i’m brazilian and i intend to study something in the usa, but almost nothing about the options. I thought about Ucla, since my dream is to live in LA, I want to study engineering
Please help me with the options
https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-search
Here’s College Board’s college search engine. It has options for pretty much everything. It’s a lot easier than asking strangers to help you sort through 3,000+ options.
UCLA does not fund international students. Can you afford $65,000 per year?
here we have a student loan that covers international colleges, but with the rise of the dollar and the economic crisis, it gets complicated
Well, you need to figure it out because you will not get any financial aid from UCLA. It is a public university and only gives out (very limited) financial aid to legal residents of California. It is also a very, very selective university. You will need excellent grades and test scores to get in. You will also need that $65,000 per year.
As @katliamom wrote, the colleges in which you are interested are all extremely competitive. So getting from “want to attend” to “will attend” is not all that easy.
First of all, what grade are you in? A freshman (9th grade) will not get the same advice as a junior (11th grade). If you are a Junior, what is your GPA, test scores, and extracurricular activities?
I’m in the second year of high school, my gpa is good, I won a renowned math Olympics
Obmep and I was invited to Taiwan in a math competition. In our teaching we do not have extracurricular activities, but “grade of concept”, I have a great score.
As I said, I have little knowledge about American options.
Is there a university that “encourages” exchange students
As an exchange student you will not get a degree from the American university.
Start reading this: http://www.admission.ucla.edu/Prospect/Adm_fr/fracadrq.htm
The first thing to do is to continue to do very well in high school. It sounds like you are already doing this.
The second thing to do is to figure out what your budget is. You probably cannot and very definitely should not borrow the full cost of attending UCLA as an out of state (or international) student. Four years at $65,000 per year adds up to way too much debt.
You also should realize that getting a degree from a university in the US does not allow you to stay in the US to work. International students in the US are expected to return to their home country after graduation. This is in contrast to some other countries (Canada is the example I am most familiar with) that will allow graduates from their universities to get a work permit to stay.
There are two ways for an international student to study in the US (or Canada, Australia, the UK, …). One way is to attend a university in your home country, and then come here for one semester or for one academic year as an exchange student. The other way is to apply to and attend a university in the US for a full four years and graduate from a university here.
Also, as others have said there are thousands of universities and colleges in the US. Picking a small handful to apply to can be a challenge just by itself. Knowing that you want to study engineering does narrow down the choice, but still leaves a lot of options.
You would not pick up a degree in the US (outside of rare double degree programs), but studying on exchange would let you indeed study in the US for a time.
I suppose the question is, outside of “studying in the US” (which you could accomplish on exchange, though look in to costs), what goals do you have?
BTW, the UC’s tend to have one central exchange program, which means you may not get assigned to UCLA even if you attend a uni with an exchange program with the UC’s.
If you really want to live in LA (for a little while), look to see what unis have exchange programs with USC (and other LA colleges) and how hard it would be to go on exchange.
If you’re really strong at math, look into Harvey Mudd, CalTech, MIT, Northwestern. Apply for Math.
Run the NPC (check “US resident” and whatever state) just to have an idea of costs.
If you don’t apply for financial aid your odds are better.
For Northwestern, actually, apply to the ISP. I would compare it to the Cambridge Natural Sciences degree.
Thanks for all the help, i will try toefl, a test for interchange, and fight to get more than 110, which guarantees a place in an Ivy league, and possibly NYU
And I also hired a tutor who specializes in American exchange to answer all my questions and help me progress.
If you have 100 on the TOEFL no one cared if you have 101, 104, or 110. The ivy league couldn’t care less about your TOEFL score once you’ve reached 100. Of you’re good, you’re good.
(Same thing for subejct tests:750=760=780=800 for admission purpose).
Nothing, NOTHING “guarantees admission to the Ivy League”.
If someone has told you that they’ve lied to you.
To piggyback off of @MYOS1634 a 100+ on TOEFL only guarantees one thing when it comes to ivies: that you’ll be considered as an applicant.
^ Unless the OP is talking about some exchange program at some Brazilian uni (I’m just guessing).