Workshop: Decoding the College Search Process (for International Students)

OK.

I'm good day everybody. Uhm and welcome to this virtual visit or workshop.

With McAllister college, thank you so much for joining us today. Uh, my name is Adam Vander sluice and I'm here together with my friend and colleague Setter Schmidt. We will both more fully introduce ourselves in a minute, but I want to 1st talk about some logistics for today's workshop.

First of all, we know that many of you are all around the world. Some of you are in the US, but many of you are in the wide range of countries, all with different distances from us and different.

Wi-Fi, and so it's possible you might run into technical difficulties were hoping that will be at a minimum, but if you do, please know that we are recording this workshop and we will be distributing distributing it after we are done. So don't worry if you miss out on something, will make sure you get the info in one way or another.

Secondly, maybe the most useful part for most interactive, certainly for you will be questions and answers on the left of your screen. You should see a tab under that says questions. You can enter any questions that you have for us in that space and we will try to answer the questions as we go.

If we don't get to them while we're going, will answer them at the end during the Q and a portion.

The way this is going to go is Sarah is going to start us off.

I'll then jump in with a little bit of info on the US side. Sarah will then jump back in with a little bit more on the social media side, and we're going to leave as much time as possible. For the Q&A. All told, we will definitely rap up within an hour. So by what is 8 AM, our local time, but one hour from the start up to this workshop.

Before we introduce ourselves, I just want to begin by honoring the land and its people to acknowledge that McAllister is located in St Paul, MN on the occupied lands of the Dakota people. This is something this is an acknowledgement that is part of who we are at McAllister. As a community. We make a similar acknowledgement at the beginning of many events on campus.

I encourage you to think about what it means to be on occupied Homeland and and if you have some questions about that at the end, we're happy to answer those as well.

But without further ado, will will get rolling here again. My name is Adam Vander Sluice. I use he him pronouns. I'm an assistant director of admissions at McAllister. I'm also an alumni of McAllister, so I was a student at McAllister. I graduated in 2011 and Sarah go ahead and introduce yourself and will get going.

Great thank you Adam and hello and welcome everybody. As I mentioned my name is Sarah Schmidt and I am the associate director for international and overseas admissions here at McAllister and I just celebrated My 3 year anniversary of working at McAllister so I'm very pleased to be sharing that with all of you.

As we get going, I just want to acknowledge that we have a wide range of registers today which is incredibly exciting for us and we also want to acknowledge that many of you might be coming from very different places in your own University search, and so depending on your school context, if you've had older siblings go through the process already, you may already be thinking about some of these things.

But we wanted to give more of an entry level primer to kind of help give you a sense of what are some of the resources that are out there and things to consider as you're starting to research your University options, whether that's in the US or around the world, we realize that students more and more have different options when it comes to where they want to study and how they want their University experience to go.

And so we're going to do our best to give you kind of a broad introduction to some of that, but first.

The big question where to begin some of you may be already have great college counselors that have been helping you with some of this initial planning work, but if you haven't, this is really a great time.

To reflect.

Now, one of the really nice things about the University process is that it gives you an opportunity to kind of sit with yourself.

And think what do you want? You may already know what your family wants for you. What your your teachers or what your peers are saying that they're looking for. But what is it that you are looking for? What is most important to you in your University experience? So take this time while you're sitting either in quarantine or have a less than active social life. Then maybe normal during this pandemic.

And really think I'm that and start a list started thinking about what are the most important things to you? What are for lack of a better term, the non negotiables? What must you absolutely have in your University and your experience to help make sure that you are going to have a great experience and they're going to get what you want?

Out of that experience, so some things that you might start considering are things like location and that can be as broad as area of the world that you want to be in. You can start by looking at your local universities and see what options you might have in your own country, but there's also options so many different places in Asia, in the in Europe and the UK.

North America, so Canada is well as the US and each have different options, different emphasis and how they structure their tertiary or their University experience. And so thinking about these things as well as what is your goal after you graduate, you know what are some of the visa implications and are you interested in trying to stay in an area?

After you graduate to either work or potentially continue with your studies, depending on your passport and uh, what's going on in the world at the time, you might want to have a couple different country options just to make sure you have a really well rounded list.

Also under location though.

What type of environments are you really hoping to be in a in a city? And depending on the country, city could mean different things. For those of you who are used to living in a city that has, you know, 20,000,000 people or more. Uhm, you might come to the US where we really only have two major cities that have more than 5 million people.

Uh, so how important is it to be in a super large city or no?

Thinking about that or what about the suburbs? You know, being outside of a major downtown area, but maybe a bit quieter, a little bit more walkable, um? Or are you looking for an opportunity to be out in nature and being a more rural area where there's really an emphasis on the campus at your on? An students really aren't going March elsewhere. It over the weekends, because really, the center of social life is on that campus.

And potentially in the small town where that campus is located.

Other things to think about programs.

What are you hoping to study and how are you hoping to study it? Are you already very certain about a career path that you want to pursue? Are you looking to do more professional type tracks? Um, for those of you who are interested in ultimately going into medicine? And I'm thinking specifically being a doctor, surgeon or those who are looking to go to law school to become a lawyer.

Something to be aware of if you are considering the United States is that we traditionally do not have direct entry programs into fields like medicine or law. It's understood that you need to do your four year Bachelors Degree.

You can be preparing for that profession, so, uh, you know. Taking biology or neuroscience? Uhm, maybe taking political science if you're interested in law. But then there's an additional three years of post graduate.

Study that happens at a an actual professional school, so medical school or law school, and so you're looking at at least Seven years of Education before you would actually get your law degree in the USA, or perhaps even longer if you're looking to do medicine in the US. Depending on what kind of specialty, I'll also point out that this is an area where citizenship

really comes into play. So if you are AUS citizen or you have US permanent residency, then by all means.

Medical school in the US is a great option and many of our undergraduate schools like McAllister have great options and outcomes for students who are looking to go into medicine. But if you are not AUS citizen or a permanent resident.

Please be aware it is incredibly difficult to get into medical school if you're not AUS citizen or permanent resident. Typically the acceptance rate for international students is less than 1%.

And if you are a student who is seeking significant financial aid.

In order to attend Medical School, it gets even harder, so it's not impossible. I think most schools can point to know an example of a student that managed to do it, but it is not the most direct path for you. If your goal is become a doctor. If that's the case, then you're really going to want to work in. Look at some other options may be either in your home country. Eastern Europe has some.

Medical universities that are a bit more forgiving for international students, but I always like to make that clear.

In terms of other things about your program, how much flexibility are you looking for? Do you want to really just go in and you've got your academic plan and you want to be done an really just study that one thing? Or are you looking to have an area of focus?

But also have the ability to check out some different things, take some different classes, try some you know, game broader experience than beyond the your specific course of study. That will also kind of dictate what type of University or what type of system you might be most interested in. If you're most interested in the idea of having a lot of flexibility while also having an area of focus, then we're glad you're here, because that's exactly what McAllister does.

Uh, so we hope that's of interest. The other thing to consider though, our social programs.

Right? What are your expectations for outside of the classroom?

Are you does it? You know? Are you looking for more of a independent experience where you're living in an apartment in that?

City and the socializing is really more up to the students and kind of on an informal basis. You'll find that a bit more often in, say, the UK Europe.

Or are you looking for a lot of intention aliti around what's happening outside of the classroom? A lots of different student organizations, student government, a lot of emphasis on how you're spending your time, inability to again, engage with lots of different people, and have a broader experience beyond your classroom. Again, if that's what you're looking for, that's typically where the US tends to have a lot of as it were, kind of renowned for having.

A lot of focus on what is happening socially and how our students developing socially as well as academically.

And then finally an important one, and I acknowledge that this can be uncomfortable to talk about. Uh, but its financial.

Maybe it's not appropriate to go into specific dollar amounts with your family, although if there open to that, it certainly helps, but at least having an idea of what is your family budget.

When it comes to funding your degree.

This is really important because it will help give you a sense of what are going to be options for you. So for example, for some families that may be able to contribute some amount of money, um.

You know, maybe the UK in Europe are good option because they tend to have all inclusive fees for ear of maybe 3035 thousand US dollar equivalent for the year.

If however, your family is, uh, not able to afford that high of a fee, that's where it can get very challenging. An often why the United States becomes popular is because even though the University prices in the US tend to be much higher than other universities around the world, partly because of all of the added experience is that we focus on like.

Guaranteeing residential life, like making sure that there are additional support services beyond your academic experience. But there's a lot of financial aid available as well.

We can get more into the financially discussion or that might even be a topic of a leader workshop, so I won't go too far into it. But again, having a good sense of.

Fees that you, your family, can pay and you know not just for that first year, but really thinking through the three years of that program or the four years of that program. That will also really help you kind of hone in on what are going to be good options to put on your list.

With that I'm going to turn it over to or. No, I keep watching talking. Sorry, um so.

Resources right so again, I know many of you might have University counseling department's or a University counselor, someone that can help you through this process, and so they might have these resources on hand already. Or you already know about them. But if you're coming from a school where maybe there isn't as much of an emphasis on international study or international universities outside of your home country.

Then some of these resources can be really helpful for you as you're trying to learn more about different University systems around the world as well as specific.

Universities.

So first one that's near and dear to my heart, the Council of international schools, CIS. Some of you might actually attend a an International School that has been accredited by CIS, but this is really a wonderful nonprofit organization that is designed to really help connect universities with counselors an with students in families. And they do a lot of great.

A professional development for us under University side. I actually sit on one of the committees the Asia Committee as a volunteer for this organization, but they also provide lots of great free.

Resources for students and parents an I believe Adam is going to pop a link into the chat for you all, but there are even in this time of pandemic. Alot of things are going to be offered. Virtually virtual fares. Things that are free for you to participate in as well as something called the University connections registry. So if you're wondering how to start receiving information from lots of different universities and.

Colleges around the world you can actually sign up on this registry and tell schools like McAllister that you are interested in receiving more information about them. So lots of great options there.

When it comes to.

Let's see the next slide.

One of the best.

Places uh, that you can get information an accurate information which is always important is the University website.

These are more and more designed with perspective students and families in mind and so especially now that University representatives like myself and Adam aren't able to travel as much as we used to. A lot of even more emphasis is being put into what are virtual options for students to connect with that University. But the University website is also.

Have your best source.

For the application process, for questions about financial aid as well as finding contact information for representative. If you have questions, so I know there are a lot of 3rd party sites out there and we'll talk about some of them, but when it comes time to what exactly does the school need for me to apply? The universities website is often the best place to go.

For those of you who are interested in the UK, uh, they are a bit more centralized in their application process than in the US, but they have a system called you Cass.

And so that's your application process, but it's also a great resource website for you to learn about the the application process, but also about different universities throughout the UK, and so that can be a really great place to do some research and figure out what are some options in the UK next slide.

And then for those of you who are also considering Canada, uh, I have a colleague and friend who works at McGill, and so she was wonderful in providing me with these excellent resources for you and to really get to know more about searching different Canadian institutions. They have a similar organization set up by the Canadian government it called Edu Canada as opposed to Education USA, but also information about Canada's immigration.

Uh, information as well as international scholarships. Uh, so.

Yeah, maybe hang for just one second, so if you all want to take a picture of the screen, if you want to remember these websites.

Alright, next slide and again will be providing this recording uh, to registrants.

Another great resource for learning about not just only different colors in universities, but also some different topics around the University application process and things like that. There are a lot of organizations that are now doing kind of free workshops or webinars partnering with University representatives like McAllister that you can access. So initial view is a third party interview.

Company, but they've also been doing a lot of kind of free resources, especially for students during the pandemic, and so they have this series called Tuesday talks, which are taking a summer break right now. But they have the archive of all their previous workshops, including one that I was a part of, which I highly recommend talking about how close relationships are really important to success in the college and University experience.

But keep an eye out because I believe they are also planning on doing more Tuesday talks once the fall here in the Northern Hemisphere, it kicks off again. But Adam I believe can pop in the link to that site as well so you can access those excellent webinars.

Great.

Now I'm gonna turn it over to Adam.

Yeah, awesome.

Thanks Sara, uh, so I'm now going to speak to us some tools that you can use for researching universities and colleges in the United States before I get to the specific tools. Just wanted to give an overview of what higher education looks like.

The different types that are available so vocational school or sometimes also called a trade school. Those are institutions of higher education that is focused on a very specific skill. So it might be around carpentry. It might be around electricity. It's a very specific thing that will give you a skill set to be doing a very specific job.

Related to those, sometimes there, together with something called a Community College and these are schools that are usually for two years, so they will be 2 year programs that are affordable post secondary education, often times as a pathway to a four year degree, so oftentimes students will complete a Community College degree.

Usually again at a very affordable rate and then that allows them to move on to finish the last two years of what would be their undergraduate degree at a four year institution.

And when I say this is a good prompt for me, that Community College, you'll notice the word college and also we use the word University. It can be confusing, but I want to clarify that college and University are often used synonymously.

You can both are sort of the same thing. I know for some of you in your home countries it might be that a college is the level below a University. In the US those are used as the same words in a lot of cases. So just as an example of my father is a professor of economics at a State University, but everybody in my hometown calls it the college, so they again, that's just one example of how that works. So going to liberal arts.

And Sciences College is McAlester, where Seren I work is one of these. There is more of a focus on academic disciplines, a broad foundation of learning. We have all kinds of classes at liberal arts colleges. Whether it's in the natural Sciences, the social Sciences, the Humanities and the arts.

Everything we try to emphasize as much as possible interdisciplinary learning, so there is an opportunity to take classes in a lot of different areas. You don't have to focus in just one academic area.

These schools tend to be small as far as overall student population, but also in small class sizes as a result. So you get a lot of direct interaction with your professors. Oftentimes, a liberal arts college will have an emphasis on undergraduate learning as opposed to Graduate School, so again, using McAllister as an example, there are no graduate students here, and so that means alot again for the attention you receive from a professor.

Who is really focused only on you because there are no graduate students to sort of compete for your time and again related to the small size, there's very strong sense of campus community. Often times are very residential, which means students are living on campus in the dormitories. And not only is there a strong emphasis on academics, but also on a robust and active life outside of the classroom.

Next, is, uh, just want to talk about the difference between public universities and private University. So in general, universities State Unity. Oftentimes these are state universities focus more on career based majors. So for example, will answer this question later. But I know somebody was asking about pre engineering. I'll use that as to highlight the differences between a liberal arts college and then.

And a larger University. So if you were to do pre engineering at McAllister, you might not major in engineering. In fact we don't have an engineering major, but you would major in something like physics and you would take a lot of classes that would be a prerequisite to go to Graduate School for engineering while also having the flexibility to take classes in the humanities or in the Arts. Whatever you're interested in, you can continue to take classes like that while also preparing for your engineering major.

If you know you want to do engineering and do engineering all the time, then a University might be a better fit, because at a University, if you were to major in engineering, your course load would be almost entirely around engineering courses, so that's one major difference there. Also, because they're much larger for the most part, the community will be much larger and thus classes will be much bigger probably.

At these institutions there's undergraduate education, but also Graduate School, PhD level and professional level education. So on the one hand, that means there's a lot of resources available at those universities. On the other hand, you do have to kind of compete for a time with those students who are there at the same time.

Again, I want to emphasize that college and University, same thing, and when we're talking about the US context and then the difference between public and private University, a lot of times I know around the world there's an assumption that private University is the same as a for profit University.

That's not true in a lot of cases, so again, McAllister. As an example, we are a private college that we are a nonprofit institution and a lot of liberal arts colleges are private but also a nonprofit. We do have for profit institutions, but those are few and far in between and tend to be much larger and tend to be more focused on online coursework. So I hope that is helpful as a bit of an.

Overview again as we go along. If you have questions, we can talk more about that towards the end. So moving on to some of the tools setting did a great job of talking about what's available for international institutions. This is more focused on what's going on in the US, so the Institute for international education is Department is supported by the US Department of State and produces this website called Education USA, Which.

Offers a lot of resources for international students. Like many of you in the audience who are interested in going to College in the US. So if you're thinking about an undergraduate degree or just wanting to do an English language program or even earning a professional certificate, this website is a great place to start. They have in particular there's a place you can kind of see it in the slide here 12345.

Those five steps to US study, and so that's a great place to start to understand what it is you need to do to make that dream a reality. In addition to that, something that's really important that Sarah highlighted is the financial peace. Education USA has a great list of institutional scholarships that will make it easy for you to locate scholarships and financial aid at any institutions that you might be interested in attending.

Next, this is the College Board website, so some of you might have taken the essay tea or the PSA key that is a test that is run by and created by the College Board at the longer version is the College Entrance Examination Board. They also have a great website with different profiles of different institutions you can see here we have mcallister's pulled up.

A nice tool that they have, especially once you have come up with a list of colleges and universities that you might be interested in, is this compare colleges tour are tool where you can enter in different institutions and have them right next to each other with certain characteristics that you're interested in.

And use that have a side by side comparison of what's going on. I'll quick drop that link into the chat.

Next is the college navigator, so this is another arm of actually instead of the US State Department. This is an arm of the US Department of Education. This is an independent and nonpartisan group with a lot of data on. Again, different institutions around the US. So if you're really interested in the numbers, or if there's a really specific piece of information you're looking for.

About a specific institution, this is a great place to go.

Again, want to highlight uhm, what Sarah was talking about that college and University websites are a fantastic place to go to get some really specific questions answered about that, that institution. So often times there will be a specific section about international admissions, an questions that have been asked by previous international students and with answers to those questions so you can look for those we.

Have some screenshots Here of mcallister's web page and again a lot of other institutions will have a similar section that you can check on.

Related to that, there are ways to do virtual visits and interviews through those college and University websites, especially with the world that we live in with a global pandemic. A lot of colleges and universities have been spending the last several months creating online content above and beyond what would normally be available. So for a lot of you who are halfway across the globe from.

The college or University you're interested in.

Calling card visiting. There are lots of opportunities now that may not have existed before to do a virtual visit, and so we encourage you to check some of those out and take full advantage of those opportunities. Again, you can find more information about that on the specific college or University website.

The common application is A is the way that students will be applying to McAlester certainly as well as thousands maybe not thousands. Let's say hundreds of other colleges and universities around the US. It's a really helpful tool. Obviously in that this is the way that you would have to apply, but more specifically that you won't have to fill out.

The same application multiple times for different colleges and universities. Because many colleges except the common app you have to fill out one application and that information goes to all of those institutions.

Something that you'll need to think about is specific colleges and universities might have a supplement, which is just an additional piece to the common application. Usually asking an essay question specific to that college. So some of you had a question about essay topics usually.

That's one or two essay prompts that come in the supplement, but again, that's something that's important to check on in the specific college or University, and then usually on their on their website.

The College Scorecard is another tool that's very helpful, so this is another sort of comparison tool. They have some really great info. Graphics that display a lot of data in one place that can be really helpful to visualize. Some of the characteristics of a college or University.

So that's another uhm. Another tool through the Department of Education, but you can take advantage of.

This is just a list of other resources that come up in college search.

They can be helpful, so unigo niche cap X there's many more out there like this. They can again they can be very helpful and they do have some good information, but you can see that Red Arrow there that we just want to give you a heads up that these are sites that do sell information to institutions.

So it's possible that your data might be shared with other groups. That could be OK with you, and that's fine, but just want to make sure that you realize that sometimes that data can come from anonymous users as well, so it can be less certain where the information is coming from these previous sites that we've been mentioning are very specifically.

Data checked, another are certified to be reliable. Again. Some of these can be useful, but make sure you're keeping a wary eye out for the data that's coming up there.

We're sort of transitioning this into social media, but I will so this last one is sort of both sides. This is campus real, so this is mcalister's page. This is a really great like if you're trying to get a sense of what it's like to be on campus. This is a great way to see videos made by students, often times of what life is like on a specific college campus.

So without any further ado, back to Sarah for a little bit about social media and then we'll get to your questions.

Thanks, Adam and I promise this part is going to go pretty quick up because I'm sure much of this is not going to be new information to all, but just to highlight some of the ways that universities and colleges really around the world are using social media as a way to reach out and be another source of information for students and families around the world so.

Of course, Instagram, uh, it's pretty ubiquitous, especially in the US, but as you can see, even around the world I pulled the Instagram profile for Ashoka University in India. Picone, that's in Italy, and so not only are you going to see like beautiful pictures an announcements and content, more and more schools are also using stories. So basically all these little.

Circles that you see, uhm, kind of pop up to, uh, either give you video contents of a lot of schools. Might be doing a story where it's a virtual tour of their campus. They might have, uh, and ask me anything AMA, which is what Massey from Bocconi is offering, where you can actually type in a question and the student will respond to you so you can follow your favourites. I know McAllister, we use our Instagram is another way.

To not only share great information and content about the school, but also information about our application deadlines and things like that.

For those of you who are in China, uh, we chat a more and more schools are getting official. We chat accounts up. It can be a bit tricky for schools that are not based or don't have a professional based in China to get an official account. But more and more are starting to do that. But even for schools that don't have an official we chat site that you can follow more often than not their admissions.

People are on we chat, so even though McAllister doesn't have an official we chat.

Platform I do have we chat and so often is a way that I will conduct interviews if that's the best technology to have that one on one interview we had admitted student group so again we chat also very helpful.

Kind of related to Instagram, Facebook. Um, we realized that more and more Facebook is becoming kind of antiquated technology for students, but they still can be really good sources of just news that about a University. You can follow the ones that you're interested in, and then, especially in the US, for admitted students in the spring, that's often becomes a a great place to connect.

With a current students, but with also other admitted students, and so it is worth it. The checkout or follow the news feed of schools that you're particularly interested in, because you might learn some cool facts and opportunities at that school.

Twitter, another option? Uh, here you can see the the Twitter for Stamford. Uh again. Kind of a great way to get real time news and updates about what's happening, but you can kind of search for the schools you're interested in and see what they are talking about or what pictures are posting.

And then YouTube. Uhm, you know, we realized YouTube isn't available to all students. Depending on where you're located. But if you do have access to it, it's a great way to find, um, actual videos on all kinds of different topics. McAllister actually does a day in the life, a program where we give a camera to one of our current students, and they basically get to film themselves for an entire day and kind of show you what they do on a typical day at the school.

But you also see you know some schools may have many lectures from their professors. Uh, there might be their own virtual tours or things that they're talking about, or, um, again, kind of just a way to get a better sense of a school and feel a bit more connected rather than reading about something.

That's it.

Great, so we're gonna move to your questions now. To be clear we would love to be in touch even after the workshop or emails are up on the screen now. So please do reach out all click start with a question about from Joseph. First of all, I appreciate your thanks and your welcome for the link. Is there a required major to take before getting into medical or dental school? So that's a great question and a good thing to clarify.

At some institutions, and usually at larger schools, there will be a specific pre medicine or a predental major. In that major you would take mostly classes related to preparation for medical school at McAllister and schools like McAllister. Oftentimes there is not a premed major and that's done very intentionally so that you have the flexibility to still prepare for medical school.

While taking something like perhaps majoring in something that you would like to do outside of the Sciences, most often. Med premed students will major in biology or chemistry. But you do have the flexibility to have a pre medicine emphasis. While majoring in something totally different like sociology. For example, so there and to be clear, medical schools do not require a certain major and in fact, if you attend a place like McAllister.

That can be very appealing to a medical school because they know that you've had a broad based education as well.

Um Sir, could you talk about, uh, what a student? So there's a question from Zuhayr, who's in Bangladesh and says that his school doesn't have any students who have gone to the US for school. So maybe could you talk a little bit about how students might be able to navigate that?

Yeah, that's a great question, and if it's any consolation, you're certainly not alone. Even at McAllister we don't get 90,000 applications a year like UCLA or some of the large universities, but we still receive a good number of applications from students around the world I would say that's pretty similar, especially for schools that are making.

Uh, efforts to recruit internationally? Uh, we, it's our job to really kind of get a sense of the different contexts that students are coming from and some of that is students coming from schools that do not have a long history or a strong international focus. When it comes to their University admissions, and especially for students that are looking to apply to the United States.

Where we do, even at many of the larger universities have kind of this emphasis on holistic admission, which means we're not just looking at wet and SAT score is to determine if you if a student is admitted or not. We asked for all of these other things like letters of recommendation, like essays, many things that if you apply to universities in other countries.

They don't ask for that. Typically there are much more focused on your exam results, an kind of those academic.

Quantities.

But with that we we know that not all schools that are are fully aware or confident in what AUS schools looking forward. So when we say we need a letter of recommendation from a counselor, menace to students are like, well, I don't have a counselor and that's OK, really and often, this is where going to like the International FAQ, FA Q Sites on different schools. 'cause often this is such a common concerning question that we often.

Answer this on our websites.

But it can really be any school official. For some students it's their head teacher.

For others, it is their their principle really just a some school official who can be tasked with submitting your official transcripts and.

Oh, a letter of recommendation. Yes, um for teachers. Uhm, it's OK for you, uh, to give them a little help in terms of like.

You know what they're looking for, so could you describe me as a students? Uh, could you know? Comment on my study habits, but we realize that not all teachers have a lot of time to write very long letters, but it still can be helpful to even just get that short two or three. Sentence is from a teacher acknowledging that a student.

Is attentive in class and works hard and is regular in turning in their assignments.

For your teachers, that may not be comfortable up writing in English. I know in Bangladesh typically not an issue, but for students who are in countries where English is not the mode of instruction or a recognized official language, it's OK to have your teacher right there. Letter in the language that they're comfortable writing in, and then what? Most schools in the US will ask is that you get them translated.

Depending on accessing resources, you can do that through an official translator.

Or in some cases, UM students will or teachers will take their letters to the English teacher.

At the school and ask them to translate it again. If you have questions or concerns about that. Once you're at the point of applying, you can reach out to the schools that you're applying to an ask them specifically how. What do you want? This is my Rd block.

Where do you recommend? Because odds are they have seen plenty of students who have encountered some of the same challenges.

Right, uhm.

I and I apologize if I'm not pronouncing your name correctly, but there is a follow-up question about do I need to go to medical school if majoring in biomedical engineering or pharmacy and then relate in a different question? Also is about does McAllister have its own essay to write for other than the common application?

Um, so we do have a supplement essay.

Earlier there's a question. How many essay prompts are there so the common app has one main essay prompt which is sort of a background essay about who you are. And then for McAlester, there's an additional essay. Last year it was asking about, you know, how would you take advantage of the resources and opportunities that come with being in the urban area that McAllister is located in? Where in the Twin Cities?

Uhm, but those those essay prompts should be available soon. If they are not yet available online on the common app essay or common app website.

Hello line, after August 1st.

Yeah, and then related to the, do you need to go to medical medical school with majoring in biomedical engineering or pharmacy? Yes and no. So if you would like to be a pharmacist or you would like to be a bio medical engineer, you will likely need to go at least to some sort of Graduate School after your undergraduate education. With that said, there are a lot of really great jobs and careers that you can have with an undergraduate major in one of those.

Yes, I'm so it depends on what you'd like to do going forward, but for some of those, like I was, pharmacy job or career or an engineer, you'll likely need to go to Graduate School for that.

Um?

Yeah, and medical school in the US is strictly, you want to become a doctor.

Right?

Uh, and so kind of offshoots of of that will be different, either professional schools or graduate schools. But again, in the US that requires additional study beyond your four year Bachelors Degree.

Yeah.

And again, uh, for things like pharmacy school or dental school veterinary school, um, you'll want to double check what those acceptance rates are, because, again, for international students who are not US systems are permanent residents. It is quite challenging to gain entrance into those particular graduate program professional programs at school, not as challenging.

So.

Sarah, this we certainly don't have time to answer everything about this, but maybe generally there's a couple of questions that I'm seeing about visa status in how that might affect the financial piece of your ability to go to it institution.

We're talking about so for our audience were talking about doing a workshop sometime in the future, maybe specifically about financial aid, 'cause there is so much information, but could you quick talk about that for a few minutes era?

Yeah.

Yep, definitely. So I think the specific question is talking about a change in status or students who are in the process of getting their permanent residency, also commonly known as a green card up. The important thing to know is that.

Even if you are in the final stages of that process, and you've been assured that you're going to get your green card in the next four to six months or the next year, uh?

Schools in the United States will not consider you as a domestic AUS financial aid applicants.

Until you actually have received your green card and you can provide a scan and you can give your registration number that's Tide to your, we get this question in a lot up and up until that point you need to go through the financial aid process as an international student, then typically will happen for some students who do get their green card while they're a current student.

Then you would go to your college or University financial aid office and they'll probably have you fill out the FAFSA. The free application for federal student aid, which is specific to funding financial aid that comes from the US government and at that point you would become depending on your need level, different types of assistance from the federal government, usually in the form of some.

Education loans.

So it'll vary. It very much depends on the school you attend, uhm?

At McAllister, we guaranteed to meet 100% of demonstrated need for all of our admitted students. So if you are an international student, if you haven't gotten your green card yet, or you're just in general planning to be an F1 student in the US, then depending on your knee level, be can become more challenging. But if you're admitted, we're going to meet your full need, the only thing that might change.

If you were to gain your permanent residency status, uhm, is that?

You know your you would have access to some additional federal aid depending on your level. It could even be a Pell Grant, uhm, and the name on your scholarship might switch because we have a dedicated need based scholarship that's for international students. But then there's a separate. It really comes down to the like where that funding is coming from in the budget. So your name on your McAllister need based scholarship might change to reflect that is.

Coming from a domestic.

Source, uh, but again we can do an entirely different workshop. And of course you have our contact information here, so you're always welcome to follow up after the fact, but I hope that helped a little bit.

Thanks, Aaron, that's super helpful. And yeah again follow up with us if you have other questions and stay tuned for more. Richie as a great I think closing question for us, which is when is the best time to begin applying to colleges in the US? So Sarah mentioned that the common app should be live as of August 1st, which is amazingly next week.

Generally, our advice is, the sooner you get started on your application of the better so that you can give yourself time to really work on your essay. Give your teachers and your counselor time to get those letters of recommendation that Sarah was talking about. As far as deadlines go, every college and University will have a different process, but for the most part.

The deadlines are for regular decision is at the end of December or beginning to middle of January. This is a good opportunity for me to talk about McAllister specifically, so you heard me say regular decision so that is the last deadline in the last application process that you can apply through. We do have an opportunity for you to apply early and so this year for the first time we are offering what is called.

Early action, which is a chance for you to apply the McAllister early. That deadline is November 1st and to also hear back from us earlier than you would if you apply during regular decision. Early action is a way that you can do that without needing to commit to McAlester right away. That's different from early decision, which is a what we call a binding process and that just simply means that if you apply through early decision.

And you are admitted. We expect that you will actually attend McAllister, so that's a really good option for any of you who might know that McAllister is your number one first choice, and which then gives you the opportunity to signal to us that you're really excited about McAllister, and we can then read your application accordingly.

But again, in general, the best time to start on applying is as soon as you feel comfortable knowing where you want to apply and are ready to get into those essays. So as soon as possible.

But anyway, yeah, before we closeout, I'll pass it back to Sarah. I don't know if you want to add anything to that, or if you have any other closing thoughts.

My only other closing thought is organization is key, uh, especially for those of you who might be not just applying to multiple schools in the United States, but two universities in multiple countries and with different application systems. Finding a way to be organized and keeping track of all those different deadlines.

Different requirements, uhm, for your application, uh, if you're applying for financial aid, what are those deadlines? What it? What are the requirements for that?

Is there an interview? Is it required? Is it recommended as an optional and whether it I'm old school, back in my day we I had a binder?

I think a lot of people use Excel spreadsheets actually, and you can have a different tab for the different schools you're looking at. You can track some of these different things, but yeah, it's it can be a lot, but.

No, just having a place where you recording all the different deadlines and all the different requirements and then that's also good way as you are doing that research.

You might come across those questions and then like Oh well, this is a good opportunity to reach out to Sarah at McAllister because I'm not really clear on the process for applying for financially.

Or, you know, I've got a question about this interview. What do I need to do that? What is this about?

And then finally, especially here in the USA, if you're looking at liberal Arts and Sciences, College is like McAllister. Uh, but certainly I have great colleagues at work at large universities as well, uhm?

It's a human process.

Right, so Adam and I are here connecting with you because we value working with students in with families. We take the counselor part of our titles very seriously and so.

We're human and we can be just as goofy or jet lagged as anybody else, and so we.

We welcome interacting with you and helping you with this process as we, as we're able to, so I think I'll leave with that.

Thank you everybody for joining us. Be well an do let us know if you have any other questions.

Bye bye.