Suggestions for International Students Applying to College in the US

My Road to College

When I was applying to colleges in the Winter of 2013, I had immense family pressure on me. My cousins and family members before me had studied at top-notch higher education institutions in the US. Like them my family expected me to apply and hopefully get into the Ivy level universities. My mother was saddened that I hadn’t applied to any Ivy but the fact was the so called ‘Ivy Dream’ wasn’t so much of an allure to me. My friend’s in high school also thought that I was absurd not to even apply to any of them since I was in the top 10% of my class in high school and did more ECAs than study. All this intense pressure was quite overwhelming but coming into high school I knew I wanted to work in the Petroleum industry and so had a specific list of schools in mind.

How I Picked My College List

The first thing any prospective university student types into Google is ‘best universities in America’ and then comes the search results — a plethora of rankings: US News, QR, ARWU and about 10 more I can list off the top of my head. Many students tier their university applications based on these rankings and segment into ‘reach’, ‘probable’ & ‘safety’ schools. In my case I wasn’t really applying to university based on rankings but more on if they had the major I wanted to pursue and how close it was to a big city — yes I am the person who loves the hustle & bustle! I initially segmented my list to all the universities that offered majors in Petroleum Engineering and picked the ten best ones in the US to apply to (I did apply to ones in Canada & Australia as well). The one which stood out most to me was USC (where I currently go to school). USC didn’t have a major in Petroleum Engineering but it did have a major in Chemical Engineering with a Petroleum emphasis. Finding out about this was a blessing in disguise for two reasons:

i. The Petroleum industry is affected by volatility and volatility in turn has a major impact on recruiting trends. I predicted that during my college years, oil would see a downturn and so it was better to hedge my chances by getting a more general focused degree rather than going full Petroleum.

ii. So, oil did see a downturn from a high — $100 per barrel (when I entered college) to a low that is in the range of $10 now and I’ve seen recruiting being affected as a result.

My Advice

1. Don’t base your college search based entirely on what the rankings say. After visiting friends at many colleges in America I can say your college brand name is worth only so much after a point. Yes, going to the Ivy’s will automatically place you at the behest of recruiters from the top companies and set you up for success. However it isn’t the end of the world if you don’t get into one — remember you get to create your own brand wherever you go, as my economics teacher in high school said — ‘You can be the big fish in the small pond, or the small fish in the big pond’. [Read: You can excel at a smaller university and gain more visibility amongst your peers and recruiters for it].

2. Rankings are obviously going to play a big part and I personally suggest you use ones that give you meaningful insights like these ones:

i. PayScale College Salary Report — this ranking shows you how much graduates from colleges are earning currently and in what fields. This is the best indicator in my opinion as you are most likely going to college to get a job after graduation.

ii. LinkedIn University Rankings — LinkedIn has at their behest a treasure trove of data on where alumni are currently working and as such I’d deem their rankings for career outcomes very accurate.

iii. Niche College Rankings — One of the parameters that Niche incorporates is millions of student reviews and things that actually matter like food, dorms & teaching.

3. Everyone should dream of going to a top university, but that doesn’t mean everyone should apply to 20 colleges on the Common Application. My suggestion is pick three reach schools, five schools you know you should get into and two colleges that are your safeties. I got into all but one of the universities I applied to. How do you know what your chances are? It’s quite easy to quantify — compare your GPA & SAT/ACT scores to the ones that universities report. I personally used the Cappex Scattergram to compare my chances and it was a great predictor of where I’d get in and where I wouldn’t.

4. Also I feel that SAT/ACT and SATII (for the top colleges) matters a great deal in US college admissions. It’s the one metric college admissions officers have to judge all students on an equal level so that’s where most of the initial screening happens.

H1-B Sponsorship (US Work Visa)

We all know us international students have to get a company to sponsor us for a job. Those majoring in STEM often use Optional Practical Training (OPT) and OPT extension to work up to 29 months. That means if you’re not initially successful with the H1B lottery your first year, you can give it a second shot within your OPT extension. Personally coming to the US, my dream was to get a job at Boeing or Chevron. I admired those two companies from my childhood. USC is a recruiting hub for those two companies and as such was also another major key point in deciding to attend USC. My first career fair I was bummed to find out that these two companies don’t ‘actively’ sponsor international students on a work visa. Boeing does not sponsor because they are a defense contractor with the US government and as such can’t hire foreign workers. Chevron I think does not sponsor because there is already an abundance of well talented chemical engineers graduating in the US every year. The companies that actively sponsor H1B visas are firms mainly in the IT, Consulting, Accounting & Finance industries. All this said, here are some key factors you should consider when choosing which college to attend:

i. Go to their careers website and look up a list of companies that attend the career fairs and see if companies you want to work for attend the career fair at your university or if there are many companies that recruit for your major.

ii. Keep an eye out on for which companies sponsor H1B visas and if they have openings related to your major.

I hope my recollection of my experience applying to college and recruiting at college has been insightful to you if you got through this long post. Shoot me an email if you’d like to talk to me personally!

Note: I’m only a sophomore and what I’ve typed above is based on my experience so far. I’ll periodically update this and make it more professional but this just my opinion to help international students picking the right college in the US.

Originally published at branded.me.