March 19, 2010 at 12:02Undergraduate USA: Admission
Good day, dear Khabravchians.
Today I want to continue the topic of studying in the USA, which I started a long time ago .
In this article, I would like to move from general information to more specific and start talking about the process of direct admission to American universities for a bachelor's degree (undergraduate degree).
In fact, everything is quite simple. The process is the same as entering Russian universities, so I won’t tell everything meticulously, just for each of the points I’ll note what is really different and what, in my opinion, you should know. Go.
Decide on a specialty and translate the name into English. Literal translation is unlikely to be correct, so you have to look for a corresponding similar specialty on the Internet. For example, my specialty in Russian was called "Automated Information Processing and Management Systems". There is no such thing in the USA, therefore I searched for keywords like “computer”, “programming”, “computing” and so, having googled for a while, I determined that the specialty I needed in the USA was called Computer Science or Information Science.
I have already said that specializations in narrower areas in the USA are called concentration. So, you don’t have to worry about the translation of the name of the concentration; concentration may have different names in different universities. You will look for the concentration you need already when choosing a university.
Decide which university suits you best. Universities, as elsewhere, are all sorts of different: some cheap, some expensive, some good at the humanities, some at the technical, etc.
There are different ratings of universities, both in the world and in the country. One of the most well-known ratings of US universities is the US News & World Report. It is created taking into account both different statistical data such as employment, tests and other things, and the estimates of various independent experts, so probably many trust him. They are also the creators of the well-known concept of tiers, the distribution of universities by “quality” into 4 groups. In the first group, tier 1, there are universities like MIT, Harvard, Duke, in the third group, tier 3, universities of Oklahoma State University, Robert Morris, etc. The profile of each university and its place in the ranking, as well as the ranking itself, can be found here colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges. In addition to US News, there are Forbes Colllege Rankings, Washington Monthly College Rankings and others, but I can’t tell anything about them, I have never been guided by them. I’ll just say they are less popular.
If you choose a university by price, you can also use the US News rating, which prints the average prices for studies announced by universities. Well, it’s best to go to the sites of more or less liked universities and check prices directly from your specialty. Prices vary quite a lot. I have met prices as low as 10,000 and highs around 40,000. In addition, you need to keep in mind that prices for foreign citizens are higher than prices for US citizens.
Another small feature of tuition at US universities is the fact that there is a credit system of education. Among American universities, there are those that take tuition fees in general, and there are those in which fees are made depending on the number of subjects a student studies per semester.
Also, the city / state of the university’s location can become a help when choosing a university. Some universities like Princeton, Duke are located in small cities, economically built just on the basis of these same universities. As a rule, in such universities, it is very quiet, a little distracting and you can easily concentrate on studying. Other universities, such as Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh, Columbus University are located in large cities and there is a high probability that you will live off campus and you will be full of all sorts of different activities besides studying. The state can play a role too. There are states where mostly rednecks live and the laws in these states may seem quite radical; there are states located geographically advantageous, such as the state of Pennsylvania (near New York and Washington).
As soon as you outline the university (s), go to the website of the department of your specialty at that university and view information about what subjects are taught. Read the description of these subjects and make sure that it really matches what you would like to study. If concentration is described on the site, then take a look at their description and make sure that you are not mistaken with the name of the specialty.
Schedule 2-3 universities and you can begin collecting documents and passing the required exams.
Browse the sites of your universities. You are interested in the admission section and international students admission.
The first thing you need to see is the deadline for submitting documents. It is very important to file on time. If you pull, there will be few places left. Also, look at which semester you are best served. There are universities in the USA that accept both Fall and Spring Semesters with equal chances of entry, and there are those that do not accept students or accept few students for the spring semester.
See what exams are required for admission to your specialty. Typically, these are SAT (i.e., the USE) and TOEFL (English), but some universities like California Tech do not accept SAT, they do their exams, and some specialties also require SAT-II. Look carefully at the minimum recommended exam grades for admission. When you see the minimum results for SAT, do not be afraid of a large number - very often foreign students get a discount on the language part of the exam. Many of my friends have failed part of the English language at SAT, but they wrote very good math. Almost everyone studies at tier 1 universities.
See what documents you need to collect. Usually this is 1. a certificate, 2. so-called transcripts of your past universities, 3. a certificate stating that your sponsor or you have a certain amount of money in your bank account, and 4. a short essay in which you write why you chose it is their university and why it is important to you. All this needs to be copied, certified and certified to be translated. Also keep in mind that after passing the TOEFL and SAT exams, sending the results to the universities will be handled by exactly the same TOEFL and SAT, and for sending each you will need to pay $ 30.
In addition to all this, you will need to fill out an admission application. Usually this is done painlessly online on the university’s website for $ 70-100.
Fill, collect, pay, send and wait for an answer.
Everything is really easy here. As soon as you receive a letter that you have been accepted, you contact the university, confirm that you intend to study there and they will send you an invitation in the form of a document DS2019 or I-20. Go to the embassy website, download the DS157, DS158 forms and fill out both of them. Also on the website, find the DS156 form, fill it out online, download it as a PDF, print it, paste a 5x5 color photo onto it. Schedule an interview on the embassy website. Go to DHL or the like, send DS156, DS157, DS158, a copy of a bank certificate confirming that you or your sponsor has money for your training, and DS2019. On the day of your interview, dress simply, not in a tailcoat, take 131 bucks with a minimum of 2000 release and go to the interview. If you are given a visa, you can congratulate yourself, you have just entered the American University.
Thus, admission to the American university is a process similar to admission to any other, but with its own characteristics. I tried to talk quickly and about the main thing, so if you have questions, ask - I will be happy to help.
PS I want to apologize for not updating the series of articles for a long time. I will try to write the next article faster. In the next article I would like to write about receiving sponsorship, or, as the Americans say, scholarship.
Today I want to continue the topic of studying in the USA, which I started a long time ago .
In this article, I would like to move from general information to more specific and start talking about the process of direct admission to American universities for a bachelor's degree (undergraduate degree).
Introduction
In fact, everything is quite simple. The process is the same as entering Russian universities, so I won’t tell everything meticulously, just for each of the points I’ll note what is really different and what, in my opinion, you should know. Go.
Stage 1: Choosing a Specialty
Decide on a specialty and translate the name into English. Literal translation is unlikely to be correct, so you have to look for a corresponding similar specialty on the Internet. For example, my specialty in Russian was called "Automated Information Processing and Management Systems". There is no such thing in the USA, therefore I searched for keywords like “computer”, “programming”, “computing” and so, having googled for a while, I determined that the specialty I needed in the USA was called Computer Science or Information Science.
I have already said that specializations in narrower areas in the USA are called concentration. So, you don’t have to worry about the translation of the name of the concentration; concentration may have different names in different universities. You will look for the concentration you need already when choosing a university.
Stage 2: University Choice
Decide which university suits you best. Universities, as elsewhere, are all sorts of different: some cheap, some expensive, some good at the humanities, some at the technical, etc.
There are different ratings of universities, both in the world and in the country. One of the most well-known ratings of US universities is the US News & World Report. It is created taking into account both different statistical data such as employment, tests and other things, and the estimates of various independent experts, so probably many trust him. They are also the creators of the well-known concept of tiers, the distribution of universities by “quality” into 4 groups. In the first group, tier 1, there are universities like MIT, Harvard, Duke, in the third group, tier 3, universities of Oklahoma State University, Robert Morris, etc. The profile of each university and its place in the ranking, as well as the ranking itself, can be found here colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges. In addition to US News, there are Forbes Colllege Rankings, Washington Monthly College Rankings and others, but I can’t tell anything about them, I have never been guided by them. I’ll just say they are less popular.
If you choose a university by price, you can also use the US News rating, which prints the average prices for studies announced by universities. Well, it’s best to go to the sites of more or less liked universities and check prices directly from your specialty. Prices vary quite a lot. I have met prices as low as 10,000 and highs around 40,000. In addition, you need to keep in mind that prices for foreign citizens are higher than prices for US citizens.
Another small feature of tuition at US universities is the fact that there is a credit system of education. Among American universities, there are those that take tuition fees in general, and there are those in which fees are made depending on the number of subjects a student studies per semester.
Also, the city / state of the university’s location can become a help when choosing a university. Some universities like Princeton, Duke are located in small cities, economically built just on the basis of these same universities. As a rule, in such universities, it is very quiet, a little distracting and you can easily concentrate on studying. Other universities, such as Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh, Columbus University are located in large cities and there is a high probability that you will live off campus and you will be full of all sorts of different activities besides studying. The state can play a role too. There are states where mostly rednecks live and the laws in these states may seem quite radical; there are states located geographically advantageous, such as the state of Pennsylvania (near New York and Washington).
As soon as you outline the university (s), go to the website of the department of your specialty at that university and view information about what subjects are taught. Read the description of these subjects and make sure that it really matches what you would like to study. If concentration is described on the site, then take a look at their description and make sure that you are not mistaken with the name of the specialty.
Schedule 2-3 universities and you can begin collecting documents and passing the required exams.
Stage 3: Document Collection and Exams
Browse the sites of your universities. You are interested in the admission section and international students admission.
The first thing you need to see is the deadline for submitting documents. It is very important to file on time. If you pull, there will be few places left. Also, look at which semester you are best served. There are universities in the USA that accept both Fall and Spring Semesters with equal chances of entry, and there are those that do not accept students or accept few students for the spring semester.
See what exams are required for admission to your specialty. Typically, these are SAT (i.e., the USE) and TOEFL (English), but some universities like California Tech do not accept SAT, they do their exams, and some specialties also require SAT-II. Look carefully at the minimum recommended exam grades for admission. When you see the minimum results for SAT, do not be afraid of a large number - very often foreign students get a discount on the language part of the exam. Many of my friends have failed part of the English language at SAT, but they wrote very good math. Almost everyone studies at tier 1 universities.
See what documents you need to collect. Usually this is 1. a certificate, 2. so-called transcripts of your past universities, 3. a certificate stating that your sponsor or you have a certain amount of money in your bank account, and 4. a short essay in which you write why you chose it is their university and why it is important to you. All this needs to be copied, certified and certified to be translated. Also keep in mind that after passing the TOEFL and SAT exams, sending the results to the universities will be handled by exactly the same TOEFL and SAT, and for sending each you will need to pay $ 30.
In addition to all this, you will need to fill out an admission application. Usually this is done painlessly online on the university’s website for $ 70-100.
Fill, collect, pay, send and wait for an answer.
Stage 4: getting a visa
Everything is really easy here. As soon as you receive a letter that you have been accepted, you contact the university, confirm that you intend to study there and they will send you an invitation in the form of a document DS2019 or I-20. Go to the embassy website, download the DS157, DS158 forms and fill out both of them. Also on the website, find the DS156 form, fill it out online, download it as a PDF, print it, paste a 5x5 color photo onto it. Schedule an interview on the embassy website. Go to DHL or the like, send DS156, DS157, DS158, a copy of a bank certificate confirming that you or your sponsor has money for your training, and DS2019. On the day of your interview, dress simply, not in a tailcoat, take 131 bucks with a minimum of 2000 release and go to the interview. If you are given a visa, you can congratulate yourself, you have just entered the American University.
Thus, admission to the American university is a process similar to admission to any other, but with its own characteristics. I tried to talk quickly and about the main thing, so if you have questions, ask - I will be happy to help.
PS I want to apologize for not updating the series of articles for a long time. I will try to write the next article faster. In the next article I would like to write about receiving sponsorship, or, as the Americans say, scholarship.