Choosing a college in Europe to transfer to the US from? Advice please!

Student Lounge International Students
1

Hi everyone!

I am from Germany and I would really really really like to study in the US.

I was a foreign exchange student in the US in high school and every time I visited a college I was really excited about it.

I flet like studying in the US was so much easier because the American mentality just motivates you to work really hard all the time, which makes me strive, while in Europe you are alaways expected to motivate yourself.
However, I never even considered going to college in the US because college is free in Germany.

After high school I didn’t know what college to go to, so I took a year off and am currently doing a 12-month internship.
Since the company I work for is really international, I realized how much I want to study in the US.
When I came to that realization, it was already to late to apply (in Germany you can apply until 2 months before college starts!). I don’t want to take another year off, therefore I decided to transfer to the US after starting college somewhere in Europe.

Since college is free in Germany, my parents haven’t saved any money for me to go to college. They are not very happy about my plans to go to America and they will only support me financially if I can get a scholarship that covers most tuition.
After doing some research I realized only the ivys and a few other world class colleges give out big amounts of scholarships to international students.

Now the question is where I should study in Europe. In Germany you don’t have to apply until right before college starts, and since admission usually depends on your grades only, I can get into any college I want to in Germany and Austria.

Does it make sense to go to a college that ranks pretty well in Germany or internationally?
I thought about going to Heidelberg University, University of Munich, Technical University of Munich, Univesity of Münster, University of Mannheim or University of Bonn. Will it matter what college I come from to transfer to an ivy league college? Do the admission officers know anything about colleges in Germany or do they care about the reputation? If so, can you tell me, what college has the best reputation from the American point of view?

I also got into the law department at University College London. Would that have a good enough reputation?

The other thing is that studying in Europe usually means that you only take classes in you major field and not do any general studies or take classes in any other departments. I would really like to major in communication studies, economics or anthropology one day. Therefore I probably shouldn’t study Law at UCL if I want to study something else after transferring, or should I?

Also, is it even possible to transfer from Europe to the US if the education systems are so different?

I also got accepted into a few university colleges in the Netherlands, that work like American colleges, with small classes and general studies classes and where you can major in different fields. College there would also be in English. However those colleges are really selective, therefore I probably wouldn’t stand out as much and it would be hard to get good recommondations to transfer. Also I probably wouldn’t be able to do as many things besides college because i will need time to adapt to living in the Netherlands and learnin Dutch. It would be harder to get really involved and have an impact on the college and the local community which I believe colleges want to see from transfer students.

However I’m not sure studying in Germany would be the best option either - classes here are usually really big (around 200 students or so) and the professors sometimes don’t even know you, which would make it hard to stand out as well. On the other hand I could get involved in the community a lot easier.

Do you think I even have a chance of getting into any American high selective college at all?

Here are my testing results/extracurriculars/achievements:
SAT:
1500 (I will take it again!)

extracurriculars/ community involvement:
youth group leader, dance, cross country, choir, 6 weeks of innovation camp, student newspaper, local newspaper, interpreting from English to German for different companies, organizing camps and seminars for volunteers that want to go abroad, tutoring foreign exchange students in Germany, travelling across the country to get students informed and involved in the refugee crisis

other achievements:
full scholarship from the American Congress and the Germany Bundestag to study in the US my junior year, studying 6 languages, 12-months long internship

Can someone pleae give me advice with some of my questions? It is my dream to study in the US and I will do anything to make it come true. American college admissions are so complicated and I’m trying to read as much as I can about it. Noone over here knows anything about it, which is relly frustrating, therefore I really need some advice from the Internet.

Thank you very much!

2

Ivies give financial aid, not scholarships. Most scholarships are given to freshman in the U.S. Admissions for transfers is usually much harder than freshman applications for Ivies/top 20 schools and it’s difficult to start with. USC does have a higher acceptance rate for transfers than freshmen but it is not a cheap option.

What about studying in the U.S. for a semester? That will cost your parents a fair amount but nothing like four years.

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Thanks for the reply. Sorry, I did mean financial aid, not scholarships. If I will not get accepted to transfer I might go abroad for just a semester, but my intention right now is to get my bachelors degree in the U.S.

I want to atleast try to transfer even though it’s obviously really competitive.

4

Sure, try. Just keep in mind that your chances of transferring in to an American elite are close to zero and it would cost a ton of money to attend anywhere in the US, most likely, so I would not pick a place in Europe based on such a low probability plan.
Rather, I’d see where it would be easiest to study abroad (in some programs, you can do so for a year) or set you up well for grad school in the US. UCL has an “econ with year abroad” course, for instance. You’d want a place where studying in the US is almost guaranteed.

The Dutch university colleges sound really neat. Check with them to see how easy it would be to study abroad in the US if you go to one.

5

I agree with Sportsman88 and PurpleTitan: while there are plenty of scholarships and financial aid opportunities for international first-year applicants, there are almost none for international transfers. Heck, there are American universities that will guarantee you a full-tuition scholarship with a 1500 SAT (assuming that’s verbal + math, without writing) - but only if you apply as a freshman.

Possible, yes, but not a good strategy. You already know that American college students typically spend less than 2 years of their 4-year Bachelor’s degree program on their major; the remaining classes are general education requirements and free electives. American students would typically front-load their gen eds and a bunch of free electives, which gives them a chance to explore different majors before having to choose one.

If you transfer from Europe, you’d already have 1-2 years of solid coursework in your major. You’d be essentially done with your major, and you’d spend the rest of your time on general education. Maybe that’s what you want, but most students would feel like they are wasting their time at that point. Almost nobody wants to go back to general education after making significant progress in their major…

If you are serious about getting your undergraduate degree in the US, you won’t enroll at a European university first. It doesn’t make any sense. Not financially, not academically.

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Also note that the American colleges where you are likely to get both acceptance and money to be tuition-free are likely far below the European unis you can go to on the prestige scale.

And if you want a broad-based liberal arts education, the Dutch University Colleges offer that.

And depending on how much your parents make, fin aid may not be enough (probably would not).

So in all, studying abroad in the US for a year still seems like the most sensible plan and may not even cost you extra.

Oh, BTW, Bard Berlin would guarantee you that but it is tiny and has a very limited number of majors and courses.

7

Though, granted, @“b@r!um” may be better at chancing you for both acceptance and odds of getting enough scholarship money to make it affordable for you at different types of American schools.

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Dutch university colleges would help you get recommendations.
Most professors at big European universities won’t even know you exist let alone be able to write anything meaningful about you.
The issue though is that there’s basically no financial.aid for international transfers and you’d lose the benefits of your 1500 which can bring major money (full tuition a many places.)
So, my advice is to continue with your current internship and apply for Fall 2018.

9

@MYOS1634: I would say that would depend on the OP’s rationale.

Something like UCL’s “econ with year abroad” would likely open more doors in Europe and still allow them to be in the US than anywhere where the OP is likely to both get in and get enough money to go in the US.

10

^ true, but apparently OP has already applied through ucas and received decisions.
@sunscreens : did you get into any UK university with a 'year abroad '? If not, but you got into UK 'courses ', which ones? And could you contact them to see if they 'd consider switching you to the 'with year abroad ’ course (as conditions typically are the same)?
Or, around May 5th, there’ll be a list of colleges that miscalculated yield. Many often are excellent and still have financial aid, so you could give it a try.