<p>Hello everybody,</p>
<p>I am searching hard for visiting student options somewhere in the USA. Actually I only found an alternative at Columbia College. But there are so many people who are going to study in the United States just for one year and go back after that. Why is it so difficult to find some more options for it? Am i totally wrong in my searching sense?</p>
<p>Hi NorthernFlow,</p>
<p>I asked almost exactly the same question a few months ago. After a long internet search, I’ve found out that a lot of colleges and universities offer visiting student programs, it’s just sometimes really hard to find them.
The fact is, you can visit almost every university for a year, if you pay (a lot!). That’s why I am limited to the connections my own university has with foreign universities, so I can study abroad and pay my own tuition. I think this is the same for a lot other students, that means that they try to get in a partner university of their own university. But if money is no problem, you will be fine.</p>
<p>Some colleges that have visiting student programs:
Columbia, Harvard, Boston U, UCLA, Upenn, Barnard College, Emory, Tufts. (just a few examples)</p>
<p>But I discovered that almost every university does offer some kind of visiting student program, they just name it differently (non-degree programs for example). The programs do differ a lot based on the conditions that you will be studying there. In some schools you will be considered a normal student and you will be able to stay on campus etc., but other schools consider you as a non-degree student and you will have limitations that year (you can’t live on campus, sometimes you can only study some particular courses etc). So check the conditions!</p>
<p>Do you have some particular universities in mind?
Hope I helped you, if you have more questions, feel free to ask them!</p>
<p>Hi Elisa,</p>
<p>I finished reading your former topics about visiting students. So it helped me a lot to find another impulses. I am studying psychology in a country next to yours. So we might have similar backgrounds for our searches. </p>
<p>My recent results were only including Columbia. I am really surprised that you added other colleges like Harvard which I already examined for “visiting student”. So I will focus on non-degree programs as you recommended. </p>
<p>Well, the guideline to my year in the US is quite restricted. My current university offers a lot of connections, but of 12 options it is reduced to 2 for psychology and they are really like somewhere in the nowhere. Studying there is so expensive that I am really not inclined to study at a random university/college. It should have substantial qualities on academic purposes. And for me it would be nice to live somewhere in an official housing system. That’s why I don’t like Columbia cause it is really expensive to find a room in NYC and on the other hand it is really difficult to find something without living there.</p>
<p>Would you mind to swap ideas on this topic around finding a reasonable college?</p>
<p>My deadline is next July for government scholarships, so I have to prepare TOEFL, SAT and reasons for the college choice for it. It sounds to be a lot of time right now but actually it isn’t. Without that scholarships it would be quite hard to pay for a single year cause I have no professional profit of it (without a degree). There are other possibilites like Fulbright, but they offer only 70 slots of different scholarships for the whole country. It seems quite implausible to wait for it.</p>
<p>I think exactly the same, if you want to study abroad for a year, you want a school with good academic status.
But I think there are about 4 options that you can consider:
-Try to get in a university as a visiting student yourself, but you have to do a lot of tests (SAT etc.) and you probably pay a lot. (don’t be surprised to pay 40.000 or more only for tuition!) I’m not sure how it is for you, but for me it is impossible to find scholarships for that big amount of money.
-Try to get in a university with help of your own university. Maybe they don’t have a lot contacts with partner universities right now, but if you explain your situation, they might be very helpful in making contact with universities and agree about tuition. I’m actually trying to get in Upenn, like this.
-Be satisfied with a less prestigious college, so you will be able to afford it. (But even cheaper colleges are very expensive compared what I’m used to and don’t forget about living expenses!) Of course, it depends on scholarships that are available in your country. (Don’t expect to get any money from the college you want to get in to!)
-Try a organization, like Fulbright or other similar organizations. </p>
<p>If I am very realistic, I really think you should start to see your college adviser and try to get their help. </p>
<p>But, maybe you can p.m. me, so you can explain your situation a little more specifically. I have spend a lot of time looking into visiting student programs, so I might be able to help you a little bit more.</p>
<p>I am attending the largest university in my country. So you can imagine it to be very sluggish. Even if I initiate a process to a cooperation, I would never have any benefit of it cause it would need so many years. But what is your way to get that contract for Upenn?</p>
<p>I should better try to find a nice college on my own. But I got a lack of knowledge about that colleges. Of course, I know all the well known universities from the ivy league or MIT, Caltech and Berkeley. But there are so many other colleges which are rather professional in psychology. I also would prefer the west or east coast and less the parts in between. It is just my personal interest. I read so many rankings but they are not really telling anything about professors and lectures. So i would need some experiences. Before writing on college confidential, I would never have expected Berkeley to be a university with that magnitude of problems. So my lack of knowledge will be the same for any other college in the US. </p>
<p>So lastly I should extend my list of colleges. It means to extend my options for visiting student programs.</p>