<p>Thanks for all the advice everyone.
Well first of all I’m female, and second of all I’m an international student going to a private non-international school in my country. We don’t have American courses or anything but we do have a counselor that helps students who want to study abroad. Which means, my country won’t be funding me in any way. My family is rich enough to pay for any college w/o going bankrupt, but we would have to move to a smaller place and live stingy for quite a bit of time. Yes, we’ve had discussions and they kindly told me that they don’t want to jeopardize my college chances because of financial concerns.</p>
<p>And regarding regional differences, yes, I want to go work in Silicon valley and stay in California if possible. I’ve been there and it seems like a wonderful place to work. That’s actually why I applied to Stanford REA in the first place, and I already applied to UC schools. I will be applying to Caltech (although I’ve heard that it’s a quirky school). But I didn’t know before that regional factors play such a big role, so now i have one more thing to consider o_o</p>
<p>Aaaand, I know this is diverging off my main question, but do you think it would be difficult for an international person to work in Silicon Valley/stay in CA? Are there many foreigners working there? I don’t even have a green card right now and I’ll eventually have to get one. I’ve always imagined myself staying in the US after graduation, but my parents keep telling me I would have to come back because I would face legal complications.</p>