Undergraduate USA: Admission
Good day, dear habravchane.
Today I want to continue the topic of study in the United States, 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 to the undergraduate degree.
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In fact, everything is quite simple. The process is the same as admission to Russian universities, so I will not tell all meticulously, just for each of the points I will note what is really different and what, in my opinion, you should know. Go.
Decide on a specialty and translate the name into English. A literal translation is unlikely to be correct, so you have to search for the corresponding similar specialty on the Internet. For example, my specialty in Russian was called “Automated Information Processing and Control Systems”. There is no such thing in the USA, so I searched for keywords like “computer”, “programming”, “calculation” and so, having walked in Google for some time, determined that the specialty I needed in the USA is called Computer Science or Information Science.
I have already said that specializations in narrower areas in the United States are called concentration. So, you can not worry about the translation of the name of the concentration, the concentrations may have different names in different universities. You will search for the concentration you need when choosing a university.
Decide which university suits you best. Universities, like everywhere else, are all different: some are cheap, some are expensive, some are well taught by the humanities, some are technical, etc.
There are different rankings of universities, both in the world and in the country. One of the most well-known US university rankings is the US News & World Report. It is created taking into account both different statistical data, such as employment, tests and other things, and assessments of various independent experts, so probably many trust it. They are also the creators of the well-known concept of tiers, the distribution of universities according to "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, and so on. 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 the US News, there are also the Forbes Colllege Rankings, the Washington Monthly College Rankings and others, but I can’t tell you anything about them, I’ve never been guided by them. I can only say that they are less popular.
If you choose a university for the price, you can also use the US News rating, which prints the average prices for tuition announced by universities. Well, the best thing is to go to the sites of more or less liked universities and check prices directly in their specialty. Prices vary quite a lot. I met prices as low as 10,000 and high around 40,000. In addition, it must be borne in mind that prices for foreign citizens are higher than prices for US citizens.
Another small feature of tuition fees in US universities is related to the fact that there is a credit system of education. Among American universities there are those that charge tuition fees in general, and there are those in which fees are paid depending on the number of subjects studied by a student per semester.
Also, when choosing a university, the city / state of the university location can be used. Some universities like Princeton, Duke are located in small cities that are economically built on the basis of these same universities. As a rule, in such universities, it is very quiet, little distracting and you can easily concentrate on studying. Other universities, such as, for example, 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 have a lot of different activities besides study. The state can play a role too. There are states in which they live mostly rednecks and the laws in these states may seem rather radical, there are states geographically located favorably, like the state of Pennsylvania (next to New York and Washington).
As soon as you outline the university (s), go to the website of the department of your specialty at this university and see what subjects you are teaching. Read the description of these subjects and make sure that it really corresponds to what you would like to learn. If the site describes the concentration, then take a look at their description and make sure that you are not mistaken with the name of the specialty.
Schedule 2-3 university and can begin collecting documents and passing the necessary exams.
Browse through your university sites. You are interested in the admission section and international students admission.
The first thing to see is the deadline for submission of documents. It is very important to file on time. If you pull, the seats will be small. Just look at what term you should serve. There are universities in the United States that take on both the fall and spring semesters (Fall and Spring Semesters), with the same chances of admission, 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. As a rule, these are SAT (ie EGE) and TOEFL (English), but some universities like California Tech do not accept SAT, they do their exams, and some specialties also require SAT-II. Carefully review the minimum recommended exam scores for admission. When you see minimal results for the SAT, do not be intimidated by a large number - very often foreign students are discounted on the language part of the exam. Many of my acquaintances failed a part of the English language in the SAT, but they wrote mathematics very well. Almost everyone studies at tier 1 universities.
See what documents you need to collect. Usually it is 1. 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 small essay in which you write why you chose it is their university and why it matters to you. All this needs to be copied, assured and certified to translate. Also keep in mind that after passing the TOEFL and SAT exams, sending these results to universities will be done by TOEFL and SAT and you will have to pay $ 30 for sending each.
In addition to all this, you will need to complete an admission application. Usually this is done painlessly online at the university site for 70-100 dollars.
Complete, collect, pay, send and wait for a response.
Here, in fact, everything is easy. 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 DS2019 document or I-20. Visit the website of the embassy, ​​download forms DS157, DS158 and fill in both. Also on the site, find a DS156 form, fill it in online, download it as a PDF, print it out, and paste a 5x5 color photo onto it. Appoint an interview on the website of the embassy. Go to DHL or similar, send DS156, DS157, DS158, a copy of the certificate from the bank confirming that you or your sponsor have money for your training, and DS2019. On the day of your interview, you dress simply, not in a tailcoat, take 131 bucks by releasing at least 2000 and go to the interview. If they give you a visa, you can congratulate yourself, you have just entered the Amerkan University.
Thus, the admission to the American university process is approximately similar to the 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 following article faster. In the next article I would like to write about getting sponsorship, or, as the Americans say, scholarship.
Today I want to continue the topic of study in the United States, 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 to the undergraduate degree.
')
Introduction
In fact, everything is quite simple. The process is the same as admission to Russian universities, so I will not tell all meticulously, just for each of the points I will 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. A literal translation is unlikely to be correct, so you have to search for the corresponding similar specialty on the Internet. For example, my specialty in Russian was called “Automated Information Processing and Control Systems”. There is no such thing in the USA, so I searched for keywords like “computer”, “programming”, “calculation” and so, having walked in Google for some time, determined that the specialty I needed in the USA is called Computer Science or Information Science.
I have already said that specializations in narrower areas in the United States are called concentration. So, you can not worry about the translation of the name of the concentration, the concentrations may have different names in different universities. You will search for the concentration you need when choosing a university.
Stage 2: Choosing a University
Decide which university suits you best. Universities, like everywhere else, are all different: some are cheap, some are expensive, some are well taught by the humanities, some are technical, etc.
There are different rankings of universities, both in the world and in the country. One of the most well-known US university rankings is the US News & World Report. It is created taking into account both different statistical data, such as employment, tests and other things, and assessments of various independent experts, so probably many trust it. They are also the creators of the well-known concept of tiers, the distribution of universities according to "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, and so on. 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 the US News, there are also the Forbes Colllege Rankings, the Washington Monthly College Rankings and others, but I can’t tell you anything about them, I’ve never been guided by them. I can only say that they are less popular.
If you choose a university for the price, you can also use the US News rating, which prints the average prices for tuition announced by universities. Well, the best thing is to go to the sites of more or less liked universities and check prices directly in their specialty. Prices vary quite a lot. I met prices as low as 10,000 and high around 40,000. In addition, it must be borne in mind that prices for foreign citizens are higher than prices for US citizens.
Another small feature of tuition fees in US universities is related to the fact that there is a credit system of education. Among American universities there are those that charge tuition fees in general, and there are those in which fees are paid depending on the number of subjects studied by a student per semester.
Also, when choosing a university, the city / state of the university location can be used. Some universities like Princeton, Duke are located in small cities that are economically built on the basis of these same universities. As a rule, in such universities, it is very quiet, little distracting and you can easily concentrate on studying. Other universities, such as, for example, 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 have a lot of different activities besides study. The state can play a role too. There are states in which they live mostly rednecks and the laws in these states may seem rather radical, there are states geographically located favorably, like the state of Pennsylvania (next to New York and Washington).
As soon as you outline the university (s), go to the website of the department of your specialty at this university and see what subjects you are teaching. Read the description of these subjects and make sure that it really corresponds to what you would like to learn. If the site describes the concentration, then take a look at their description and make sure that you are not mistaken with the name of the specialty.
Schedule 2-3 university and can begin collecting documents and passing the necessary exams.
Stage 3: Document Collection and Exams
Browse through your university sites. You are interested in the admission section and international students admission.
The first thing to see is the deadline for submission of documents. It is very important to file on time. If you pull, the seats will be small. Just look at what term you should serve. There are universities in the United States that take on both the fall and spring semesters (Fall and Spring Semesters), with the same chances of admission, 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. As a rule, these are SAT (ie EGE) and TOEFL (English), but some universities like California Tech do not accept SAT, they do their exams, and some specialties also require SAT-II. Carefully review the minimum recommended exam scores for admission. When you see minimal results for the SAT, do not be intimidated by a large number - very often foreign students are discounted on the language part of the exam. Many of my acquaintances failed a part of the English language in the SAT, but they wrote mathematics very well. Almost everyone studies at tier 1 universities.
See what documents you need to collect. Usually it is 1. 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 small essay in which you write why you chose it is their university and why it matters to you. All this needs to be copied, assured and certified to translate. Also keep in mind that after passing the TOEFL and SAT exams, sending these results to universities will be done by TOEFL and SAT and you will have to pay $ 30 for sending each.
In addition to all this, you will need to complete an admission application. Usually this is done painlessly online at the university site for 70-100 dollars.
Complete, collect, pay, send and wait for a response.
Stage 4: Getting a visa
Here, in fact, everything is easy. 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 DS2019 document or I-20. Visit the website of the embassy, ​​download forms DS157, DS158 and fill in both. Also on the site, find a DS156 form, fill it in online, download it as a PDF, print it out, and paste a 5x5 color photo onto it. Appoint an interview on the website of the embassy. Go to DHL or similar, send DS156, DS157, DS158, a copy of the certificate from the bank confirming that you or your sponsor have money for your training, and DS2019. On the day of your interview, you dress simply, not in a tailcoat, take 131 bucks by releasing at least 2000 and go to the interview. If they give you a visa, you can congratulate yourself, you have just entered the Amerkan University.
Thus, the admission to the American university process is approximately similar to the 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 following article faster. In the next article I would like to write about getting sponsorship, or, as the Americans say, scholarship.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/88122/
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