Help an International student find his place in the USA education system 2.0 [Slight repost]

Student Lounge International Students
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<p>DISCLAIMER:
This is slightly edited cross post from College Search section of the forum.</p>

<p>Other colleges I've considered to apply are:
-Berkley
-UCLA
-UT Austin
-UC San Diego
-University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
-Any recommendations for safety colleges??</p>

<p>After some research and advice from some fellow CCers I slightly changed my list to:</p>

<p>-Brown,University of Pennsylvania
-University of Chicago- probably early decission
-Duke
-University of Alabama-full raid based on SAT at least what I've been told
-Macalester, Rochester-not quite sure whether to apply for these yet
-Princeton,Stanford,MIT-YOLO,right?</p>

<p>Also I'm thinking about applying in 5 colleges in UK but that's a whole different story.</p>

<p>GPA:I have not yet received the document stating how much hours I have studied most of my classes,however I'm a straight A student.Most likely will graduate with near to maximum grade on my diploma.</p>

<p>ECs:
-Sports:</p>

<p>Acrobatics(1-6th grade-won 4 silver 3 bronze medals on National level competition // not sure if I should include EC's this early</p>

<p>Dance ensemble(1-6 grade)-won couple of group award //no personal ones</p>

<p>Karate Kyokushinkai(6-10 grade)- 9th Kyu belt</p>

<p>Gym attendance(9th grade-now)-6 days a week/1.5 hours a day //not sure if I should include this or what is a subtle way of mentioning this</p>

<p>-Volunteering:
Volunteer as a guide for Math team from Sri Lanka in the BIMC 2013 Math competition</p>

<p>-Others:</p>

<p>Class president-voicing the class opinion on school meetings</p>

<p>Team building organizer- successfully organized 3 team building events for several classes of my school // not sure if that matters</p>

<p>Member of an Interact club</p>

<p>Member of Chemistry,Programming,Geography,English,Math clubs- passed to higher levels of the National Olympiads in this area but no International level has been achieved.</p>

<p>Self taught myself C++,CSS,HTML,Python-basics, Java- on higher level using in my current 2D game project</p>

<p>My test scores are:
- TOEFL-108
- SAT Reasoning-2110-first take and wondering if I should retake
- SAT Math 2, Chemistry- taking them in October and if needed later in November with Physics one</p>

<p>Any suggestions would be appreciated regarding how can I improve my chances,as well as college recommendations where I could get financial aid.</p>

<p>EDIT:A question that I forgot to include:Is it a wiser thing to study my Bachelor's degree in UK,as due to EU my tax is far lower and I can get a loan and then major in USA?Or is it better to shoot for a lower tier school in USA instead?</p>

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<p>Chicago does not have early decision. </p>

<p>Do you need financial aid? </p>

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<p>Yeah :confused: Saw this when I looked trough the application documents needed today.
And yeah I need FA.</p>

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<p>OP, did you not look through any of the posts in your previous thread?</p>

<p>“Berkley
-UCLA
-UT Austin
-UC San Diego
-University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign”</p>

<p>These schools do NOT offer any financial aid to international students. Do you plan to pay $50k-ish every year??</p>

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<p>I did but it is just bad formatting on my part I should have deleted them.Later on I have written below “After some research and advice from some fellow CCers I slightly changed my list to:-Brown,UPenn…” I dont know why I have kept the previous list either.Sorry for that.</p>

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<p>Macalester is the only small liberal arts college in your list. Why?</p>

<p>What exactly can you afford to pay, though?</p>

<p>Also, are you absolutely fine with going to Alabama with none of your applications work out?</p>

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<p>Around 15k/year I think is the amount I can pay if I can’t get a loan(I wont since I am international).If none of my applications work out,including the 5 in UK.I would consider a gap year I suppose.
Not sure about Alabama.Still wondering if going to Alabama for instance is better than going somewhere in Europe.At least I can get students loans there and etc.
Macalester is the only LAC in my list since I read their CS department is ok.However aren’t LAC frowned upon when applying for work?</p>

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<p>Getting a work visa to work in the US is a very difficult process, whether you go to Brown or Macalester. Macalester’s CS program is fine, but schools like Swarthmore and Harvey Mudd have excellent programs (both are harder to get into Mac, too, but Mac in itself is also very, very selective for intls who need aid).</p>

<p>Even if you went to Yale, you would be going to YALE COLLEGE, where you would have to study the liberal arts. It’s the same thing, just in a larger scale than small LACs. Perhaps european employers would be puzzled by small LACs though?</p>

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<p>It is true that people here refer to the UG program as college. I also heard that, generally speaking, US colleges require the students to take many courses for “common education” while the colleges in other parts of the world do not, i.e., their students “specialize” sooner in college. In general, the more prestigious the college is (usually, at the college/UG level, the very top colleges are private ones.), the students are less likely exempted from taking these common education courses. This is especially true for Columbia. Many international students may not like to take many of this kind of classes. Often times, the college at many public/state universities are more lenient in this area, but you need to take many IB or AP in high school. This us actually how poor students in US save money: They try to take as many these kinds of advanced classes in high school (it is very cheap, actually free, for high school education.) Then, they attend a public school in college. An even poorer or “not very academically ready” students in US may attend a community college for 2 years and then transfer to 4-year college, in order to save money.</p>

<p>It seems to me that many internationals prefer the public colleges. (I myself attended a public one a generation ago - a UC in California, only the grad school though.) I think it is because at many parts of the world, their public schools are regarded as “better”, or at least above average. If your family can afford it, it is actually some of the private colleges in US may be more motivated to recruit you.</p>

<p>In US, the rich and the poor generally go to different kinds of schools, since kindergarten! The rich school has better resources so the rich has more opportunity to receive a better education. But many rich kids do not make the best of their education opportunity, as their “safety net” provided by their families are much better - they can find good jobs through the connection no matter what major they are in, while the poor kids need to have a more serious or practical major at college.</p>

<p>On the other hand, the job opportunity after graduation may still be better in US than in most parts in the Europe (or Canada.) It may not be the case 10 years from now though.</p>