myUface Blog

A very interesting article today from the BBC, saying that the British Council has warned British universities to avoid “crude” international recruitment drives.

The article singles out British universities, obviously, but you as international students should be aware that higher education everywhere is not only about education – it’s also a business.  And like any business, there are good deals and there are bad deals.  Remember to always do your homework, just as you would when buying a car or a home.

We hope myUface can help you do just that!

If you follow the trends in international student recruitment, you’ve undoubtedly heard over the past few years that the U.S. is on the decline in terms of attracting talented international students.

That decline has been greatly exaggerated.

Now, according to The Australian, the U.S. is poised to grab back the initiative in a major way.  Prompted by falling domestic revenue, U.S. universities are reaching out aggressively to foreign students.  And they have the resources to make international students feel right at home:

[T]he cheaper US dollar, plenty of student accommodation and faster visa approval times should give the US an edge.

It’s a great article that gives you a good idea of the trends that are shaping international education.

To all myUface users:  if you are serious about the chances of getting into a U.S. university, now is the time to complete your applications.

What does it mean to have a completed application?

1. All the sections of the application should be completed
2. You should have reported grades from your previous schools
3. You should have standardized test scores
4. You should have uploaded an essay, resume and recommendation

Why now? Because in the next month U.S. universities will begin to work extra hard to try to meet their goals regarding international students.  If your application is ready, you will drastically increase the chances that a university might be interested in you.

What if you’re not ready? Let’s say that you – like many international students – don;t have all of the application completed.  Maybe you haven’t finished your essay.  Maybe you don’t have standardized test scores.  What should you do in that case?

First, try your best to get your application this year as complete as possible.

Second, if you can’t complete it, start working now on next year’s application.  It’s never too early to start work on next year’s application, especially if you’re serious about study in the U.S.

Today’s Boston Globe has a great article about the importance of international students and study-abroad programs to Harvard:

In a period in which the size of the student body has barely nudged upward, the foreign student population has grown 33 percent since the fall of 1999, from 3,099 to 4,131 last fall, drawn from more than 140 countries. That is nearly 20 percent of the total enrollment at Harvard. Most of the foreign students are studying in Harvard’s graduate schools, and East Asian students are most prevalent.

Harvard, of course, is not the only university that puts an emphasis on attracting talented international students.   It is undoubtedly the university with the greatest visibility, however – not to mention the greatest resources:

In 2008, financier David Rockefeller pledged $100 million for Harvard to broaden its international reach, and he has given an additional $2 million a year in grants for students to go abroad for “significant international experiences.’’

So why do we bring this up?  For two reasons:  first, to show you how the importance of international education is growing at a very rapid pace.  In twenty years, in most parts of the world a domestic education – an education without significant experience in another country, language and culture – will be viewed as a lower form of education.  As a Harvard professor states int he article:

We don’t have to force anybody to go abroad or study languages. They get it. This is the 21st century.

The second reason we mention this article is simply to show you that there is a reason why you, as an international student, have heard LOTS and LOTS about Harvard (and Yale, and Columbia, and Princeton, and Stanford, etc.).    It’s because these universities:

1. Were some of the first to internationalize
2. Have immense resources to advertise to international students
3. Have prestigious names to begin with

Please note that none of the above three things necessarily means that these schools will provide you with the best education.  Remember that there are thousands of other U.S. universities you’ve never heard of, not because they’re bad schools, but because they don’t have the above advantages.  It’s up to you to search for these schools, and to compare them with better, well-known options.

This month, forms for the U.S. census should begin arriving at university campuses across America.  For those of our readers who are currently studying in the U.S., and for the interest of international students generally, we thought we’d share a few quick points about the Census.

1. The purpose of the Census is to obtain an accurate demographic portrait of the nation.  The Census asks a variety of questions in order to understand details about American communities.
2. The Census is used to determine a number of important things – for example, the amount of federal funding a particular town (or university) will receive for certain projects.  For this reason, universities have an incentive to make sure all of their students complete the Census.
3. The Census is taken once every ten years.
4. The Census process is simple:  The Census distributes Census forms to every residence (and dorm room) in the country.  Ideally, those that receive the form fill it out on their own.  In practice, the Census has to send Census takers around to follow up with many households.
5. The Census results are not shared with  law enforcement officials or members of the Dept. of Homeland Security.

Should international students complete a Census form?  Absolutely. The purpose of the Census is to understand who lives and studies in the U.S.  Don’t neglect this opportunity to be counted!

Last year the myUface blog addressed student concerns about the difficulty of obtaining a student visa.  It can be a trying experience.  Every year, students who are accepted to legitimate universities are denied visas to the U.S., or are inconvenienced by long delays in visa processing.  In speaking with hundreds of students over the years about their visa concerns, one question keeps popping up:  why?

Why is it so hard to get a visa?

Why does the U.S. maintain such a strict visa system?

These are difficult questions to answer, and in truth I don’t think anyone fully comprehends the U.S. visa system.  Having said that, today’s L.A. Times has an incredible story that shows why visa controls are necessary.

The story recounts how one man was paid thousands of dollars by international students to attend their classes for them, just so they could maintain their visa status.

. . . Higgins was not a student and wasn’t registered in any of the classes, authorities said. Rather, dozens of foreign students . . . were paying him to sit in class, take exams and write papers so that their student visas would remain valid, according to a charging document filed in the case. Students paid up to $1,500 for course assignments and finals and about $1,000 for English and writing proficiency exams, prosecutors allege.

Of course, this was a very small number of international students.  But it’s cases like these that justify, in the minds of many, the complexity and strictness of the U.S. visa procedure.

This fascinating article shows how a quality education can open doors for you all over the world.  It’s about graduates from U.S. MBA programs seeking work in Asia:

At premiere institutions such as the University of Chicago’s Booth School, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and Northwestern’s Kellogg, the percentage of MBAs taking jobs in Asia . . .has more than doubled in the past five years, from roughly 5% of the graduating class to more than 10%.

The article is specifically about business school graduates, but the principle holds for a quality education at any level:  it opens doors for you, not only in your own country, or in the country where you are studying, but all over the world.

This past month we’ve had some pretty incredible developments at myUface.  We have had several universities contact students, asking them to apply to their programs.  We are really close to finalizing our first placements.

But the best is yet to come.  Soon, universities will look at their incoming classes and count how many spots they need to fill with additional international students.  At that point, they’ll become even more interested in students who filled out myUface applications.

So, if you haven’t finished your application, do so now.  Remember, that means completing the application AND uploading essays, resumes / CVs, and recommendations.  That means letting us know about any standardized test scores.  That means, in short, making sure your application is as good as you can possibly make it.

Many of our myUface students either have received, or will soon receive, emails directly from US universities. As this happens, we would like to bring to you attention a couple VERY important thoughts.

1. Be professional! These universities are interested in learning more about you. Your response to universities will tell them much about you. If you don’t respond in a professional and mature way, then the university will likely not come aware with a positive impression of you.
2. Respond! Once you get an email from a university, respond to them! If you don’t, it looks bad both for you and our network. Even if you are not interested, it makes sense for you to talk with the university, learn about them and generate interest in you!

Remember, even if the university that contacts you is not your first choice, it may be a great fit for you. Moreover, if you have a couple universities that you are talking with, you might be able to negotiate a better financial package from one of them!

As always, we’re here to help. If you hear from a university and would like to talk about it, let us know.

We hear it from international students all the time:  “I want an MBA, but only from one of the ‘good’ schools – you know, Harvard, Yale, etc.’”

It’s no surprise that students gravitate towards those schools, because they are commonly listed at the top of international rankings.  We have an important message to share with you, however:  in many cases, the rankings don’t make sense. The rankings are made for the entire student population.  But you aren’t the entire student population.  You’re you.  And for your needs, sometimes a small, unheard of school will actually provide a better education, and usually at a fraction of the cost.

This article in the Financial Post Magazine delves into the issue of rankings in a wonderful way.  I encourage all of you to read it!  Money quotation:

So while any observers and even some professors are rightfully questioning the value of an MBA from anywhere, a similar question has long been asked of MBA rankings. There’s no doubt they sell magazines and newspapers, and hence, advertising. For proof, just take a look at how fat MBA issues are compared to the ones that sandwich them. That’s certainly value for cash-strapped publishers, but less certain is whether there’s any value for the people who read them.