<p>Hi can anybody share their experiences as an international student and the challenges that came with it?</p>
<p>I hear that not only in applying to Berkeley, but for many colleges, competition is tougher for international students to gain admittance to US unis. Do universities have a certain quota of intl students that they have to fill?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>You might have hit the jackpot with the UC system, because they’re trying to up their international student intake to get the money that comes with them. But then again this probably just raises the percentage of international students to be on par with that of the top private schools.</p>
<p>Yes, competition is tougher. Your stats need to be way better than the average American student. On the other hand, if you do get in, you’ll almost definitely get a good GPA if you don’t slack off.</p>
<p>I don’t think being international changes a lot of things. You might get a bit of culture shock at first - there are some things about America that they don’t tell you about (vocabulary being one of them). Classroom teaching style may be different. The grading scale may be different as well. But on the whole, I don’t think there’s any one feature of student life here that was absolutely shocking to me.</p>
<p>Thanks! Wonderful to get such a nice insight from a student’s perspective. But I don’t think the first part of your post applies to me because I’m a US citizen living abroad, so I’m applying as an OOS. I take it your assimilation to the culture went well though :)</p>
<p>I’m not an international but my friend’s roommate was and she definitely showed that she was trying to fit in. She was much more outgoing and excited than most people that came. She didn’t study much which I think will hurt her in the long run. Just know that it IS exciting to come to the US and study but balance your time wisely. Wherever you get in, it’s going to be fun to see the different culture but keep up with school. From the way she seemed, it was almost as if her income got her in. But that’s not true for other international students. They are pretty smart and succeed because it is competitive for them to get in.</p>
<p>A US citizen living abroad - you’ll have no problems at all, if you go to a US-curriculum school :)</p>