Hello! I am an incoming international student who is gonna pursue a bachelors in Computer science. As i cant afford a 4 year university for 4 years i will have to attend community college for 2 years and then make an upper division transfer.
Right now i have my eyes set on California because that is where most of the jobs are, so i am planning to attend either SMC or SBCC for 2 years and then transfer to a CSU university, preferably SDSU.
Do universities prioritize transfers form their local area? Would a student who had studied at a local community college in San diego have a better chance of being accepted to SDSU than me if i would choose sbcc even if i have better GPA/SAT scores?
I don’t think international students are allowed to stay in the US once they finish college. They may get a year so they can get experience, but then they’re expected to return to their country. California schools are pretty expensive. You may want to consider more affordable options.
As far as i know you can extend the OPT to 36 months if you graduated in a stem major. This could of course lead to a h1b if you do good, i am a bit optimistic but yeah. I have looked at schools in all of the states and the CSU schools actually offer pretty cheap out of state tuition compared to state universities in other states. For example SDSU tuition cost is around 18k for a year while ASU is priced at 25k.
Here’s my own experience: I graduated from Community College with my Associate’s Degree in math. All of those credits transferred to a local university. I think it was the Associate’s that made the difference.
@Stroem - I think that you have confused the rules for CPT and OPT. The current rule is 12 months of OPT for all F-1 students, with an extension of 17 months after that for recent graduates in STEM - or a possible total of 29 months. https://www.uscis.gov/eir/visa-guide/f-1-opt-optional-practical-training/understanding-f-1-opt-requirements This is currently under revision. It is not certain what will happen. Some sources indicate that it is expected that all students will be limited to 12 months. So please don’t expect to be able to be here for more than 12 months.