Hello everyone, I am a Spanish high school student (graduating this May) looking forward to study in America in the future.
Last year (my junior year) I got a scholarship and had the chance to spend a exchange year in a High School in Indiana. It was a very fulfilling experience, I got to know myself better and learned many new things. Most importantly, I became aware and realized how (to me) education in the US, at least in the state I was in, was so much better than in most of western europe. From my personal experience, the passive learning methods used over here are very old and ineffective, as opposed to the engaging learning techniques that I experience in Indiana. I also visited a couple of colleges, and while I understand that High School and College are very different, I still hold the belief that I can perform better and enjoy a much better environment in american colleges rather than in Spanish one. I basically loved it. Hence, I decided to do some research on college, and decided to apply to some, seeing that I had quite a few chances to get a scholarship. I have to say that my family supports my decision of wanting to study there, but since college here is really cheap (3,000 dollars at year at most), and they didn’t expect me to want this now, they don’t have anything like a college savings account, so they would only be able to pay for some of my expenses if I get a full ride or an almost full ride.
During my exchange year, I took the ACT because my host school “forces” all juniors to do it (they pay for it). Since at that time I didn’t really know what it was for, I didn’t take it too seriously. I had many questions left to answer in some tests and didn’t bother to guess, because I thought missing them would affect my overall score. After all, my score was 24. I saw that despite it’s not awesome, it’s not awful either. So I applied anyway.
These are my “stats”:
ACT Score (April 2016) 24
GPA 3.8
Regarding extracurriculars, I believe I have a pretty extensive variety of them. I have done some of them along several years: Cross Country team, Lacrosse team, Broadcasting Club, Drama Club, Robotics Club, Science team, Student Government, Computing and programming club, member of BASS club, besides having been inducted into a couple of honors societies, gotten several awards, and taking part in several community service fundraising activities.
With all this, I applied to the following colleges, and had the luck of getting into ALL of them:
Indiana University - Kelley School of Business
University of Oregon
IUPUC (a local community college with lower tuition costs)
However, I ran into three issues:
- My college search was done by myself, and had a hard time finding colleges with good scholarship/financial aid for international students
- I applied too late to Indiana University to be considered for any aid
- The community college did not offer aid to internationals
Despite all this, the University of Oregon did have a very select and competitive program that offered full rides for international students (ICSP). I applied to it, which required a lot of essays and work to be done, but had no luck getting into this program.
Therefore, while I am admitted to several colleges, because of these circumstances I am afraid I will not be able to attend this year.
It seemed like that was the end of my dream and my parents advised me to just attend college here in Barcelona. I did not lose hope, however. After finding out about this forum, I thought about some possible things I could do now:
1 - I will be retaking the ACT this June. Since the first time I took it I didn’t take it the way I should have, I believe I might have pretty good chances of raising my score, maybe to a 28-30, maybe less, maybe more. Perhaps someone here knows more about this. With that, and a better college search, I can probably find some more colleges that offer aid and scholarships adjusted to these stats. For example, yesterday I just found out about IUPU Indianapolis, which offers a full ride and an almost full ride to those who apply with a 28+ ACT Score. This could be a good option for me, and I believe there is plenty more. I know there are lists in this thread with colleges offering plenty of aid, but maybe you guys can help me find some that fit me. I could then reapply, in time and with everything prepared, this fall, and get into college for the fall of 2018, while doing a sort of gap year in which I would be working or maybe doing an intership somewhere in Europe. I would need to know if this is really doable in my case. By the way, I was born in 1999 and am graduating HS this may because of the spanish system, but I would be technically graduating next year if I lived in America, maybe that’s something important to let you know about.
2 - I could do everything I said above, but start college somewhere here, and then either apply as a freshman or transfer, IDK.
3 - Give up. I will try my best not to do this, because this is truly a dream of mine (not only a dream, I do have actual, rational reasons to have this desire), and am committed to work and fight very hard to accomplish it.
4 - Try and attend a cheaper european college but with a similar, recognized profile to an american one. Maybe anyone knows about some of them.
I hope anyone here can help me a bit. If there is anything else I need to mention, please just let me know. Thank you in advance.
