Upper School
College Counseling
INTERNATIONAL
The admission process for international students (anyone without a U.S. passport or Green Card) applying to U.S. colleges and universities is quite different from that in other countries; it is more complex, often more confusing and can be difficult to understand because it is one of the few systems worldwide that does not guarantee students based on a set of leaving marks or exam scores alone. Rather, this process of applying to U.S. universities and colleges (for any student) is nuanced and often utilizes information more subjective in nature than just a student’s grades and standardized test scores.
Who is considered an international applicant? If I attend high school in the U.S. am I considered an international applicant? It depends on which college you ask. It is important to review each college’s international student website as some institutions limit under which admission plans you can apply (many schools allow international students to apply only under a regular decision plan, especially if a student is requesting financial aid.). The selectivity rate may also shift dramatically if you are interested in applying for financial aid. Typically, international applicants are defined as “non-immigrant” visitors who come to the U.S. temporarily to take classes. A non-immigrant is someone who:
*Does not have U. S. citizenship or legal Permanent Resident status (a green card)
*Applies for a visa to be allowed entry into the U.S.
*Has an F-1 or J-1 student visa (most Tower Hill School international students have an F-1 visa)
Documents Required to Apply to U.S. Colleges and Universities:
In addition to the actual college application (the Common Application, the Coalition Application, or a university’s own application), colleges will require additional supporting documents. The documents required to apply to each college will vary, but most colleges will require the following:
*Standardized Tests: Most colleges will want proof of English proficiency from students whose native language is not English. All colleges will accept the TOEFL and many require it. It is highly suggested for students who do not speak English at home and have not been educated in an English-medium school for four or more years. It will be important to check each college’s website for its requirements. Tower Hill School recommends that all international students who enter the School in grade 9 or later sit for the TOEFL in the summer before or autumn of senior year.
*International Student Certification of Finances: All colleges will require a financial certification, an original bank letter verifying availability of at least one year’s worth of tuition, and a form filled out by bank officials. Consult individual college websites about this requirement. Some colleges will require this as part of your initial application, and others will only require it if you matriculate. Colleges that require this form will provide it free of charge to applicants. International families should prepare these documents over the summer, and if a student attends Tower Hill (or another school in the U.S), the student should bring multiple copies to school in the fall of senior year.
Visa and I-20s: Many colleges will require a photocopy of your passport, I-20 and visa during the application process. Consult each website about this requirement. During the spring of your senior year, you will be transferring your I-20 visa from your secondary school to your college.
High School Transcript: You must provide an official English translation of your transcript from each secondary school you attended, including all schools in your native/home country. You must provide transcripts for all U.S. equivalent grades 9 – 12.
Letters of Recommendation: Many colleges will want a letter from your college counselor and at least one from an academic teacher, most often two. They should come from 11th and 12th grade teachers so that it highlights a student’s most recent work. Extra letters of recommendation are not required and are not allowed by certain colleges.
You should check each college’s website and Naviance to see what IS required.
How do U.S. colleges and universities make their decisions?
There is no national standard for admission in the U.S., no national university admission test, and in fact, no national curriculum on which to test students. Every university has its own standards for admission, but all will base decisions on many, if not all, of the following.
*Transcripts: a list of all courses taken since 9th grade and the grades earned in those courses. Universities will often weight grades in honors and AP classes more heavily than grades in regular classes. Tower Hill School also sends a profile with every application noting the rigor of courses offered at the school.
*Standardized test scores- SAT/ACT/SAT Subject Tests/TOEFL
*Student essays
*Recommendation letters from teachers and college counselor
*Extracurricular activities
*Significant achievement in one or more of the following special areas: athletics, art, music, theater, leadership or service
*Diversity the student will bring to the university’s community
*Ability to pay the cost of attendance/financial aid: Because international students are not eligible for the federal aid that U.S. citizens receive, very few U.S. schools offer huge sums of need-based aid for international students and the competition for those dollars is fierce. Your counselor can help you determine which schools do offer aid, but please understand that if you can’t afford the price of a school and that school doesn’t offer aid, it should not be on your list. Consider whether you want to apply for aid very carefully as the admit rates can be drastically different based on your decision to this. Almost all U.S. colleges are “need aware,” which means that they will not admit you if you require any amount of financial aid. Colleges that do offer aid will have their own forms for you to fill out; those are available on their web sites. Check for availability of merit scholarship money at individual colleges and universities. This is money that is awarded based on your academic and extracurricular achievement, that need not be paid back to a college or university, and that is given to students (often) regardless of nationality.
*Legacy: You have a mother or father who attended that college/university. Siblings are also occasionally considered legacy.
*Demonstrated interest: Because colleges want to admit students who are likely to enroll, many admission offices take into account how well-informed and serious a candidate is by determining whether or not the student has visited campus, had an interview, or other contact with the college. When a choice has to be made between equally qualified applicants, demonstrated interest can, at some colleges, tip a decision in favor of a student who has shown interest. The most selective colleges receive tens of thousands of applications from highly qualified students each year and admit only a tiny percentage of them. Most colleges utilize an all-encompassing reading process that will take into account the subjective points of the application to make decisions. It is this holistic process that makes it difficult to gauge a student’s true chance of admission to any institution. Large, mostly public universities, however, will often admit students solely based on grades, rigor of program and test scores. This article (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/30/opinion/college-admissions-shocker.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share&_r=2) provides a good perspective on demonstrated interest at a highly selective college.
Things for International Students to Consider in This Process:
*U.S. universities mandate that students should be in charge of their own process and they look unfavorably on students using agents or independent counselors who complete the applications or, on occasion, write essays for students. You are best served by the advice given to you by your college counselor (often someone who has worked in a university admission office) than by an expert you have to pay for advice.
*There are more than 2,000 four-year colleges and universities in the U.S., and while some are better known than others, many will offer an outstanding education. Please be open to thinking broadly about schools and not focused only on those with a big name.
*The words “college” and “university” are used interchangeably in the U.S., both referring to postsecondary education; one is not inherently better than the other, rather, a college is often a smaller school focused largely on undergraduate education, while a university is often a bigger school that offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees.
*Colleges do not have specific quotas on students from certain countries or schools, but they do want to create a balanced and diverse class. Because colleges receive often thousands of applications from citizens of a particular country or region of the world, they have to be particularly selective on whom they choose to admit so that they can indeed admit students from a cross-section of the world.
*There is not an advantage to being an international applicant to highly selective colleges unless you come from a remote area of a country that sends few students to the U.S.
