting full ride or substantial financial aid. I'm thinking of mostly applying to LACs.

Bowdoin College (ED?)

Brown University (ED?)

Dartmouth College (ED?)

Amherst College

Emory University

Colby College

Colgate College

Brandeis University

Boston College

Connecticut College

University of Rochester

University of Miami

UMass Amherst University

University of South Florida

George Mason University

University of Washington

and probably some public schools in California (UC's and Cal Poly)

What do you think? is it realistic for me to get into need-blind college and get the full ride? I would really appreciate any advice on improving my application.

hey, i'm an indian 11th grader living in the uae applying for mechE, and would like some help with coming to a decision on this. basically, the colleges i want to apply to generally have higher admission rates for ea, and if i were to apply in the 2023-2024 admissions cycle, i'd only have like 3-4 ecs worth mentioning by the ea deadline and one of them would almost certainly be incomplete. if i were to take a gap year, i think i could get this up to like 7-8 complete ones (mainly projects) or even be able to fill up all of the slots, and i have a very specific list planned.

for reference, the 3-4 ecs i have are good (engineering comp and internship plus one project and club), but the fact that i only have such a small quantity of activities makes me unsure of whether i'll be able to get in anywhere in the us. i'm wondering whether it would be smarter to apply to canada and the uk in this cycle, and choose whether to commit to a university in one of those countries or apply to the us based on my progress on developing my profile by the decision deadline.

i've heard some people saying that gap years look bad even if you are productive, which concerns me because i would like to end up in the us long term and preferably study there during undergrad. i should also clarify that thankfully i do not require full aid, i'm unsure of my efc but i'm pretty sure i qualify for partial aid and i can get by on full pay with loans (i have family in the us that can help me cosign). i would really appreciate if someone offered their opinion on this.

Has anyone received their waitlist decision?

Hi! i’m an international student going for Fall 2024 intake for BS in CS and most likely with a minor in Cybersecurity. Which university should I prefer? (In terms of quality of education and future growth - jobs etc)

my COA at UB is $43,000 after a 11k$ scholarship per year

and at Binghamton it is $46,000 after a 4,000$ scholarship per year

Hey I recently got a conditiona offer from a univeirsty saying I need to sumbit an IELTS test result befor ejune first. I know the eilts test results take a fe days to come out . idk if it requires even more days for the scores to be recieved by the univeirsty.

if the dealdine to send in the score is june first what is potentially the latest date I can take the exam?

I need to find european univeirsities that still have their admissions window open.

I know the sub has usa in the name but the discirpion sas anwyehre and i see people talking about other countries here all the time.

Any innfromation you can give would be very very very appreicated. try to give me as much info as possible even if its not fully baked or thought I would very muh apprectiate anything. fucking hungary lithania latvia romania any eu country will do. I need a saftey in europe

can i transfer to a US university if i am an international student at another university?

I was going to pay my admissions deposit for the university of south florida but my card isn’t working. So I was thinking of trying flywire. How does it work? It just asks me how much money I was to send to USF, how will I pay my admissions deposit using?

Hey everyone. I’m a Computer Science Engineering undergraduate from India looking to apply for a master’s program in Computer Science/Information Science, or potentially Data Science in the USA in 2025.

I’m currently working as a developer in Tokyo, Japan, and will be done with 1 year of work experience in December this year.

I want to apply for the January intake (Spring, sometimes known as Winter semester), but I’ve heard some rumors that it is significantly disadvantageous compared to the Fall semester, because one would graduate at an off-season for hiring. I’m already aware that lesser programs offer a Spring intake, but that aside, is there any merit to these claims that job prospects are not as bright for students entering a Spring intake course?

I’d appreciate any information you guys might have about potential issues with a Spring intake course as opposed to a Fall intake one, and any good universities offering Spring intake courses for CS/IS and Data Science.

Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone,

We would also really appreciate if you can fill out this survey which we have put together - information that we aim to collect will hopefully help prospective international applicants navigate this process better:

https://forms.gle/FWaUF4hq9zGyTVnF8

Congratulations to everyone who has committed to a college/university for Fall 2024 - and please accept our best wishes in your future endeavors.

~r/IntltoUSA staff team

Hello everyone......

Well last in December I was selected in a college for spring intake.. I had paid the sevies fee filled the ds form and paid the visa appointment as well. But that time I was not able to get a visa date. It was already too late...so I decided to apply for this years fall..

So I got rejected from all the new universities and even in the few I got in it was not a good choice so I thought of going to the university I had previously planned to go in the spring....

Recently I was very much busy because of personal problems. So I have not been able to get the i20 of that University..... I have completed all the process maybe by tomorrow or this week I will have my i20..

Now my question is like I will get a new i 20 so what changes I have to make for the visa appointment.... Like do I need to transfer the sevies fee or not ( I am confused because it is the same University) also do I need to fill a new DS-160 form?? I did checked YouTube for help but I couldn't find information regarding my situation...

So please help me and suggest me what should be my next step after getting the new i20 ? And what I have to do next and how..

I am so confused. I have to friends to ask and Neither any teacher who knows all this things. I have self applied so far. And this sub has been one of my main source of information. So I would like to thank everyone on this sub and I request you to comment if you know what I should do..

hey, i'm considering going to UNI in the US. the university's tuition is around $10k in and it's in Ohio. Is it possible (or likely) to find a part-time job to help me cover the living costs and maybe even some of the tuition?

i just want to know what I'm getting into and how the conditions for international students right now.

also if there are any graduates here, how hard was it to find VISA sponsor once you graduated? and is there a way to increase your chances.

i am pursuing premed in the uae and i really want to attend med school in the US, is it possible, what strps do i need to take in terms of academics and personal experience?

is it too high in the stars type of goal for an undergrad?

I dont know if it's okay since I am an undergraduate student and maybe they wont take my aspirations seriou

Ive been observing the protests happening nation wide in the USA due to the israel/gaza conflict. As a british muslim living in Pakistan, I wonder how this will affect next years applications. Would unis be hesitant to admit students from these regions?

Hi, I have applied to only 1 univ and got admitted for Phd program. Is this a problem? Will the VO ask any question why I didn't applied to any other Univ at US.

let me know about the explained process. the differences between taking a 4-year bachelor program at a 4-year university or college, or taking a 2-year college then transferring to a 4-year university and pursuing 2 years there in order to gain my bachelor of CS degree. actually the point there is the cost that's going to decline.

Hey guys! I have completed 5 semesters of uni in Pakistan in BS Computer Science. I got admitted to Elmhurst University, IL and am transferring my credits there. I was looking for any interview tips for international transfer students cause I couldn't find any tips for international transfer students. My interview is in a few days and I wanna make sure I am fully prepared about what type of questions could be asked by the VO for a transfer student and what to avoid

I've been accepted to both Stony Brook and Virginia Tech for Computer Science. Stony Brook offered me a $24,000 scholarship, but Virginia Tech didn't offer any financial aid [I need to take a loan for both cases]. At Virginia Tech, I've been placed in General Engineering with an interest in CS. Both programs are highly ranked and don't differ much (Source: CS RANKING) . I can't decide which one i should go for and would appreciate some advice.
In addition to rankings, I'm also thinking about factors like internship opportunities, quality of education, campus housing & facilities , student life, and alumni networks.
Any advice or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

Hi everybody :)

I am a high school senior, so I applied to universities this admissions cycle. However, I got rejected, waitlisted, or accepted with insufficient aid from all universities. I am preparing to take a gap year and try my chances next year, and I want your opinion on what I should improve in my application and what the most significant weaknesses were that led to my rejections. I can DM you my personal statement and activities if you'd like. Also, what types of activities do top schools care about? I have engaged in activities related to my major, computer science, including developing two websites - one for MUN and the other for an initiative and it reached 100K views. However, I'm not pretty sure if I should write about these kinds of activities, which are more closely related to my major, or focus more on research or tougher projects.

Note: I am asking for a full ride and went test-optional this year. My unweighted GPA is 3.7/4.0 (there is no weighted GPA in my school). Is my GPA considered low? If so would taking the ACT next year increase my chances? I am not only aiming for ivies or very top schools; I am open to any college that provides good aid.

My_qualifications: 12th Grade Completed

How do I send/attach my IELTS/TOEFL scores through your common app. I have completed the questions and REFRA section but I don't see the option to attach my TOEFL scores. I'm new so I don't know much. Pls help