<p>Here's a question for any Southern Hemisphere students who have been through the US application process.</p>
<p>Since our universities start in March, and US decisions don't come out till April, what is the recommended course of action. In Australia you have 4 weeks to pull out of Uni, afterwards you will suffer Academic Penalty (Fail all courses on your transcript) and get no refund. However, this 4 week time is not long enough for college decisions to come out.</p>
<p>So I assume it goes like this:</p>
<ol>
<li>Attend a Southern Hemisphere Uni for the first semester</li>
<li>Receive and accept a US offer</li>
<li>Finish Southern Hemisphere Uni's first semester</li>
<li>Drop it at the end of that semester and move to US.</li>
</ol>
<p>Is this correct? Additional questions:
1. Are credits earned transferable?
2. I hear some unis ask you to drop your course if you accept their offer, does it matter if it counts as failing all courses?</p>
<p>That’s a question that you should direct to every single American college that you want to apply to. Some will be fine with you enrolling at a university in your home country while you are applying to the US, but some will not. Generalizations aren’t good enough here. You need to know every university’s own policy to make an informed decision.</p>
<p>Maybe you wanna defer your offer from the Australian university and start in July in case you don’t get into an American college (but I’m sure you’ll get offers from the US)</p>
<p>Be very careful, since some schools consider that if you earn credit hours you stop qualifying as a freshman applicant and should be considered as a transfer instead. Check their policies, and as someone said above contact each college with this question.</p>