International students: Which college should I apply? (transfer from Taiwan)

Transfer Students
1

Hello, I’m a college student in Taiwan, and I am wondering which school is more likely to accept my transfer application. Below is my background.

I’m currently a sophomore in National Taiwan University(the best one in Taiwan), and major in international business. I don’t like the way of college education in Taiwan. My GPA isn’t quite great because my professors usually give everyone B or even lower, and it’s currently a 3.00 on a 4.3 scale, and may be higher after this semester. Well, I reckon my GPA as the biggest weakness. In addition, I joined lots of activities in my college, including a volunteer club and being some ministers.

However, I did a great job on the senior high stage. Entering a talented class of humanities and social studies, I received a 3.91 on 4.0 scale, and I also get a very good score in our own college entrance examination.

My TOEFL test score is 95 now, and I will have another test on February 1. However, I didn’t take SAT or ACT exams, and I am not willing to take either of them.

Beside, I have a United States Permanent Resident Card.

Here are some schools I’m considering, and I’m sure that I meet every requirements there:
ASU
BU
Case Western
Emory
Georgia Tech
U Maryland
Michigan State
Northeastern
OSU
U Rochester
Purdue
U Iowa
U Minnesota
UIUC
UT Austin
UT Dallas
U Virginia
WUSTL
I also took NYU and Cornell in consideration, but currently I think I won’t be accepted.

Thank you for reading and any suggestions.

BTW, I’d like to say"新年快樂"to everyone here, which means “happy new year” in English :slight_smile:

2

Oh, I forgot to say that I want to apply for business school and and business-related/economic-related programs.
And, I don’t need any financial aid.
About the 4.3 scale of GPA, it’s almost same as 4.0 scale, but with 4.3=A+.

3

IMO, you should stay in NTU to get your bachelor degree and come to US for your advanced degree. Why you have to attend a lower ranked college and pay 200+K just for the sake of coming to the USA? NTU is highly regarded internationally and costs practically nothing to attend comparing private or OOS COA in the US.

There was a girl in TsingHwa few years ago and wanted to do the same thing and she too did not proceed.

To answer your low GPA problem, your GPA in NTU will be comparing to other GPA’s from NTU, not comparing to the average standard American University GPA, so if you are ranking high in NTU, don’t worry about the international adcoms won’t recognize.

You should come to the NTU alum club in the USA and discuss your plans with fellow NTU alums and they will laugh at your plans and that is not a joke.

4

BTW, International Business in NTU is the top top department in NTU and comparable schools in the USA should be Stern, Ross or Wharton, to give up a top position in NTU and come to the USA to attend UTD, ASU or MSU is a joke. Not those schools are no good, but no one in the right mind will leave Wharton for that.

5

“United States Permanent Resident Card”

Maintaining this while living outside the US is a tricky business. It may make sense for you to transfer to a college/university here so that you don’t risk losing that status.

I’d suggest that you consider where you want to start your career in the US, and climatological issues when sorting through your potential institutions. Lots of the places on your current list have serious winters.

How important is it for you to graduate in International Business? If another aspect of business is more interesting to you (or equally interesting to you), then just about any of the places on your list will be fine. Contact the transfer admissions office at each place to verify that you won’t need an SAT/ACT, and eliminate any of them that would require that.

6

@artloversplus‌ Wow, I’m surprised and glad that you know NTU and consider it a great college. And International Business is truly a top department in NTU, I am also proud of this. Actually, I used to think that NTU is not quite a well-known college haha. I don’t know if there are many people in the US heard of NTU.
I don’t know whether giving up NTU to go to the US is a good idea. I mean, NTU ranked No.105 in us news rankings, not as good as many college in the USA. In my list, BU, U Minnesota, WUSTL, UT Austin, OSU, UIUC, MSU, U Maryland, Purdue, Emory, U Virginia, all ranked higher than NTU. Staying in NTU is really better?
I ranked 43/98 in my class, not really high. But not many people in the department receive really high GPA. Neither my GPA and ranking is very competitive.
I plan to work overseas in the future. Because the average salary in Taiwan is not very ideal, and our job market gets worse. Nor can graduates of NTU easily find a well-paid and promising job.

There are four reasons I think I should go to the US: (1) to improve my proficiency in English (2) to pursue a better college education (3) studying in the USA may be beneficial to find a job in the US, HK, Singapore, or China? (4) I may lose my green card when I am studying in Taiwan. However, I don’t know if (2) and (3) is true.

Leaving home will be quite difficult, especially my English is not good enough. :frowning: But if it is beneficial to my career, I am willing to do it.

@happymomof1‌ Yes, I need to maintain my green card. My lawyer told me that If I don’t go to the US, I am at risk of losing my status. What’s worse, I cannot come back to the US regularly because of busy study schedules.
And I love winters and the snow haha. It doesn’t snow in Taiwan.
I checked the require materials of each college, all the colleges in the list don’t require SAT/ACT if I didn’t make mistakes.

Well, do you think that I have a high probability of entering any of these institution? My GPA is little lower than the average, though it is slightly higher than the minimum 3.0. Will my extracurricular experiences and essays help?

BTW, generally speaking, do students from Taiwan whose native language are not Enlish easily have friends in the US? Will Americans welcome foreigners?

Thank you all.

7

Regarding the green card, you can work or improve English in the US in the summer for 3 month and you will be ok.

Forget about the ranking, NTU is the top school in Taiwan and so many alumni came to the US and be successful that is not funny. Please DO NOT give up a seat in NTU in exchange of a 200K school in the USA. You can do a lot with that 200K, starting a business for one. Unless, of course, your mom is the chairperson of HTC…

8

@artloversplus Different immigration lawyers recommend different frequency of travel to the US. The people I know in Miami encourage return to the US every six months. That would be really expensive for someone based in Asia.

@josephinecheng If you have the time to spend in the US that is required to process a formal re-entry permit, that could be something to consider if you do want to finish your degree in Taiwan. But truly, this decision really depends on where you want to start your career. The universities here will be much better at helping you find summer jobs/internships, etc. as well as a permanent job after graduation. Also, getting your English to the full professional and academic level will be much easier to do if you are here for two years of college because of the extensive opportunities to use it in your daily life. One or two summer classes won’t be as helpful. Believe me. I teach those classes. Most US students are pretty friendly if you make an effort too. Don’t worry about that one. You are fortunate that in Business classes you will have a lot of team projects, so you will meet all of your team members. If you were an English Lit major, it would be just you and the books.

9

@happymomof1‌

NTU is a national U., that means it costs probably about $5000USD for locals to attend, including Room and board. So, if twice a year is required to be in US each year, they can fly to Guam every other month and make a trip to the US main land during the summer. which will more than satisfy the green card requirements. It will NOT break the banks.

10

@artloversplus‌ @happymomof1‌ I have discussed my green card problem and your suggestions with my parents. About the green card, we will ask for our lawyer later. In addition, I love the suggestion of fly to Guam regularly :slight_smile: I will look for more information and opinions about transfer. What I really want to know is that does I set the goal of schools too high or too low? I mean, if I could only go to a tier 2 college, it would be a joke for me to apply for a tier 1 school. Or, I want to know if I could apply for a better school. I know little about the standard US colleges choose their transfer international transfer students.Is my ideal school position correct? (However, if I can not go to an acceptable college, I think I would give up transfer.)

Thank you for answering me so many questions.

11

As a full-pay student with decent grades and adequate TOEFL, I expect that you would be able to get in to several of these places. It really is OK to email the international students office and/or the international admissions office, and ask whether you meet the standards that they are looking for in their applicants. They can’t tell you “yes, you will get in”, but they should be able to tell you “it isn’t likely that you would get in because of X, Y, or Z”. You also could pay a visit to the EducationUSA offices in Taipei , and have a chat with the counselors there. You surely aren’t the first student who has considered transferring from your university to somewhere in the US, and the counselors ought to have useful ideas for you. https://www.educationusa.info/Taiwan

Wishing you all the best!

12

Op
If you insist on transferring. Your tofel is too low for a first tier schools to consider, you need be at 110 or so. If you are first year student you definitely need sat/act. Some business schools require sat/act anyway. For business schools English proficiency is a must, there is no room for you to “improve” your English. You need that on day one.
Lastly, you have to apply us schools as a transfer but most of the credits at NTU WILL NOT be accepted in the US because they were conducted in Chinese, so basically you have to start over as a freshmen. Essentially, you get the worst deal as a student. Because it is much harder to transfer than apply as a first year. For example, u of Chicago accepted 1% transfer student in 2012, yet they admitted 9% freshmen.
IMO. Unless you can get into some top schools, it’s not worth the effort to transfer. You’d much better off with an NTU degree and apply for grad school.

13

@josephinecheng‌

Does NTU have semester or year long exchanges for your major? If you qualify for that, it could be a way for you to make professional contacts in the US, practice your English, experience the US educational system, and be in residence long enough to arrange for a re-entry permit. Re-entry permits used to be valid for up to two years, but things may have changed so ask your lawyer and check out the information at http://www.uscis.gov/ If they are valid for two years, you would have plenty of time to return to NTU to finish your degree without causing problems for your green card status. Also, any university here that participates in such an exchange will be likely to have a general notion of what students in your program know, and may be more likely to place you in appropriate classes. So I’d be inclined to encourage you to put some of them on any transfer application list.

artloversplus does make a good point that before you make a firm decision about transferring, you need to know whether or not any of your current classes are likely to transfer, and how the credits that are accepted will affect the progress toward your degree. Each college/university (and sometimes each major field of study) determines for itself which courses will transfer and which won’t. You should submit your transcripts for evaluation by a reputable evaluation organization,and then have those evaluations forwarded to each place you apply to. I usually recommend http://www.wes.org/ because I don’t know any college/university that doesn’t accept their evaluations. If you do apply and are accepted here, ask each place that accepts you to give you an estimate of how your credits will transfer. One may handle things more favorably than another. If your coursework were to transfer in such a way as to cover your Gen Eds, at most universities that would mean that all you would need to complete in your last two years would be material specific to your major, and you would not need to “start over”. Take a good long look at the programs for the major at each place on your list. If there are many courses with specific pre-requisites that need to be taken in sequence, it is more likely that you won’t be able to finish in only two years.

14

@happymomof1‌ I’ll go to EducationUSA office. Thank you. :smiley:

@artloversplus‌ I will retake the TOEFL in February; however, isn’t 100 enough? And I’m in my sophomore year now. Most of our textbooks are international edition, written in English. These credits still won’t be accepted?

Actually, I haven’t decided to transfer yet. I just think that maybe I should give it a try. After all, I am not sure that I will get admissions.

Thank you for offering me lots of useful advice.

15

@happymomof1‌ Yes, NTU does have some exchanges. More than half of our junior student go overseas for a semester or a year. I’m not sure if I could successfully apply for US college, because it depends on the GPA and many people want to go to the US.

About the re-entry permit, I applied for it when I was fifteen. I will ask my lawyer if I can get another one.

About the transferable credit, I will consider it. Also, international business seems not a very common major? I have taken some class of economic, accounting, calculus, statistics, and marketing. Most of our textbooks are international edition, written in English. I will check if these credits are accepted.

Thank you for your suggestions. These websites are quite useful. :smile:

16

Op
I just want to ask you one question, if Soochow U. Is in the USA will you consider transferring and basically start your school at freshman level? What you are doing is exactly the same scenario.

Regarding transfer credits, you will lose many credits regardless which text NTU uses. That has nothing to do with NTU, it’s the same with US transfer students.

17

100 TOEFL will be good anywhere. You’ll be compared to NTU students so don’t worry too much about your GPA. Apply to Ross and Stern since you can be full pay; you’d certainly get into Carlson.
It all depends on whether you want to work in the US (keeping your green card) or in Asia. For Asia, NTU would be better, but to work in the US you’ll need a US degree. What you learn in a US college is very different due to the teaching techniques, student behavior, and “general autonomy” learning, from what you learn at a school like NTU.
I agree with artloverplus you shouldn’t give up NTU for MSU or ASU. However if you apply strategically you don’t risk anything - at worst, you’ll stay at NTU and you’re not worse off, and at best you’ll get into Stern or Ross and will be better off. :slight_smile:

18

@artloversplus‌ Hmm…I think I won’t do that. I won’t go to any college/university which is worse than NTU. Well, NTU is really better than these colleges/universities on my list? I mean, though NTU is the best university in Taiwan, I’m not sure that graduating from NTU is beneficial to work overseas.

And about losing credits, it is really a big problem. I don’t want to start over again. :((

19

@MYOS1634‌ Wow, Ross or Stern? I can not believe if I have the chance to be in there haha. I’m a normal student, and my consult told me I won’t be accepted by any top 50 schools. I really want to work overseas, especially in the US. Graduating from NTU almost guarantees an adequate job in Taiwan, but I want more. I will take applying these top top schools into account. Thank you a lot. :slight_smile:

20

Of the schools mentioned here, only UMich’s, UVa’s, NYU’s, Cornell’s, and maybe Emory’s b-schools are worth transferring in to from NTU.

If you can’t get in to those 5, getting the best job you can after graduating from NTU and then trying for an MBA from a good b-school after working a few years is a far better plan than transferring to some school on your list outside those 5.

Saving your money for an MBA from a good school makes much more sense as well.

Your life doesn’t end at 23, you know.