Hi guys! I am incredibly excited and honored to be admitted to two of my top colleges, and am now in the nerve-wrecking process of trying to decide which college I’ll attend this fall. Both colleges are small, private, have excellent academics, a wide range of extracurricular activities and have granted me fantastic aid. How were you able to come to a decision on which college to attend (unfortunately college visits are not an option for me), and how has your college experience as an international student been so far? I would love to hear your views.
If you are interested in a particular major, be sure to check the size of the department and the actual list of courses offered each term (from the course schedules, not the course catalog). A computer science department with 2 instructors feels very different from a computer science department with 6 instructors.
Small things that can make a big difference to students with limited financial resources:
- Whether or not the dorms stay open during breaks, especially winter break
- Does the college charge extra for printing, laundry, support services like tutoring, or school-sponsored extra-curricular activities, or are those included in tuition&fees? If you take a course that requires fieldwork or travel (e.g. in geology), are travel expenses paid by the school or by you?
- The library hours and whether the school has a laptop loaner program (if you don't have a laptop or yours breaks, can you work in the library until midnight, or will you get kicked out at 9pm?)
- The availability of part-time jobs on campus (you may have a work-study award in your financial aid packages, but that doesn't mean that you are guaranteed a job)
- If you may want to spend the summer on campus, the availability of full-time summer jobs and the affordability of on-campus summer housing (international financial aid recipients often opt to spend summers on campus because they don't want to pay for airfare and also don't want to use up their OPT for off-campus employment)
- The generosity of their health insurance plan, especially if you expect to have non-trivial health needs (is the annual out-of-pocket max $1,000 or $6,000 per year? how many physicians and hospitals near your college are contracted providers?)
I’d also encourage you to consider location. Are there stores/doctors/entertainment within walking distance? If not, is there public transportation to take you places you need to go? Is round-trip airfare between your home and the college significantly more expensive for one school than the other? Do you prefer the weather in one location?