My friend and I live in India. I will be applying to US colleges this year. I am in 12th grade.
After she found out that I will be applying to US colleges, she is thinking of applying too. She thinks she doesn’t have a chance to get into IIT’s or BITS or any other good colleges. So, she is thinking to apply to US colleges. She thinks she has a shot at getting into a decent college over there. She does have great grades. All 4.0, except 11th grade but she is writing improvements. She did very well on the SAT practice test too.
Now, she is asking me to show the way. I don’t know what to say. What should I? Should I encourage her to apply to colleges with me or should I just tell her to stay back in India and join some local college?
I can’t answer your question fully but will start with questions that I know folks will have.
- Where are you applying?
- What do you consider a decent college?
- Does your friend need financial aid? If so, you have to look at schools that offer financial aid for international students.
Please correct me if I am reading your post wrong, but it sounds as if you are afraid that if you help your friend it will hurt you. Admissions in the US is tough for all international students, and especially tough for those who need financial aid. There are two main paths: apply to super-selective colleges with famous names (HYPSM, etc), who meet full need and make your parents happy b/c they can tell their friends the famous name college their child is going to. Your chances of success are about 1%, whether or not you help your friend.
The other path is to research colleges that your family and friends have not heard of, across all of the US (not just California and the northeast). If either/both of you need financial aid, look for colleges that meet need for internationals (it’s a short enough list), ones that give good merit aid for high test scores (also a short enough list). If you don’t need aid, and you have good grades/test scores there are many, many colleges that will welcome you, and you and your friend can help each other by researching ones that are interesting to you- that are strong in particular subjects, that are strong in other things that matter to you, etc. Helping each other is more likely to help you both than hurt either of you.
BUT:
IF you mean, should I tell her not to look at the US so that I do not have to risk that she will get a place that I want, man up and say ‘you aren’t really that much of a friend and I am afraid that you might get the place at a US college that I want so I won’t help you’. In my world, you don’t tell a friend to ‘stay back and settle for something less b/c I don’t want you in my way’.
@collegemom3717 I am a little afraid that if my friend gets into a great college it will hurt me. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want the best for her.
I am afraid that if I tell her to go ahead and apply to US colleges and drop this IIT stuff, and IF she doesn’t get into a good college, everyone will blame me.
If I don’t get into any colleges, I can even take a gap year. My parents already agreed to it. Her parents are not that understanding.
Tell her about UT-Arlington, large international student population(especially from India)
“Admissions in the US is tough for all international students, and especially tough for those who need financial aid.”
This is my opinion-I’m sure it will be controversial.
I assure you that admissions in the US is easier than admissions would be for a US student wanting to study any other place on the planet. So while writers on this site often point to the difficulty international students may have getting access to US schools, I’d like to remind all posters that it is far easier for international students to study in the US than it is for US students to study any place else. An American seeking to study in a Chinese school without having college level skills writing and speaking the language would be laughed at!
US tax payers are paying the cost of US schools. Even private schools get an impressive amount of money from the federal government. And where does that money originate? From the pockets of US tax payers, many of whom can’t get ahead and can’t afford college for their own kids. Enough already!
I see international students driving around US campuses in $100k cars. They pay a small percent of the true cost of their education (and this is especially true for those at NY schools), have money and are keeping it in their pockets while benefiting differentially from US colleges-especially public ones. I suggest that public schools make sure that international students pay every penny of the true cost of their education if they originate in the Asian countries that are fueling this trend. If you have any doubts that what I am saying is true, there is a fb page called SUNY Cars where students can boast about their cars. Take a look! SUNY Cars . look at the boasts!
In contrast, the US should welcome students from impoverished African countries where students have no resources and no other ticket out of poverty.
Well, lots of generalities and inaccuracies in the above, but whatever.
OP, if your friend has the money (realistically up to $60,000/year+) she will be welcomed in many, many good schools in the US. If she has the money AND the grades/stats – and it sounds like she does – she will do very well in terms of admission.
Recommend that she get a college guide such as Fiske, or use online search engines, to learn about the many options she might have. Tell her about this website. You can try to steer her away from the schools you’re applying to by simply not telling her all of them. There are thousands of excellent schools in the US, she can find her own options.
@Nimisha99 - I cannot imagine that what your friend does or what she achieves can impact you in the slightest! If she wants to study in the US and she is looking to you because you have information from your research on the topic, share it with her. If she simply needs moral support and seeks it from you because you are following the same path, then support her, it costs you nothing.
There are many, many good CS programs in the US and I am pretty sure that she can find one that has a reasonable cost and some merit aid for international students (private universities are best for this). A bit of research on this can go a long way, just don’t focus solely on the most highly selective institutions because their admission rates are very low.
Have her use this website AND point her toward EducationUSA
https://educationusa.state.gov
It’s a tough situation but in the end, your choices are: (1) deliberately block your friend, (2) actively do the work to help her get something that you want, or (3) wish her well and tell her that you will support her in her decision making process but that she has to own the process. I think #3 is the only ethical (or reasonable) way to go. You are further along in the journey of figuring out how to apply to US colleges and it makes sense that you can point her in the direction to get started, but ultimately, it has to be her journey.
You are in 12th grade now? The admissions season for the 2016-2017 school year is over; besides a limited number of colleges that have not yet filled their freshmen class, it’s too late to apply for this coming year.
Regardless, you can give her a few suggestions for how to begin to do her research about colleges (e.g., The Fiske Guide; US News) and you can give her links to the Common Application, the College Board, and the ACT, as well as on overview of how to apply. Beyond that, you are not obligated to oversee the entire process nor concern yourself with all of the details of her applications.
There are more than 3,000 4-year colleges and universities in the U.S. - it’s not like the two of you are competing for the last remaining seat at the last remaining college.
I passed 11th this year. I will be applying for 2017-2018
@lostaccount:
“I assure you that admissions in the US is easier than admissions would be for a US student wanting to study any other place on the planet. So while writers on this site often point to the difficulty international students may have getting access to US schools, I’d like to remind all posters that it is far easier for international students to study in the US than it is for US students to study any place else.”
Simply not true. To get in to any UK university besides Oxbridge and LSE, an American just needs high enough scores in the right AP’s. To get in to any Canadian uni, an American just needs to do well enough in the various criteria that those schools list (and even for the 2 best Canadian unis: McGill, and UToronto, the SAT scores needed typically aren’t extremely high).
Just as many American colleges like full-pay internationals, so do the publicly-funded (and thus often cash-strapped) unis in the UK and Canada, and we Americans are full-pay internationals are to them.
@Nimisha99: each of you, purchase a Fiske Guide or a Princeton Review’s Best Colleges. The book Colleges that Change Lives, too. Read it on your own, mark your favorites. Make sure your friend does he same. Compare your reaches, matches, likelies, and safeties (note that the only safeties for internationals, even with your stats and being full pay, are universities with automatic scholarships where you meet the criteria for the automatic scholarship, and universities ranked 75-150, and if you’re not near full pay the universities with automatic scholarships are the only ones an international can consider a “safety”.)
Then, draft a list of colleges you’d be interested in attending. Don’t apply to the same highly selective colleges but do apply to the same safeties and likelies, perhaps even matches. You can even choose colleges in the same city (ie., UMN TC for one, Macalester for the other, with two from St Kate’s, Augsburg, Hamline, or St Thomas for safeties).
I m not sure why @lostaccount cares whether int students have fancy cars lol. They pay their tuition so they can do whatever they want to do with money.