myUface Blog

A lot of international students applying to U.S. universities like to use timelines or calendars to give them a schedule of tasks they need to complete.  That’s a good thing.  Timelines are useful tools for international students.  We’ve offered Summer and Fall timelines on this very blog.  The internet is full of similar schedules – you can see two examples here and here.

These kinds of resources can really help you prepare your application for U.S. universities.  Timelines can keep you aware of upcoming deadlines and help you structure your time.  However, there is a limit to how useful these tools can be, and in my experience a lot of international students end up losing time because of them.

Here’s why:  often, international students download and study one of these timelines.  They resolve to follow it exactly. However, they are intimidated by all the work the schedule says they have to do.  As a result, they find reasons to procrastinate.  They fall behind the schedule.  Now they feel really terrible.  Not only do they have a lot of work to do, but they have a shorter amount of time to do it!  They feel even more intimidated, which makes them procrastinate more, which makes the further behind.  And so on and so forth until, at the last minute, they whip together an application.  Which is often not very good.

To avoid this situation, follow these simple guidelines:

1. Remember, timelines for international students are guides, not rules. If you work according to a different schedule – if you start later on some tasks and earlier on others – that’s OK.
2. If you fall behind the schedule, try to remember that it is very possible to catch up.  Applying to a U.S. university is a lot of work, but it’s not an impossible amount of work.  You can do it!!!
3. Try to develop strategies that keep you from procrastinating.  Here are some internet resources to help you do just that.
4. Finally, and most importantly, RELAX. Remember that you are a smart, dedicated, effective person.  Remember that you want to complete your applications.  Remember that you want to spend the time to make those applications good.  Remember that you want to finish them ahead of schedule, to reduce your stress.  Focusing on the fact that you want to do all these things will reduce any feelings you have that you “have” to follow the schedule.

In short, use schedules and timelines as a tool.  But remember that you are the one controlling the tool – the tool shouldn’t control you.

So we’ve considered most of the advantages and disadvantages of going to the U.S. for your university education.  But you may still be having difficulty deciding if studying in the U.S. is the right decision.  In this final post, I will present three pieces of advice about how you should go about making the decision whether or not to study in the U.S. (or anywhere else, for that matter):

1. Remember, you won’t be studying at a university called “the U.S.”  You’ll be studying at one particular university in the U.S.  So please, do some research about individual universities.  DON’T think that every university in the U.S. will be more or less the same, because they AREN’T.  Until you bring real universities into your decision-making process, you won’t be making an informed decision at all.
2. Keep your options open. Remember, you don’t need to decide right now that, no matter what, you’re studying in the U.S.  You have should research different programs in many countries, including your own.  You may want to consider pursuing entrance into U.S. universities and, at the same time, applying to universities in other countries as well.
3. Find good advisers. Making the decision to study in the U.S. will be easier if you connect with people who are familiar with the U.S. system of education.  Find such people and develop a relationship with them. The right adviser can help answer all your most difficult questions and lead to a better decision. In your country, look for an Educational Advising Center.  On the internet, you need go no further that myUface.  Remember, you can always ask us questions and we will always give you the best advice we can!

The decision to study in another country is a daunting one, but it can be fun as well.  The options for international students are more diverse and exciting than ever before.  Consider all your options carefully, but always remember:  if you do your research, take your time, keep your options open, and find good advisers, you will find the perfect program for you!

SERIES:  Why study in the U.S.?

• April 20 – Introduction
• April 21 – Diversity at U.S. campuses
• April 22 – Value of U.S. degrees
• April 23 – The Facilities
  
• April 24 – Practical focus of U.S. education
• April 25 – Variety of U.S. programs
• April 26 – The supposed disadvantages of study in the U.S.: visas
  
• April 27 - The supposed disadvantages of study in the U.S.: cost
  
• April 28 - Some real disadvantages of study in the U.S.:  it might not help in your profession
• April 29 – Some real disadvantages of study in the U.S.: will you fit in “going back?”
• April 30 – Other disadvantages
• May 1 – So, should you study in the U.S.?

So this blog is about helping you, an international student, find and get into a U.S. University.

That is a big, big subject. There are literally hundreds of areas we need to cover. That’s why this is a daily blog, because we have so much to cover, and we’ll need a lot of time to do it. Don’t expect all of your questions to be answered by one post or even one months of posts. But I will promise you that, over time, we’ll get to all the important issues facing internationals students.

At the outset, I’ve identified seventeen (17!) broad categories which 99% of our posts will fall into. For those new to blogs, you can view all the articles for any one category by clicking on the links to the right of the page.

The seventeen (17!)categories are:

1. Should I Study in the U.S.? Why study in the United States? What’s unique about the higher educational system in the U.S.? What are the downsides?
2. Choosing a Program – What kind of programs are available? What distinguishes them from one another? What are the different fields available? What program / field is the best?
3. Choosing a University – How do I find the right University for me? What’s up with these rankings I keep hearing about?
4. The Application – what does an application to a U.S. university look like? What information do I need to fill one out?
5. Essay Writing – How do I write good essays?
6. Test preparation – What are the best strategies for getting good scores? Do I need to be really, really worried about tests?
7. Interviews – Do I have to have an interview to get into a U.S. university? If so, what should I expect? How can I do well?
8. Extracurriculars- How do you highlight your non-academic work on an application? Is work experience important?
9. Facing Failure – You probably won’t get in everywhere. How should you deal with failure?
10. Money Help – help understand the system and the processes for international financial aid
11. myUface – this is where I’ll cover new products and services offered by myUface to help you find and get into a U.S. university.
12. Success! – here we’ll share information about successes – both personal and institutional.
13. Welcome to the U.S. – what are the cultural differences between the US and other nations? What makes the U.S. unique?
14. Visas – information about the visa system and process
15. Higher Ed in the U.S. – what are some of the peculiarities of the U.S. higher-educational system?
16. Mailbag – each week, on Friday, I’ll answer questions from my mailbag
17. The Rest of It – although this blog is about international students and studying in the U.S., we are all open-minded, broad-souled individuals, who have other interests besides visa regulations. Anything that doesn’t “fit” into the subject of the blog, but which is nonetheless interesting, shall go here.

Month to month we’ll cover each of these categories. However, I do want to mention that certain months we’re going to spend more time on certain topics than others. For example, in December, when readers are rushing to finish their essays, you can expect more material on essay writing.

So we’ve covered what this blog is, who I am, and what this blog will be about. We’re ready to start.

In yesterday’s inaugural post I mentioned a brief background. Today I want to expand on that, giving you a more detailed picture of the author of the blog you’re reading. This material will always be available by following the “Biography” link at the right side of this page.

Again, my name is Nathan Truitt, and at myUface I am primarily responsible for Marketing and Student Outreach. In other words, it’s my job to find students interested in studying in the U.S. and to introduce them to the powerful tool that is myUface.com.

I came to this position via a long, circuitous path. I grew up in many different places in the United States. I was born in Utah, spent most of my childhood in Colorado (with brief stops in California and New York), went to high school in Boston, and college in Los Angeles (at Pomona College). In college I studied English literature and Classics and I prepared myself for what I imagined to be an eventual career as an academic. During my senior year, however, I became a little tired of the life of being a student, and so I decided to take some time off – at least a year – to experience the “real world” outside of the friendly confines of the university.

I ended up joining the Peace Corps and serving as an a Teacher of English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) volunteer in Chardjou, Turkmenistan (and here let me give a shout out to School #2, where I worked). As someone whose only foreign travels up until that point had been to Europe, I was completely overwhelmed (in a good way) by my experience in Turkmenistan. The people were incredibly hospitable, and the culture, though completely different from what I was used to, was vibrant and full of age-old traditions. In Turkmenistan I had the opportunity to interact with tons of talented students, many of whom dreamt of studying in the United States. Through these students, I had my first exposure to the intimidating edifice that is the U.S. university admissions process.

After Peace Corps I stayed in Central Asia, moving next door to Uzbekistan, and working with an educational non-profit organization that provided scholarships for students to study in the U.S. In implementing the scholarship, I got to see the admissions process from the other side: our organization was responsible for recruiting talented applicants and then judging their applications. I learned how such competitions are organized and judged, and I gained an understanding of the criteria that educational institutions in the U.S. use in order to make decisions about international students.

Over the next three or four years, I stayed with the same non-profit, traveling to different countries: Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo, and others. Everywhere I went I met very talented students who wanted to study in the U.S. but who were confused by the process of finding and getting into U.S. universities.

Two years ago, my wife and I moved back to the United States. I still work at the same non-profit, this time on yet another aspect of the higher educational process: the funding side. I help our organization raise money to provide scholarships to international students. This has given me yet another perspective on the system of higher education here in the States.

Although I love my work, our organization offers very limited support for undergraduate studies. Keeping in mind the thousands of students I’d met and interviewed, who wanted to get their bachelor’s degree in the United States, I was always looking for programs to help them get into U.S. universities.

That’s why I’m very happy to be working with myUface. The myUface team all have similar stories to my own, We’ve all spent time overseas, where we’ve met talented, dedicated students who want to come to the United States. myUface is our attempt to create a powerful, online, and easy-to-understand tool to help precisely those students achieve their dreams.

So, that’s how I’m here, writing this. But enough about me. This blog is about you – and more specifically, your desire to study in the U.S. Tomorrow – and every day after that – we’ll turn to helping you achieve that goal.

Welcome to the myUface.com blog, where we will strive to provide you with all the information you’ll need to identify and gain admission to educational programs in the United States.

My name is Nathan Truitt, and I’ve been working with international students from different parts of the world for about a decade. I’ve also had the chance to work with university admissions staff on a variety of interview and selection panels. I hope my varied experience will allow me to:

• display a solid understanding of what you, international students, are looking for in the U.S., and what challenges you face in coming to study in America
• help you understand the way the admissions process work at U.S. universities, and give you some advice on how to navigate the process successfully.

Starting today, April 20, 2009, I will be writing at least one post a day, every day, without exception. Over the course of the coming months and years, I hope to work together with you, the readers of this blog, to create the most comprehensive resource on the web for international students. To do this, I’ll need your help. It’s not enough for me to write my own opinions and share my own information – I need to know what you want to learn about, and what information you need. For that reason, I strongly encourage you to make comments on the blog or e-mail me your questions. You can always e-mail me at blog@myuface.com. I welcome any and all questions about the U.S. admissions process, and I will do my best to provide quality answers in a short amount of time.

You do not need to use myUface in order to read this blog. However, I would strongly encourage you to pre-register for a free myUface account, for two, simple reasons:

• it’s free.
• it’s useful.

That’s a sufficient introduction to out first post. Over the next two posts, I will more fully introduce myself and the subject matter I will be covering in this daily blog.