and change the price tag on a university education through scholarships and grants but also supply students with an enormous reservoir of networking opportunities and career contacts.
Here’s an easy 1, 2, 3, Go! for international students who would like to apply to American universities, also known as colleges or schools.
1. Open up a Common App account www.commonapp.org, the application portal to many US universities between August 1st and the end of the year.
ü You can peruse all you want out of some 2,200+ universities/ colleges, and apply to up to 20. There is a fee for each.
ü You can see the specific application requirements and deadlines for each university as you add or drop universities in Common App, and you can also link into the university’s website.
ü Some universities such as MIT, Georgetown, and many public university systems like the University of California (UCs), of which UC Berkeley is one, do not use the Common App and have their own application system.
2. Prepare for and take college admissions reasoning tests.
ü The SAT https://sat.collegeboard.org is the best known test outside of the US but all universities also accept the ACT www.actstudent.org. Both are multiple-choice critical reading, writing and math tests.
ü Londoners beware, book early so you do not have to travel far for test sites, and do not have to pay late registration fees.
ü If the language of instruction you received was not English you are required to take either the TOEFL or IELTS.
ü The Fulbright Commission offers a list of test tutors as well as educational consultants. See: www.fulbright.org.uk/study-in-the-usa/undergraduate-study/additional-resources/test-tutors-and-educational-consultants.
ü Some universities, notably, Bowdoin and Middlebury in the top 10, do not require reasoning tests. The National Center for Fair and Open Testing publishes an optional test list: www.fairtest.org/university/optional.
3. Find 2-3 recommenders and invite them to submit their references.
ü Get a dialogue going early, choose recommenders who will say positive things about you, and confirm an awareness of style differences in American and UK/European recommendations.
ü Choose teachers from different subjects (eg Mathematics and English)
ü Help your recommender by bullet-pointing your strengths.
Go! Now write your main application essays, and the shorter supplemental ones. TIP: In the main essay, you want to answer the question, WHY YOU? Then somewhere amongst the supplemental essays, answer the question, WHY THIS PARTICULAR UNIVERSITY? Tailor your responses, and go specific!
The main advantage of an American liberal arts education is the broad array of subjects in the first couple of years before deciding on a major concentration of study.
Said Steve Jobs: “It’s technology married with liberal arts married with the humanities, that yields us the results that makes our hearts sing.”
Haru Yamada, septembre 2015
