Ana, ‘13

I know that for international students, applying to a US college is a lot harder. Some reasons are lack of information, lack of study materials for exams like SAT, and lack of proper feedback for essays. Your schools and your family probably have no idea what US colleges want from you or from your school. Instead of your teachers guiding you through this process, you are often the one that has to guide them: tell them what a recommendation letter is, asking for transcripts in the middle of the semester when they usually are only released at the end of high school, and other things. Things get more complicated because even you are not sure what you are supposed to do.

Help is less available for internationals, but that doesn’t mean there is NO help available. You should definitely look for help. One of the things I learned after one year in which I didn’t get accepted anywhere was that I couldn’t do anything by myself, so I started looking for professional help.

You can find all the professional help you need for free at the Educational Advising Centers associated with the Fulbright commissions in your countries. Here is a link where you can find further links to the Fulbright commissions.

Last year I have been going to the Fulbright commission in Romania and they helped me very,very much. In there, I had access to books that helped me prepare for SAT, Toefl, and admission essays. I found most useful taking part in some of their group advising sessions, where we were taught about recommendations, essays, and analyzed some success stories of Romanian students who were accepted to US colleges. Over the summer, after I got accepted, they organized a pre-departure orientation, where I learned many useful tips about life in the US. You can find some photos from the event here.

I don’t know for sure if all Fulbright Educational Advising Centers are as useful as Romanian one, but I imagine they are, and even if they don’t, they still offer some opportunities that you can’t probably find anywhere else in your country.

The only drawback is that they are available in one or two cities throughout the country, and  for people who don’t live in those cities it may be hard to commute. In my last year of high school, I only went a few times at Fulbright because I couldn’t miss school to go to Bucharest during weekdays. Last year, when I lived in Bucharest, it was much easier. But you can still get lots of advice through email.

Other than Fulbright commissions, there are certainly many private tutors that help with US applications. I am pretty sure you can find them in any country. You have to pay them, I doubt there are professional people out there who work for free. Only that while some are brilliant, not all of them are very good, so it is a very good idea to ask around for other students’ opinions about them.

You can always ask for information from students who already got in. I was lucky to have many older friends  in US colleges, some of which helped me throughout the entire process. I think I had at least a friend in half of the schools I applied to, and for the others, I usually looked on Facebook for Romanian students in there.

Of course, you can always ask me for help at any point. But I’m warning you that I’m very biased about Richmond. I just love it here!

Bottom line, no matter which way you choose, just ask for help.  It will make your life much easier.

Ok, now some specific advice for UR. Especially if you need a good amount of financial aid (and I know that most internationals do), do yourself a favor and apply by December 15 to be considered for Richmond Scholars. You probably know that UR is not need-blind for international students. Internationals seeking full rides are the most competitive pool of applicants. I think it is as hard to get a full ride as an international as it is to get a Richmond Scholarship. If you apply in time to be considered, you practically have one chance to get the scholarship, and if you don’t get it, you still have the chance to get financial aid. Besides, as a Richmond Scholar, you have more advantages. The most important in my opinion is priority registration. I got to register on Wednesday afternoon, but the rest of the (huge) freshman class had to wake up at 7AM to register on Thursday, and classes filled up so quickly, that many of them didn’t get into any of their first choices

Good luck with applications!