viukid

Education USA helped many students at my university and has really be there to guide me along the process. Check out our orientation with photos here Gallery - Category: New Student Orientation - Fall 2011 . I had so much fun and go to meet so many new people. The university was also featured on the Education USA website EducationUSA - Financial Aid Update.

OldinJersey

carolyn - have private question-trying to find out how to research therapeutic boarding schools for a very frantic friend. can't message you, so posting here. wondering about valid websites or people she can call. thanks. (you saved the day, telling us about College of Wooster for our daughter! many hugs and thanks-Barbara)

RiodeJaneiro

Hi everyone, I'm sorry if this is a repeated question (too many pages on this thread to check) but the most confusing thing for me about application in the US is that each college has its own policy on official translations and whether they can be faxed instead of mailed. My teachers translated their recommendations on their own, and some allow that, but others don't. Also, I don't know how reliable international postal service in your countries are, but in Brazil a simple document may take up to 2 or 3 months to arrive. I called to every single university I'm applying to today and asked about faxing transcripts and additional letters. What are you guys doing about all this? I've already spent more than R$700,00 with certified translations!!!

Inpersonal

@RiodeJaneiro

In general, you don't need certified translations to apply to college in US, in particular if you use the Common Ap. Here is what you do:

Recommendations: Send your recommendations through the common ap. Ask your teachers to write the recommendations. If they know English, let them write in English. If not, offer to pay a translator (do not need to be certified) to translate their letters, and give an electronic copy of the translatinos back to them. This way, they can upload it to the Common App.

Transcripts: Get a copy of your transcript. Translate it yourself. At the beginning of the translation, write something like this:

"The following is a complete and correct translation into English of a document written in
<language>.
Document: Secondary School Transcript (and Secondary School Conclusion Certificate if you already finished HS).
"

Get a teacher you know (preferrably from your school) to check the translation and write something like this at the end of the translation:

"This is the true and correct translation of the original document
from <language> to English

<signature and date>
<teachers' name, credential, and contact information>
"

Scan everything and give an electronic copy to your GC/Principal so he/she can upload it to the secondary school report. Alternatively, you can upload it yourself in the Additional Explanation field of the Common App.

Good Luck.

huyen197

I'm an international student, and i'm on the process of selecting colleges that are suitable for me.

My SAT score: 2050 CR 600 M 760
My GPA: 8.9/10

I'm planning to take SAT II on physics and Math

My awards & activities:
+ 4 consecutive semesters of receiving the honor-scholarship for best-GPA students in Foreign Languages Specialzing School (FLSS)
+ Member of Media Team hosting CNN Idol and Prom Come What May (at FLSS)
+ Event Organizer and Creative Director of my school's English Club (CEC), hosting monthly Meetings for about 100 members including: Meeting1 (Welcome to CEC), meeting 2 (Halloween), Field trip 1 (Pottery Village), Meeting3 (Christmas Party), Field Trip 2 (Ancient Roads), Meeting 4 (New Management Board Recruitment), Project 1 Deliver Love for Valentine, Project 2 Birthday Celebrations for Members, Project 3 Acting Month - All of these activities are offered for free and include attendance of all our members. To operate these monthly meetings, we, managers of English Club, have to find funding sources by cooperating with our donors (mostly English Academics centers)
+ Event Organizer of my class
+ Official Co-manager of A Meal A Smile Project (delivering free food for poor patients)
+ Orientation Group Leader of 10+ 2012 (an orientation program welcoming new students in my school)
+ Participant of FLSS Galax (Cultural night)
+ Scriptwriter and Director of Acting Project 'illustrating literature by Drama', hosted by FLSS

Contribution: max 20k
preferable 10k

Can anyone please recommend me some colleges that might be eligible for me ? T T

Temebrizzy

I am sorry it did not open for me

parkemuth

A couple of years ago, the Washington Post did a front-page story on the University I worked for. I was interviewed for my successful recruiting of top Chinese students into its academic community. I was thrilled that these wonderful students were then profiled and pictured as being an integral part of our university. I know our founder would have been proud. It was the first time a story that was not negative had graced the front page of the Post on anything to do with students. I felt happy and very self-satisfied. I knew I had done something good.

Then I read the article on line. There were more pictures of our students smiling, cooking, and making goofy faces. I had talked to the photographer and he wanted to portray these super geniuses not as nerds looking through books or at a computer screen. Those were outdated clichés. Instead, after taking with them, he decided to go to one of their dinners. The photos were an accurate portrayal of the playful, well-rounded students they were and still are. Once again, I thought "how great": the cultural stereotypes that so often exist among Americans toward Asians in general had been given proof positive that they were not accurate. Now I felt a great thing had been done and wanted to thank the Post for profiling these kids.

But then I read the reader comments. I was shocked. Then angry, and then sad. Not quite the seven stages of grief because frankly I still have not gotten over what I read then and what I hear when people talk at parties or write in books some of what was said on-line. A great many of the comments focused on why a great university would give away spaces to potential spies and communists. Really. Moreover, this was the Washington Post for goodness sake, the liberal media elite. Yet, comment after comment ripped into our policy and students. They accused them of being stooges for their government. They accused them of being communist spies here to steal our secrets. In fact, these students know a great deal about what happens in China. They are not blithely ignorant.

When people hear that people in China do not have access to Facebook and some other sites what they do not realize is that this is, as so much in China when it comes to government intervention, only partly true. Anyone who studies in the US gets an IP address that permits access to Facebook and Google and anything else. Western hotels, which offer free wireless in the lobbies, can be open access too. The Chinese government knows this and frankly, they don’t care. It’s not the smart people they are worried about. It is the poor and uneducated who are kept in the dark and this is, for their government, for very good reasons.



While readers on the Post were accusing these students of being spies, they probably did not pay much attention to the significance, this summer, of the Chinese Party’s removal of Bo Xilei. The charismatic leader of cites and a province was gaining a great following among the poor and calling for a return to Maoist ideals. He was charged with crimes, as was his wife; his son was taken to task in both the US and Chinese press for living lavishly. In other words, he was purged. Well, lots of reasons, but the one Chinese students talk to me about is that he was moving in a direction the party does not want to follow. His call for a return of what we in the west would call Maoist values is exactly what the leaders do not want. For their economic success to continue they need the poor to be poor and quiescent. The need cheap labor and they don’t need unrest from 800,000,000 people. In short, he was purged for being too communist. Now that is textbook defining irony given what some people in the US think the Chinese government is planning here in the US.


I mention this simply to correct yet another view that the Chinese students, while are hardworking, are unaware of what is going on in their own country, and not be trusted.

I think they are wrong. And here is why; what I am going to do is provide some numbers. Without data, everything else is just opinion. I have written a version of this quote a number of times on this and other sites. Here are some worth noting. (The figures I am posting are from last year as this year’s final numbers do not come out until October.)



Here is a brief lesson in math. This past year 77% of the students who submitted 800 score (the highest possible score) on the physics SAT subject test were from china. This is stunning in and of itself. However, when you take into consideration that our Chinese applicant pool comprises just 6% of our applicants then you know that the Chinese students are over-represented at the top by several orders of magnitude.

Moreover, it is not just physics. Average SAT 2 Scores for students from China: physics: 791/800, Chemistry 787/80 on Chemistry. The median SAT 2 math score for entering students from China (over 100 students): 800. Yes, 800. Nowhere in the history of my university has any subgroup ever done anything remotely like this. However, scores are just one measure. Graduation ceremonies recognize outstanding achievement. Were high school or university, Asian student again and outperform Non-Asians.


Here is where I start to shake my head in disappointment at our current government policy. There very students, the best and the brightest in the entire US, would, for the most part, love to be able to stay in the US, get great jobs, and eventually obtain a green card and then ultimately citizenship. And what could be better for this country? To have the very best students be a part of the innovative leaders who will guide us out of economic stagnation seems like a recipe for success. Unfortunately, the US government has a very different take away from all these great students wanting to be a part of the American Dream. As I have already written in other places outside CC, and as the film I am associated with "Will Work for Words", demonstrates, we are sending the vast, vast majority of these students back to China. Our tiny number of spaces open each year for work visa assures this. So instead of having them here spending money, creating jobs as CEOs and entrepreneurs, we are sending them to China to do the same. Again this is fact not opinion. The 120 colleges and universities who have written to the leaders of the US have asked them to revise this policy for the benefit of the country. However, politicians, these days, side with those readers of the Post who think it is far better to ship them back to China. And so they are going and taking jobs and money with them.





If someone can explain why this is good for the US and for the world economy I hope they will post here or at least email me so I can stand corrected. As long as there is data and logical support, I promise I will apologize in public for all the controversial things I have just said. But at the moment I am feeling optimistic I won’t have to do this. And also immensely sad that I am correct about this. Contradiction is built in to human nature.
Moreover, there are a number of posts forthcoming in which I think I will be able to say the same thing. Stay tuned. It’s going to get messy.

Note: I had a photo of a Chinese student who just climbed the top of a mountain in China. It is very dramatic but I can’t post it here. This represents the future the US seems to want. Send the best and brightest back to China where they will work hard to rise to the top and create jobs and wealth there. Some would say good riddance. I would say bad policy. And bad business. As one president famously said: "The business of America is business.” However, our policies seem to undercut this statement. It needs to be retired. Let those young strivers rise elsewhere. We are, perhaps, too old in our thinking to want to be the shining city on the hill we used to be.

kubelan

The site can"t be found

abdelgadoo

what were your sat scores?

dzemor

parkemuth I totally agree with you. Btw you wrote it in such a persuasive way, nevertheless that's exaclly what I think. Just think of it what is worthier - paying money for education, living etc an American for 18 years or giving the opportunity to students to come to learn for several years and then stay and contribute to the prosperity of US? When I think of that, it is obvious that the second option, so why politics are sending away those people? It is just ridiculous. Well, that is also my opinion.

parkemuth

Thank you so much for your kind words. Sorry, I have been away from CC for a while and only just saw your reply.
Recently I posted, on 'only connect' a graph (which I cannot reproduce on CC given the rules) taken from an article which is, to me at least, what journalists and politicians call a smoking gun. It shows how the ivies have kept Asian enrollment steady over the past 20 years even though the number of applicants, many from the best schools in the US and around the work, have skyrocketed. Cal Tech has done it differently. Their Asian student percentages reflect the reality of the magnet schools in both the US and around the world. The Ivies have not. In fact, virtually all of them have the same enrollment percentages as each other.
Are the journalists investing this? No. It is not something they think most people in this country want to hear. And that says something sad at the very least.

motheroftwogirls

Classes and communication in general function differently in the United States...after all, communication is cultural. I recommend buying a book like this one to better prepare yourself for your journey to the U.S. Excuse Me, Can you Repeat That? Many international students in the U.S. are reading this guide book to review important strategies to make communicating in the U.S. easier and more successful.

Indiestudent

Are really high SAT -I scores reqd for int. students? English is the first language at my school but, definitely not my native language. Will they, ie the admission officers be able to understand the reason for scoring low in the CR/Reading sections. Please Advise.

Guitar500

@Indiestudent: It depends on the school. A good score can only help you, but some schools take it more into consideration than others. I suggest you check the Common Data Set of the schools you're interested in. There they mention how important test scores are in their evaluation of applicants.

And many schools are more forgiving about CR scores for internationals. For example, Grinnell, a top LAC, has a SAT middle 50% of 660-790 for internationals, but the CR middle 50% is significantly lower: 590-720. There are also many schools that are test-optional for everyone, including internationals. Really, you don't need near-perfect scores unless you're aiming for the Ivies or other similar schools. What I would suggest, though, is making sure you're within their middle 50% range.

Good luck, do your best on the SAT, but don't freak out if you don't get a perfect score. I freaked out when I found out my score (1980), but I still got into my top choice. As long as you work on polishing those essays, maintaining a good GPA, and getting great recs, you'll do fine.

motheroftwogirls

Classes and communication in general function differently in the United States...after all, communication is cultural. I recommend buying a book like this one to better prepare yourself for your journey to the U.S.: Excuse Me, Can you Repeat That? Many international students in the U.S. are reading this guide book to review important strategies to make communicating in the U.S. easier and more successful.