How to STUDY in USA for FREE as an International Student | Harsh Truth?

let's look at how you can apply and study for free in the US as an international student and some consequences that go along with it now the first thing that we're going to tackle is the application fee now on average when you submit your college application to a US University you are looking at an expense anywhere around $70 to $100 per college submission now this is true whether you're applying for an undergraduate degree or a graduate program so this really starts adding on when you're applying to 10 15 or even 20 universities because at that point you'll be spending $1,000 to $2,000 just on the application fee alone so as a high school student you will be applying to colleges through the Common App portal now this website is one place where you fill out your basic information and send college applications to multiple colleges so for each college that you're sending you'll have that separate application fee now in common app if you are in need of financial assistance you have a section where you can request for a fee behavior when you select this option all of your college application fee through Common App becomes zero so you can essentially apply to up to 20 colleges for free now at most common app or some of the universities may reach out to your school counselor in some cases that may be your principal or class teacher just asking for some verification so make sure you let them know in advance and for those of you that are applying to graduate programs which are Master's or PhD the process is a little bit more lengthy because you don't have one portal that you'll be applying from you have separate University websites that you have to submit your application to you need to request for the fee waver through each College individually the best way to do this is to either email their admissions office or their financial aid office and request for a fee Behavior explaining what your situation is in most cases they will give you a code that you can use While submitting your application to get that application fee down to zero next up we have entrance exams now the air courts are because technically they're not entrance exams but it's easier to understand these tests with this term now there are a variety of tests that you'll have to write if you're applying to an undergraduate program in the US some of them can include the SAT or the a exam now these are known as standardized tests and some colleges have gone test optional so this means that they don't even require students to write the test at all so the first way to kind of get over these exams because you have to pay an additional fee to write them is build a college list that has all colleges which are test optional and your problem is solved right there the other thing that you can do is request for fee wavers for these tests now these fee wavers usually come through the official portal of college board and college board has like third-party websites that issue these fee behaviors for example in India there's a website called buddy for study.com and based on your household income they issue sat fee wavers from 50 to 100% now similar websites will be available for different countries so just try to look on Google and find which website is affiliated with the official college board to get this fee vavor for perspective graduate students you'll either have to write the GRE or GMAT and you'll follow a similar process the first way to go about this is again applying to colleges that have a flexible standardized testing policy so you never have to write or give the exam anyway the second option is you can ask them for a vavor based on academic standing and what this means is let's say I'm applying for a master's program and I have a cumulative undergrad GPA of 9.6 I would email the college and ask them that because I have such a good GPA can I be excused from writing the GRE exam if it is required the next place where students tend to spend money is writing the English proficiency test now remember all of these tests that you have to write can cost anywhere between $50 to $100 so it does add up on your expenses one of the ways to aail the English proficiency test waiver is to read through their fine print that universities have on their website most universities state that if you've done your high school or your undergrad College if you're applying for a grad program in English and your transcripts or marksheets are also in English you can be waved from writing the English proficiency test all together you don't need any code you don't have to you know separately email them it just means that you have fulfilled the English proficiency requirement because you've already studied in English now other than the college application you can also expect to spend money when submitting financial aid applications now most financial aid applications go through something known as the CSS profile and that is not free it costs $25 for the first college and $16 for every additional college that you want to submit but but there is a way around this now some colleges request students to submit something known as an Isa form this stands for international student financial aid application that there's essentially not too much of a difference it's just that the ISA form is a PDF document that asks for the same information that CSS profile is asking for the difference is if you're submitting the isva you'll have to fill it out and submit it to each University individually so it's a little bit more work for you because you're repeating that same information but the good news is the ISA form is free so many times when students want the CSS profile fee Behavior many colleges will just ask them to submit the ISA form because that is a free option now if nothing works out and colleges let's say don't have the ISA form you can email the financial aid office requesting them for a CSS profile fee vavor and they'll give you a unique code that you can use which will make the final application submission fee to zero now up until now we've seen how you can save money on actually applying to colleges and we would have saved maybe $2,000 to $3,000 but the biggest expense for international students isn't applying the biggest expense is the tution fee and living expenses because that is what tends to add up and become $1 $200,000 for a 2-year master's degree or a 4-year bachelor's degree and the good news is that there are options out there with a combination of scholarships and financial aid students can get up to 100% waivers now scholarships are typically based on Merit which means your standing in academics extracurricular and everything that consists of a student profile and they're also based on financial need which is your household income and expenses now I have a separate playlist on this topic where I break down specific requirements and eligibility for each college so you can check that out if you want to know how you need to go about this whole process now Harvard University clearly states on their website that families that have a less than $85,000 per year annual household income will have their kids study for free if they get admitted to Harvard now this is true for US citizens International students everyone so colleges are very serious and authentic when it comes to need-based financial aid and that is how most students are able to cut down on their expenses now moving on to graduate students for my Master's students unfortunately there is very limited funding so if you're trying to go for like a master of science or master of engineering program you may not be able to get need-based financial aid but there may be some Merit based scholarships available on the other hand for PhD students most of the PHD programs are fully funded and this consists of a stipend uh your tution fee vavor and a combination of research assistantships as well as teaching assistantships so with all of this out there we've applied for free you've gotten like suppose a fully funded scholarship to attend your dream University in the US the next thing is your I20 this is a very important document that doesn't get spoken about a lot basically your I20 is a form that is used to get you the student visa so you can actually come to the US now what happens in the I20 is the left side has your actual s estimated expenses and the right side has scholarships and personal funds essentially if the college has given you a certain amount of scholarship it should be written very clearly under the scholarship section and if you've gotten a full ride the personal funds will say zero in most cases even if you have a full ride and the college has taken care of your living expenses and tution fee there will be some amount of personal funds of maybe like $3,000 let's say which is used for for like health insurance and other school related fee so that amount of personal funds that is stated on your I20 is what you need to show during your visa interview for the F1 student visa These funds can be in any liquid form like bank statements or Education Loans all right guys so for everyone who came here to well watch the video of how to apply and study for free in the US that's it you guys are done all set but there are consequ quences of doing everything I just mentioned in the first half of the video so for those of you that are serious about applying and actually want to get into some really good schools colleges in the US continue watching the second half because this is where I'm going to burst all of your bubbles first up the application fee so let's say you've applied for a fee vavor number one colleges will know this need aware colleges can see that you've applied for a fee vavor and you are not able to afford the $100 application Fe fee and this can negatively impact your admission potentially even cost you a rejection now I've created a separate video on explaining what need aware versus need blind universities mean so you guys can watch that later on the other hand for graduate students I didn't find any reliable source out there so I can't really say whether it negatively impacts your application or not but if I was in your shoes I would not take the risk of potentially costing myself a rejection just over were saving a couple hundred next up the entrance exams so sat act gr GMAT now over the last few years a lot of colleges went test optional but they're all coming back which means that they are mandating the standardized testing policy again some colleges didn't even go test optional like MIT dmouth stated this year that beginning fall 2025 intake students will have to write standardized tests so the biggest red flag here is if if you decide to go test optional one you're limited on the colleges that you can apply for just off the bat if you decide not to give the SAT you cannot apply to MIT so your college list will not be based on Merit your college list will be based on which colleges can I apply to without the SAT or act one red flag right there secondly you are trying to Showcase to a college that you're the best student for them and by trying to cut corners and avoid these tests you are not able to Showcase your full profile and academic credibilities just as an example students that submitted their SAT test SC to Stanford 95% of them had a score of above 1,400 out of 1,600 and this is just you know to Showcase one such University most of the good universities in the US have competitive nature so students are trying to find ways to show that they are better than their competition and if your mentality is too you know give in and submit the most basic application yes you can get into some low tier random University but please don't have your hopes up for top 50 or top 100 for that matter the same thing goes for GRE if you are aiming for top programs for example in computer science like carnegi melon Georgia Tech and other IV league universities you have to show them that you are a bright academically intellectual student and this is done through standard tests with the English proficiency you run into the same thing with your college list your college list will be based on colleges that don't require English proficiency test and not based on Merit that's the first thing the second thing to note here is I've seen students that run into issues when they ultimately go to get their student F1 visas because they haven't given the English proficiency test let's say that the Visa interviewer doesn't you know isn't convinced that you can speak and understand English really well they may ask you for your English proficiency test score at that point if you have your toal test score you can just give that to them and that is proof that you know you're able to score a good number on these official standardized tests but if you haven't taken anything it can potentially cost you a Visa rejections and everything just stops right there if you don't get your student visa you cannot go and study even if you've gotten admitted to a specific University now now coming to scholarships for all of you that are applying to undergrad programs it's not that easy to get a 100% Merit based scholarship and the biggest reason is that it's Merit based so just your high school marks is not going to cut it they usually look at three factors High School marks AP exams and SAT scores now for those of you that don't know what AP exams are these are called advanced placement exams and there are 38 such exams they are in subjects like biology history economics math physics chemistry and so on now typically these exams occur every year once in May and students all over the world write them so whether you're in the US India Bangladesh Nepal Pakistan you can write these exams the cost for these exams is 13,500 rupees per exam so it is a little costly but if you can score well which is considered a four or five score it really helps boost your profile profile and show that you are a good academically standing student next the SAT exams which test your reading writing and math abilities these occur multiple times a year if you can score anything above a 1500 it shows good academic standing a combination of all three of these things High School marks AP exams and SAT score is what helps you get that 100% scholarship I have interviewed and spoken to so many students that have gotten these 100% scholarships they are in IV leagues they're doing their bachelor's degree they are international students and something that all of them had in common is that they fell into that small intersection of high school grades that were fantastic AP exams anywhere between 5 to 15 AP exams they took they got four or fives in them and they had a great SAT score so this is what actually gets that 100% scholarship not just the fact that you have scored really well in your board exam that's not going to cut it so coming to need-based financial aid we know that you'll be applying through the ISA or the CSS profile now if you try to ask for a fee vavor for the CSS profile in most cases colleges will not be too happy about it they will actually just straight up say that if you cannot afford $5 or $25 CSS fee how do you expect to afford the tution fee of the college and that's pretty much about it now this is a response that an actual College gave to a student so just you know it's something to think about that if you're trying to save so much money here how are you actually going to afford things later on and that goes to show that not everybody gets 100% financial aid the first thing is college admissions are a two-step process they first have to accept you and then they give you the financial aid it's not the other way around so if your profile isn't good enough you're not even going to reach the financi iial Aid part and even if you do reach the financial aid part the more realistic cases are that you'll get a financial aid of 20 to 50% not 100% some students that I've seen get the 100% which includes tution fee as well as living expenses typically have fantastic profiles that are like one out of 10 of thousands having great high school scores taking AP exams and getting good scores in them writing SAT test even though it's optional and having a great set of extracurricular activities such as research Publications National and international awards for my graduate students the reality check is that very very few students actually get scholarships or even financial aid 99% of master's degree students are expected to pay the tution fee now the most that you can do is after you come to the US in your first semester build a good working relationship with a few professors and try to get a research assistantship or a teaching assistantship position after you come here but that's still doesn't mean that you know before when you're applying and you're trying to show proof of funds you can show that potential and Prospect job part-time job that you'll have on campus so if you have a mindset that you'll be saving $30,000 because you'll be working part-time or you'll be using those $30,000 to help support your family just stop it like this is really unreasonable if your goal is to work on campus and safe for your family when are you actually going to study and what are you going to do when it comes to searching for jobs because the biggest reality check in this whole process whether you are an undergraduate or a graduate student is that upon graduation it's just left to you to find a job for yourself you have to use the connections that you've made your communication skills that you've developed during the degree to actually find yourself a job because all of these care career Affairs that happen on the college campus is mostly for US citizens not for international students and secondly there are no placements in the US you have to find a job by yourself and it is extremely difficult no matter what degree you're in no matter how smart you are imagine the number of students that are graduating each year from top universities it is a huge competition you'll be competing against students from your own class one class and every college has 200 students roughly so imagine competing with just your own classmates to get an actual job out of college so let's take a look at a realistic I20 that colleges issue now typically on the left side you will have estimated expenses in this case it's about $660,000 for a student who's coming in for a bachelor's degree which is reasonable on the right side you'll have your Scholarships in this case it's about $30,000 for the student and personal funds which is another $30,000 so this personal funds which is $30,000 is what you have to show during your visa interview when you actually go to get your F1 Visa now during this time the proof of funds can be shown in two ways you can show them in the form of bank statements it doesn't have to be in your name it can be a family member so your parents if it's a relative get a letter from the relative stating that they are okay issuing these funds to you something like that or an education loan things that that are not accepted typically are property papers uh stocks or any assets that you show so the reality check of all of this is these are the funds you'll have to show remember that it's only for one year and it's an estimated fund so while the tution fee is the fixed amount the living expenses that are stated on your I20 of course if you you know Be Frugal with the the way that you live here in the US you can definitely save that money you don't have to spend all of it but it is expected of you that you'll be showing that during the time of your interview to get your F1 Visa all right so that's all that I had for this video and this was a huge reality check probably one of the most controversial videos that I have made on the channel but I felt like I've seen so many students Chase scholarships rather than trying to chase education and profile building that this was much needed so all in all I want to give the message away that instead of trying to run behind scholarships try to run behind behind creating a good profile for yourself getting involved in research experiences um seeking ways to improve your academic standing how you can improve your test scores things like that because once you achieve that the scholarships and financial aid will automatically follow it's not something you'll have to spend too much time in chasing if you have a good academic profile now one of the ways that I feel students can really Elevate their profile is through a research experience and the research boot camp by Cognito blueprints couldn't do this any better there's a summer cohort that is coming up and more than 70 students have already enrolled I'm doing a webinar it's a closed webinar where students and parents are free to join in and ask any doubts we'll be hosting it through Google meet and I will dive into the specifics of how the research boot camp will work so the form to sign up for this webinar is going to be in the description below make sure you fill that out so that you can get the link to join the webinar when it occurs and get some more information about it while while we will continue to make videos where I show you how you can get the best scholarships for yourself and apply to colleges in the US in the most efficient way if you guys want to see more truthful videos like this where we talk about harsh realities just give the video a thumbs up you know if we can get this to 500 thumbs up I'll make one on another controversial topic um you know maybe something else of the reality of actually studying here in the US or postgraduation job difficulties things like that and we can dive into those serious topics as well uh subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and I will see you guys next week in another video [Music] bye woo

Channel: Crazy Medusa

Views: 23,916

Keywords: crazy medusa, saloni verma harvard, study abroad, study in usa, how to study in the us for free, how to study in usa for free, can you study in usa for free, steps to study in the usa for free, free study in usa for international students, how to get common app fee wavier, common app fee wavier, toefl wavier, english proficiency exam wavier, gre wavier, no gre colleges, gre wavier on merit, financial aid for international students, merit scholarships for international students

Id: 4VkTuUCiKHQ

Length: 22min 49sec (1369 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 12 2024