<p>Don’t go to a CSU. You’ll regret it.</p>
<p>why? @dickcheney</p>
<p>@anaclara CSUs are probably the lowest tier of Bachelor Degree Colleges in the entire United States. UCs are superior in every way.</p>
<p>DickCheney: let me guess, you’re a high school student, and you live in California. Therefore, you have zero experience about, say, a Nevada flagship or an Arkansas directional or even probably can’t compare Cal Poly SLO to SDSU or Sonoma to Stan. </p>
<p>Anaclara: there are lots of CSUs with varying levels. Cal Poly SLO is considered better than some of the UCs and is as selective for engineering. CSU LA is bad, with almost no one graduating. In the middle, you have CPP for tech - if you take the 4-year commitment you should be okay-, Sonoma State, a residential CSU where you’d likely qualify for Honors, Chico State where you likewise would qualify for Honors, SDSU while overcrowded is very strong also, as is CSU Long Beach, Humboldt is good for biology/environmental science (but you have to be able to withstand the drug culture). CSU are “cheap”, at least cheaper than UCs, which are unaffordable for you anyway.
Your odds will be greatly improved no matter what, if you can increase that ACT/SAT score. Do everything in your power, every day, to work on this. Use number2.com, Khan Academy, and other free practice websites, every day. </p>
<p>MYOS and OP</p>
<p>You guys are missing the real issue here. A person with F2 visa CANNOT take ANY credited college courses except non-credited Adult school, ESL or ELL enrichment courses. They can apply for status change to F1 when they are accepted by a college. They cannot matriculate until the visa status has been changed to F1.</p>
<p>@MYOS1634 thanks! I’m studying a lot to raise my scores, I think I’m going to register for the November SAT too, I can send my SAT scores to universities later right? Also, I was thinking about a CSU because I saw that they are more pratical, so that would probably be better if I want something related to art, wouldnt it? Which schools do you think are the best for pratical arts?</p>
<p>@anaclara
Do you have enough money to go to community college?</p>
<p>Changing F-2 to F-1 isn’t easy job if you don’t have money; you have to show that you have enough money that is at least one year worth cost of attendance when you apply for I-20 for F-1 visa. Then, you apply for your F1 visa. </p>
<p>It sounds irrelevant for now, but if you don’t prove that you have enough money at least for CC, then Community college won’t give you I-20 that allows you to study, therefore you won’t be able to apply for F-1 visa. </p>
<p>And OOS for Community College is not cheap, you better off to get a full ride scholarship if you can. However, you are far from that, based on your scores. Berea is the closest you can have, but that is for high stat students. Sorry for the bad news, but we are talking about realities. You have to work on the SAT/ACT very hard to try for it.</p>
<p>there are many threads in cc that have great test guides. before anything you should read them first to improve</p>
<p>What do you call “practical arts”?</p>
<p>@MYOS1634 Nope. Not a HS student. Just compare the GPA’s from the CSU system especially local students and what they can get away with. Many CSUs will take anyone with a 2.0 Junior College that breaths.</p>
<p>If you want an education in the US, do not limit the possibilities by geography. Most California colleges are not generous to international students, including the wealthiest ones.</p>
<p>
And how is that worse than many directional universities?
Not to mention that it’s patently false, since virtually all CSUs are impacted, either the whole campus or by major. </p>
<p>@anaclara: cast a wide net. Apply to a variety of colleges. But you’ll need the highest ACT scores you can, or the highest SAT/SAT subjects (if possible) that you can get.</p>
<p>@anaclara </p>
<p>as MYOS1634 said, don’t limit yourself in California just because it’s closer or you are living there right now.</p>
<p>Not only it’s limiting your views for colleges in USA(there are many schools outside California), it would be extremely difficult or even impossible even to get merit scholarship because of competition.
You said you need a scholarship, but how will you show that you have money for college? You have to prove it to even get a “permit”(which we call I-20) to go school AND to apply for F1 visa. </p>
<p>Why don’t you look in the colleges that give 100% guaranteed merit scholarship based on GPA and SAT/ACT, and mark them as your targets?
Right now, I guess it would be better not to go to community college; I doubt that you will get any scholarship with your current stat, and even if you somehow manage to go to community colleges in California, you won’t get any money; I think there are very few or no scholarship for international transfer students. </p>
<p>You can just spend your gap year to study SAT/ACT tests, so that when you apply for Fall 2015 term, you are eligible for scholarship app.</p>
<p>For instance, University of Alabama(not directional colleges. They have bad retention and graduation rates) has opened admission app for Fall 2015 term a while ago, and the scholarship deadline is 12/1. It grants full tuition for those with 1400 SAT Math+CR or ACT 32 AND GPA 3.5(which I think you might have if you are able to calculate). However, with your current test score, unless you review Blue Book 10 times, spend your everyday with Vocabs or ACT redbook until the next test date, I doubt you will get score high enough to get any scholarship…</p>
<p>What classes did you take in Brazil and in here?</p>
<p>Can you organize a list of classes you took? </p>
<p>I do have some money to go to a college, but I was hoping to get a scholarship, I guess that’s not going to happen though…
@paul2752 In Brazil I took Math, Geography, History, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Arts (Music, Theater and Visual), PE, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Writing and Literature on my 9th, 10th, 11th and half of my 12th grades.
and here I took English 12, US Government, Economics, Health, Algebra 2 (I don’t know why they put me in there because my math was more advanced), Anatomy and US History on 12th grade (the whole year)</p>
<p>To receive financial aid/scholarship as an international student you have to have exceptional SAT/ACT and SATII scores, and be considered among the top students in your country. Even then, it’s very, very competitive. Before you continue searching for schools, you must speak frankly with your parents and ask how much they can afford to spend each and every year. The costs will range from about $25,000/year to $50,000+. </p>
<p>Just study for SAT/ACT and SAT II tests.
Do some worthy volunteer or independent activities that suit your interest.</p>
<p>the problem with your plan is your SAT score; it needs to be higher, and you only have until November 30 to bring it up, with the next test date in 3 weeks and even with late registration I’m not sure you can still register.
For CSUs, as an international, you’ll have the streamlined CSUMentor. You just enter your combined GPA (so, 1/8th of your US GPA with the name of your school in the US, 7/8th of your converted Brazilian GPA) along with the stream you were in in Brazil, submit, that’s it. Chico and Sonoma are rather residential and have honors programs where you may have a shot at as well as Honors College and some scholarship money.
Depending on your new SAT score, you could get automatic merit aid at Truman State and UMN-Morris has a low cost, as does South Dakota School of Mines and Technology if you’re looking for STEM subjects.</p>
<p>But if I’m applying for the fall 2015 term, i would have to do some volunteer or other activities before apply, right? Or can I just tell them I’m going to do volunteer work?
@MYOS1634 i’m sorry, i dont know if it’s a silly question, but are honors programs/ honors college? </p>
<p>You are going to put anything noteworthy in application…things you think that will show what you are good at or something like that. </p>
<p>Honors Colleges are for students who have better opportunities for researches and other faculty-involved works than regular students; they have generally higher GPA and test scores when they apply for it. HOnors Colleges are a bit different in every college, but mostly they have either smaller sizes of classes, are more discussion-oriented, or harder than regular classes. </p>