<p>Hey guys. So basically I'm an Indian student just graduating high school here in India and I'm looking to take a gap year and apply to the US next year to some public universities. I had a few doubts so I figured posting them here would help.
1) firstly, I'm looking to major in finance or management and looking to go into financial consulting or maybe I banking or pe/vc after college. So I just wanted to know how the situation for h1b visas is regarding to that. I heard that only graduates from STEM fields usually get h1b visas to work in the us. How true is that?
2) secondly, I'm not exactly an overachiever and I've gotten about 70-75% throughout grades 9-12 and have an SAT score of around 1900(which I'm looking at improving over my gap year). I'm also giving a few ap exams, the act exam and racking up a few solid internships. Therefore, I was looking at universities like penn state, uw madison, uiuc etc. id be taking a loan of approx $40,000 over 4 years to attend college. So would that be worth it in your opinion? Or would I be better of applying to LAC's for fin aid?
3) and lastly, another option suggested to me was to apply to canada for university. A few names that popped up were mcgill and university of Western Ontario for finance. How would that option be? Since I've heard it's extremely easy to get a work visa there on graduation and it's a lovely place to live in.
(To add to that, I'm definitely looking at working abroad for a few years, getting a MBA and then weighing my options at home too)
Looking forward to everyone's opinion. Thanks for helping me out!</p>
<p>The schools you would like to apply to are not exactly target schools so if you were able to graduate college, you may not have many job prospects in the finance industry. </p>
<p>@ooohcollege I know they’re not exactly targets but they’re the only ones in my budget (around 40k a year). Isn’t penn state a semi-target though? I might consider doing a MS in Finance program straight after college too maybe. But could you tell me a little more about the h1b status for finance majors? Would I be better off going to canada for my undergraduate degree in finance? </p>
<p>There are lots of business and finance majors who are US citizens that you would be competing with and I don’t know if you would have many job opportunities in an already very competitive major.</p>
<p>It wouldn’t be wise taking loans of at least 40k/year. Most colleges including LACs don’t give financial aids to international students. To get a visa to US, you need to have at least several years of tuition and extra money in your bank account or you will most likely be rejected for a visa. If your family can afford your tuition and personal expenses, come study at US. If not, try going to college in your country.</p>
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To get that kind of job with visa sponsorship, you’ll need a degree from an elite university. Your stats don’t make you competitive for those. I suggest you get your Bachelor’s degree in your home country and then consider graduate school in the US.</p>
<p>FWIW, I briefly looked into management consulting and finance jobs after college. I only spoke to a handfull of “large” companies, but all of them told me that I would be wasting my time to even submit an application, since they hire exclusively from a handful of elite universities. </p>
<p>Regarding H-1Bs: currently there’s a shortage of work visas. The way it works is that H-1B applications are accepted starting on April 1. Within the first few days, the number of applications will exceed the yearly visa quota. USCIS then takes all applications received within the first week of April 1 and runs a lottery to decide which applications get processed at all. If your name does not get picked, you’ll have to wait a full year for another chance.</p>
<p>Here’s the catch: your employer cannot submit an H-1B petition on your behalf until you have a Bachelor’s degree. If you graduate in May (like most college seniors) and the yearly work visa quote is reached in April… oh well. STEM majors have it a bit easier because STEM majors can get a 17-month OPT extension. That means that STEM majors have an additional year of OPT that they can use to work in the US until they apply for a work visa the following year.</p>
<p>That being said, the current work visa situation may not be relevant to you 4 or 6 years from now. The US government is currently debating an immigration reform and it’s not at all clear what the work visa situation will look like a few years from now.</p>