Study America 1

HOW TO STUDY IN 🇺🇸 FOR FREE?
[follow to know everything about applying to US universities]

Studying in the US can be very expensive. Many international students dream of studying in the US, but think that the cost is out of their reach 😢

There is hope, and it comes in two forms👇🏻

1. Need based financial aid
Many US colleges offer generous financial aid for international students based on financial need. International students who can demonstrate a certain level of financial need are eligible.

2. Scholarships
Lots of educational institutions and organizations offer merit based scholarships to international students, or scholarships tied to the student’s region or country of origin.

❗️When it comes to financial aid for international students, colleges fall into three main categories:

🔸“Need blind” plus full financial support
There are over 4,000 degree granting educational institutions in the US. Of those only five ignore financial need in their admission process. In other words, your ability to meet tuition fees will not affect your application for admission. And if you do get in, these institutions will ensure they give you the financial aid you require.

🔹“Need blind” plus partial financial support
At these colleges, admission policies also ignore financial need, but if you are admitted the college does not necessarily meet the demonstrated financial need.

🔸“Need aware” a plus financial support
A large number of colleges do take need into account in their admission process, which means your chances of getting may be reduced if you require financial assistance. If you do get admitted, these colleges will financial aid for international students that meets the full financial need (or close to it).

FAQ about Financial Aid

🔺What is the process for applying for financial aid?

The process for applying for financial aid can be summarized in four steps:

• Decide if you’re applying for financial aid.
• Complete College Scholarship Service (CSS) profile.
• Upload your financial aid information so that colleges can verify the information on your CSS profile.
• Receive and review your financial aid offers. You may want to appeal your financial aid award and negotiate a better offer.

🔺 How does having more than one child attend college impact your expected family contribution?

Contrary to popular belief, having more than one child attend college does not significantly reduce your expected family contribution.

🔺 If a student is not likely to receive financial aid, should the student still apply for aid at need-aware colleges?

If your family’s financial situation is such that you only have a slight chance of receiving financial aid, it is probably not worth applying for financial aid at the need-aware institutions to which you are applying. Instead, you should focus your efforts on applying for merit-based scholarships.

🔺 To receive scholarship money, do you need to demonstrate both high financial need and strong academic performance or is one more important than the other?

To receive financial aid, you need to demonstrate high financial need. To receive merit scholarships, you need to have a record of strong academic performance. Selective private colleges disburse more need-based financial aid and non-selective private colleges award more merit scholarships. Consequently, financial need is more relevant at selective private colleges whereas strong academic performance is more relevant at non-selective private colleges in the process of determining which scholarships and financial aid you will receive.

What questions do you have?

COMMON MISTAKES of College Applicants

❌ Missing Deadlines
The college admissions process is filled with deadlines, and missing a deadline can mean a rejection letter or lost financial aid.
Realize that some colleges will accept applications after the deadline if they have not yet filled their new class. However, financial aid may be much harder to obtain late in the application process.

🥴 Using the Wrong College Name in an Application Essay
Understandably, many college applicants write a single admissions essay and then change the name of the college for different applications. Applicants need to make sure the college name is correct everywhere it appears. The admissions officers will not be impressed if an applicant begins by discussing how much she really wants to go to Alfred University, but the last sentence says, “R.I.T. is the best choice for me.” Mail merge and global replace can’t be relied on 100% - applicants need to reread each application carefully, and they should have someone else proofread as well.

⚠️ Waiting Too Long to Ask for Letters of Recommendation
Applicants who wait until the last minute to ask for letters of recommendation run the risk that the letters will be late, or they will not be thorough and thoughtful. To get good letters of recommendation, applicants should identify teachers early, talk with them, and give them as much information as possible about each program to which they are applying. This allows teachers to craft letters that match an applicant’s particular strengths with specific college programs. Letters that were written at the last minute rarely contain this type of useful specificity.

🔴 Waiting Until The Last Minute
A well-rounded applicant is an organized person who plans ahead. So if you’re trying to communicate that you are a well-rounded, responsible applicant, do not submit your application at 11:59 p.m. on the night that it is due.
If you wait until the last minute, you’ll be rushing to get everything done on time. This results in sloppy essays and room for error when filling out the application.

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MIT SUPPLEMENT ESSAY

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is known for its rigorous STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), business, and entrepreneurship programs. It uses its own application system called MyMIT instead of the Common Application, and applicants are required to submit five essays.

✍🏻The fifth essay prompt reads:
“Tell us about the most significant challenge you’ve faced or something important that didn’t go according to plan. How did you manage the situation? (225 words)”


1️⃣You do not—and should not—always write about the most significant challenge that you’ve faced, especially if that challenge is deeply personal, inappropriate, illegal, or not your story to share. Ideally, you want to strike a balance between writing about something that has weight and gravity but is still appropriate for public consumption.

2️⃣MIT admissions officers will use your response to this essay to try to understand how you handle difficult situations at the moment and what you learn from them during and after they occur. Knowing this, make sure to speak to the significance of the challenge that you choose and not trivialize it.

3️⃣ You are free to choose almost any topic you wish. However, you should avoid anything that is too trivial (like receiving a bad test grade), clichéd (a sports injury), or personal (romantic relationships and breakups). If you choose a topic that borders on the cliché, you need to put a unique spin on the story.

🔺Example 1: You might write about sports injury.
A unique twist on this would be an essay that talks about how the you struggled with feeling socially isolated and disconnected from teammates. During your time away from the sport, you became obsessed with political studies, met new friends with shared values.

🔺Example 2: You’ve spent months preparing for a competition/performance, but during the event your memory slips. You panic, but slowly adapt to the memory challenges and use your skills to improvise. When describing this situation, you could reflect on the importance of preparation while being flexible and adapting to new situations and changing conditions.

Who Reads My College Application❓

Usually, the people who read your application are part of that university’s admissions committee. They read through all the applications received that year and can go through several applications in just one hour. The process happens very fast.

The admissions committee collectively decides who to accept, reject and who to put on the waitlist.

👩🏼‍🎓The Admissions Officer

A school’s admissions officer oversees a specific region in the country, so each school has multiple of them. They are usually a diverse group that represents the graduates of the university. Many of them might be veterans of the school.

Admissions officers tend to be on the younger side with more liberal views. Even if you notice this in your region’s admissions officer, it is important not to tailor your essays to meet their perceived political preferences. 🤔You want to stay away from any political topics in your essay as you never know who is reading your application.

Tips to Consider for Your Early Admissions Strategy 🔝

If you plan to take advantage of early admissions, these tips may be useful as you move forward in the process.

🚀Research the Benefits of Early Admissions

If you are thinking about applying early to a school, make sure you are aware of the benefits of applying early. Early admissions statistics can be misleading, so you want to do your research before making this choice.

For example, if Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is your top-choice college, consider applying during the regular admissions round. There is no tangible benefit to applying Early Admissions versus Regular Decision at MIT specifically, so take the opportunity to apply EA or even ED to another college you’re really excited about.

🤝🏻Show Dedicated Interest

If you’re interested in a competitive program at a public university, or a dual degree program at a public or or private university, it can be helpful to apply early for these programs. One of the things that colleges really consider in their applications is dedicated interest. Competitive programs in particular want to see applicants who are engaged and very likely to enroll if accepted.

😉Maximize Merit Scholarships

If you want to maximize your merit scholarship award, you should apply to schools that offer Early Action. Schools like to use early applications and merit scholarships to drive yield, so you should definitely take advantage of those admissions benefits.

Applying Early Decision, however, can have the opposite effect. Because ED is binding, some colleges won’t have the same incentive to grant merit scholarships to as many ED candidates.

Stanford Essay Tips ✍🏻

1. Make your intro sentence strong.

The important thing to do with the 250-word essays is to make sure your introductory sentence is really strong. In this essay, you can’t waste any time building a narrative. You have to come out in the beginning and grab your audience’s attention.

2. Maximize the word count.

If your essay is 240 words or above, you’re good to go. One or two extra words won’t drastically change your essay. But, if you have 25 or more words remaining, you could use that space to convey additional material. You could also enhance something you’ve already said, such as taking a couple of sentences and making them more “punchy” or fun to read.

Short Answer Tips

3. Don’t sacrifice writing quality.

These essays are being assessed for writing quality the same way the longer essays are. The fact that they are so much shorter means they will be put under a microscope even more.

4. Don’t waste time on detailed explanations.

If you can describe a concept or idea in shorter words, do that. Keep it concise and to the point. It is much more important to get your entire point across in a logical way than to focus on describing a detail that doesn’t fit into the larger picture of what you’re trying to say.

Overall Writing Tips

5. Humanize yourself.

This is the most important tip. You want to show colleges that you are not just your college application; you’re not just a series of grades on a transcript or activities on a resume.
😉You don’t necessarily have to have everything super academic. For example, for the “historical event I want to witness” prompt, you don’t have to say “I want to go back to the signing of the Magna Carta.” If that genuinely interests you, that’s totally fine to say, but try to have some fun in your other responses.

6. Look at your essay with fresh eyes

Regardless of your writing process, the best way to approach editing your essay is with time. In between writing and editing your response, take a break. You will find key points that are missing or areas that you can rewrite in a more concise or interesting way.

Pomodoro 🍅 technique for studying

If you speak Italian or are a fan of Italian cuisine, you know that “pomodoro” is Italian for tomato. So why, you might ask, is this study technique named after a vegetable?

🍅 The technique was named after the tomato-shaped timer found in kitchens all over the world, and why the timer is relevant will become clear very soon.

🕰 Against the clock
The Pomodoro technique is a time management method for practically any task where you need to focus and get work done, like studying. The idea is simple, break your studying into 25-minute sessions with 5-minute breaks in between.

📲Each study session is referred to as 1 pomodoro and after completing 4 pomodoros, you take a longer break of 15-20 minutes before starting over. Of course, any timer works for this, no need to find a tomato-timer, just use your phone or watch!

☝🏻At first, you might feel like you could easily continue studying for a bit more when the timer goes off, but consistency is key, so make sure to stick to the technique.

😴No time for procrastination
If you’ve ever suffered from procrastination (who hasn’t?), this technique might prove especially useful for you. Working against a timer creates a sense of urgency and makes you aware that you are working towards a goal, instead of feeling like you have the whole day to get your tasks done. Also, the 5-minute breaks between pomodoros are just enough time to get up and move a bit and grab something to drink, but not too long to bring you out of your concentration zone.

🎁Work for the reward
Working in 25-minute intervals and knowing that a break is waiting for you helps you focus entirely on your task. Rather than being semi-focused for hours, distracted by scrolling on your phone or chatting with friends, you spend 25 minutes in efficient, focused study mode. It also feels much better to take a small break knowing you’ve actually been productive and committed to your work.

So, next time you sit down to study for your next exam or essay, give the Pomodoro technique a try!
😉

Holistic review ✨

Holistic review is a strategy used by universities and colleges to assess whether a candidate is a right fit—based on non-cognitive factors.

☝🏻Holistic admissions is a strategy designed to help institutions assess the preparedness and fit of an applicant based on a broad range of factors.

Rather than placing the bulk of the consideration on traditional academic factors (namely, GPA and test scores), a holistic approach includes a number of factors that may not be captured in a traditional admissions process:

✔️Extracurricular activities
✔️Recommendations from teachers or counselors
✔️Special or mitigating circumstances
✔️Unique experiences
✔️Civic engagement

For many students a holistic review is the difference between attending college or not. It helps to bridge that gap, allowing candidates to stand out through other merits.

A holistic review:
🔺Allows colleges to consider each student as a unique, whole person rather than a numerical test score result
🔺Promotes a more diverse student body as applicants are judged on a broader scale of qualities
🔺Provides a more valuable evaluation of potential and soft skills
🔺Allows admissions officers to get an idea of an applicant’s work ethic
🔺Makes it easier to predict a student’s success both in class and life after college as alumni

NYU 💜 the purple dream

NYU is the perfect school for students who want creativity, expression, and innovation to be at the forefront of their education.

The cross-cultural mission of NYU is demonstrated in multiple ways. The members of its student body hail from over one-hundred countries, creating a diverse campus community and student life.

📍NYU has degree-granting campuses in three different nations: its original campus in New York, a second in Abu Dhabi, UAE, and a third in Shanghai, China.

🗽NYU’s three degree-granting campuses are located in some of the most unique and vibrant cities found in the modern world. The original NYU campus resides in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan—a borough that’s proud of being a center for art, culture, and entertainment. With just a quick subway ride, students can frequent prestigious museums, theaters, and galleries, as well as famous tourist attractions such as Central Park, Rockefeller Center, Broadway, and Times Square.

📚The most popular major areas at NYU are visual and performing arts; social sciences; business, management, and marketing; liberal arts and sciences; and the health professions.

🔸Acceptance rate: ~12.2%
🔹GPA: 3.7
🔸ACT score: 33
🔹SAT score: 1550

LAWYER DEGREE IN 🇺🇸

Law schools in the US have different requirements from Europe. Let’s look into the steps you need to take:

📍Complete a Bachelor's degree – it can be related to Law studies, but that is not mandatory. Law schools accept all candidates that finished a Bachelor's degree, regardless of their former fields of study.
Take the LSAT – an official exam that tests your critical and analytical abilities – necessary for further pursuing a Law degree.

The best law schools in America (according to the U.S. News):
• Yale University
• Stanford University
• Harvard University
• Columbia University
• University of Chicago
• New York University
• University of California, Berkeley (UCB)
• Duke University

📍After finishing Law school you will have to pass the bar exam.
❗️You can take the bar exam in any state, but you have to select the exact state where you plan to practice law. Each state has its own rules for bar admission and once you are admitted in one state, most often you will only be allowed to work as a lawyer in that state only.

🎓Types of Law degrees in the U.S.

🔘Juris Doctor
All law schools in the US, both public and private, grant the J.D. (Juris Doctor) degree that is required to practice law in the country. A J.D program involves three years of study for full-time Law students and four years for part-time students.

🔘Master of Laws (L.L.M.)
- a one-year full-time study course after finishing a J.D. program. An L.L.M. is designated to further improve the knowledge of a particular area of law or for foreign students that need to additionally adjust to the U.S. legal system.

🔘Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D.)
- similar to a usual PhD program and it is the highest academic degree in the legal field. An S.J.D. lasts three years and is more often pursued by students who are interested in teaching Law. However, most law schools from the States provide a small number of S.J.D. programs.

Who here wants to become a lawyer? 🙋🏻‍♂️