Wednesday, February 27, 2008

How to apply to a college in the USA


My accounting midterm was postponed and that feels good actually. I felt ready to do it this Thursday but it’s definitely better with some extra time. I still have a cold. I’m feeling kind of week but after skipping four days at the gym I decided to go there yesterday. I could only run for 40 minutes this time though but at least I got some exercise.

I have gotten a few messages about how you apply to an American school from abroad. I’ve decided to tell you my story and hopefully you can learn something from that.

My whole life I have wanted to come to the States and study or work. Before I came here I was working and had been doing so for three years. Before that I went to high school in Sweden and studied media and journalism.

I worked in a factory which is producing car windows. It was a physical job where you had to do a lot of monotonic work. I learned a lot about myself and found very good friends there though. After three years working there, I had saved a lot of money and enough to do what I had always wanted, studying in the USA.

I tried to find information on the internet about how the college system works in the States. I couldn’t really find it though. I looked up different colleges but everything seemed too hard. I had to do tests, apply for a visa and get several other approvals.

After searching a while on the internet, I found a Swedish organization called GoStudy. They are really helpful. I booked an appointment with them and before I knew it, I was on my way to Lund for a meeting. They explained to me how everything works and what I had to do to send in an application to a college.

What is also very good about this organization is that they help you for free! When they had helped me pick a college and a major, I had to wait a couple of weeks to see if I was accepted at Berkeley College. This organization helps you with all the information you need. When I received my letter from Berkeley College announcing to me that I was accepted, I had to arrange my visa preparations.

The organization also helped me with this. What was very good was that I didn’t have to do a TOEFL or SAT test. I simply had to translate my Swedish grades. That’s what’s very good about this school. Everything went smoothly actually, a lot thanks to the organization GoStudy.

The organization didn’t help me to find a place to stay though and neither does Berkeley College in NYC. The NYC campuses are the only ones where you can’t stay in a dorm. I asked my way around and got a tips that craigslist.org is a good website to find apartments.

I searched there for a couple of days and finally found a place that would fit me. I called up my current host and we made all the arrangements together. I think I was a little lucky too though. It’s important to be careful and since I couldn’t see the place for myself I didn’t know if this guy was scamming me or not. Luckily, he didn’t.

2 comments:

SIRVIZ said...

Actually, Garret Mountain, and White Plains are the only campuses with dorms at Berkeley. Great blog. I read it every time you post.

Anonymous said...

hi my name is lisa im from algeria an i already spent one year "2006-2007" in the usa as an exchange student!! i really liked it an dats why i wanna come back for college!!
im still in high school though....French high school an berkeley college , to me, seems to be THE COLLEGE i wanna go to!
ur blog gave me a lot of informations an i wanna thank u for this!

also i wanted to know what was the requirement to b admit at berkeley if we have to be a very very good student or if we jus have to send our grades even if they are kinda good!

thanks a lot!!

da b really cool if u could answer me by e mail!