Student from Australia applying to the U.S for grad school

[iuka]

Hi everyone,

I'm from Australia and looking at applying to schools in the South - particularly Ole Miss and LSU - and I was wondering if there was anyone else from Australia who is currently going or has been through the process of applying to grad school? I'm particularly concerned about the funding element - do we really need to have, say, $50k in the bank before we get a visa? Centrelink really is not that generous at all - but also just how different the process is compared to here is a little overwhelming too. When I applied to my Masters at UQ all I needed to do was send them my transcript and they were like 'yep' but in America it sorta seems like they wanna know everything, up to and including inside leg measurements!

Anyway, if anyone has any information, I would be very grateful. Thanks

[TakeruK]

I am not from Australia but I share your frustrations as an international student too (from Canada). Part of this is because applying internationally is always a pain (Americans will have issues applying to US schools, and while it's easy for me as a Canadian to apply to Canadian schools, I know they ask for more from non-Canadians!). So unfortunately it is just part of the game. The US seems to have a few extra things, like the GRE or other exams (depending on your field).

I can answer one of your questions though.  Yes, for F-1** student status, you do need to prove funding for 1 full year covering tuition and living expenses. At many US schools, this adds up to about $40,000 to $50,000. However, if you are in a field that fund their graduate students, for example, through a tuition waiver and a stipend (either fellowship, RA or TA) then this should meet all the requirements. That is, you are allowed to use the school's funding package to count towards the $50,000 (or whatever it is) that you need to prove to get the student visa/status. 

All of this happens after you get accepted, by the way. So at the application stage, I would not worry about it for now if you are planning to apply to funded graduate programs. After you accept the school's offer, in about 1 year from now, the school will work with you to sort out all of the immigration stuff. If you are planning to apply to non-funded programs though, then it might be a good idea to ensure you have the funds to pay for your schooling before spending a ton of effort on applications.

In the meantime, it sounds like you will be applying in Fall/Winter 2016/207 to start in Fall 2017 so between now and December, you should ensure you have met all the application requirements. If you haven't taken the required exams etc. yet then maybe doing it over the (northern hemisphere) summer would be a good idea!

(** F-1 status is the standard international student status. J-1 is also an option, mostly used by students when they have a spouse that wants to work in the US, but the requirements are a little different. If this is your case, I can talk to you about this too as I am on J-1 status!)

[iuka]

Hi TakeruK,

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain this to me. The funding part is something that has previously put me off even considering the more expensive schools, so I'll have another look at those. It's good to know that the people on the other end will help out with immigration things too!

I have to travel interstate to take the GRE, so I'm hoping to get down to either Sydney or Melbourne to do that during our winter break. In the meantime, I'm trying not to drown in my current workload and general anxiety over grad school stuff.

And unless my current crush suddenly declares their undying love to me in the next year or so, it's probably just going to be me heading out there so it'll be the F-1 I'm applying for. 

Thank you so much though, you've been super helpful and alleviated one of my major concerns! 

[TakeruK]

No problem! The whole funding thing also discouraged me from US grad schools for a long time before I realised that in a field with funded PhD, it's actually a non-issue since the funding covers that. I certainly don't have that kind of money in my bank account!

Good luck on the GRE. I also had to travel a bit to get to my GRE too (3 hours away, had to arrive the evening prior as the exam is 8am in the morning!). And had to do this twice---once for the general GRE and once for the subject!

[mubear]

Hi iuka, I'm from Australia and have just been through this process. (I actually applied two years in a row - was Waitlisted the first year and Accepted the second time round)

I haven't gotten a Visa yet, but I agree with what TakeruK has said - it all happens after you're accepted. As far as I can tell the process is: you get accepted by a school in the US, you fill out some paperwork and they send you the form you need to apply for a Visa at the consulate. As far as the money goes, will you have a scholarship at the places you're applying to? How are you planning to fund grad school? I also don't have $50,000 in the bank, but my offer comes with a full scholarship and stipend, so I just have to show proof of that when I apply for a Visa.

It is VERY different from the Australian process (I had the same experience - for both Honours and Masters in Australia I basically just sent in my transcript and was accepted).

Also, the GRE is horrible... and I also had to travel interstate to take it. I would recommend leaving enough time to re-take it (and study some more in between) if you're not happy with your original scores. Not sure about you, but I hadn't really taken that sort of standardised test before so it was a new experience.

Let me know if you have any other questions

[Slagatha]

All of the above (Kiwi who just finished applying to the US). Our first test centre turned out to be an abandoned building, so we ended up taking our tests 4 weeks later than anticipated (mid-November, yuck!!). 

If you're only applying to two places it will hurt less but otherwise prepare for a bit of a financial investment - the GRE ain't cheap but you have to do it. Make sure you have your list of max. four places to submit your scores to the moment after you finish the test - you get four for 'free', but have to pay $27 USD to send each additional one. Going into the test I had picked out four places, but only ended up applying to two of those, and had to send other scores afterwards. 

Application fees for each university seem to be around $75-110, so factor that in, too. I only had one that needed a hardcopy of my transcript for the application, so that saved me some money (we pay for each transcript we request here!). 

Also consider getting in touch with folks at the universities you're looking at to ask about what their international funding situation is like. I ended up not applying to one particularly excellent place because they were really straight up about how 'the situation for international students has been particularly challenging' and that it 'would be virtually impossible' without external funding. 

[iuka]

Hi mubear and Slagatha,

Thank you for confirming what TakeruK said - I've started looking at the other places I'd initially discounted, which is nice. 

So... the GRE sounds like hell. I don't have any experience whatsoever with standardised testing. I've downloaded the practice GRE software (and looked at it, and panicked, and closed it again... my grad school dreams are getting closer and closer by the day, can you tell?) i hate these kinds of open-ended questions, but do either of you have advice with regards to the GRE? Outside of 'get your life together and practice'? 

Also, Slagatha, I had no idea about the limit on the number of places I could apply to. Thank you for letting me know! And I'll start getting in contact with people over there too. 

I have an appointment next week with someone in my department here at uni who just so happens to be an American historian and really familiar with American universities, which is a blessing in and of itself. There's just so much to deal with with regards to applications, on top of uni work, y'know?

[namarie]

12 minutes ago, iuka said:

Also, Slagatha, I had no idea about the limit on the number of places I could apply to.

I'm not an international student, but there isn't a limit on the places you can apply to. It's just that you pay roughly $200 USD for the GRE, so they give you 4 free scores to send to whichever schools you like (this happens at the end of the test). Take advantage of that, because if you apply to more than 4 (and most people do), it will cost the $27 USD Slagatha mentioned. It's expensive, and honestly the worst part of the process. 

[Slagatha]

30 minutes ago, iuka said:

So... the GRE sounds like hell. I don't have any experience whatsoever with standardised testing. I've downloaded the practice GRE software (and looked at it, and panicked, and closed it again... my grad school dreams are getting closer and closer by the day, can you tell?) i hate these kinds of open-ended questions, but do either of you have advice with regards to the GRE? Outside of 'get your life together and practice'? 

The advice I got was to learn how to study to take the test - it's pretty formulaic. Look through the guidebooks to work out how to answer the analytical sections. If you can structure an essay cohesively, evaluate sources, and construct a balanced argument then you'll be fine, to be honest. I think you can psych yourself out pretty easily but it's not that bad, in all honesty. 

Magoosh was super helpful, especially the free iPhone vocab flashcard app. That saved my butt. I didn't use any of their paid material, but they look pretty good. I ran through the practice tests and found those really helpful. The ETS GRE book was really helpful for practice analytical and verbal questions particularly, plus general tips. For a great free resource for the maths, Khan Academy is unbeatable. This list gives you a good guide for what to look at on Khan, and you'll figure out what needs attention as you go through the practice tests. I just Googled 'GRE quantitative practice tests' for more practice questions - this one was good, for example.

 

Also, Slagatha, I had no idea about the limit on the number of places I could apply to. Thank you for letting me know! And I'll start getting in contact with people over there too. 

What namarie says is correct - limited to four submissions for free (at the time you take your test), and then you can submit others. If you don't know where else you're applying to during the test then don't worry, you can request the additional scores to be sent online later. If you only pick two or three places at the test, you can't use those remaining free ones later I ended up sending a few scoreslike the day the application was due - most places were okay with a short delay in scores being received if the rest of the application was complete. Double check that when you're applying though, some places could be different.  

The whole GRE thing is a scam tbh, just profit generating garbage that you have to buy into!

 

I have an appointment next week with someone in my department here at uni who just so happens to be an American historian and really familiar with American universities, which is a blessing in and of itself. There's just so much to deal with with regards to applications, on top of uni work, y'know?

Yeah - I was (and am) working full-time while prepping for the GRE and getting my applications together. I was taking a French paper as well, to try and get my language up, but ended up dropping it to focus on applications - I applied to the UK too so needed more formal research proposals as part of that. In hindsight, if I could have kept up with the French paper at the same time it probably would have helped my applications for some places but who knows, it's so hard to pick where your shortcomings are for some of these places. The US seems obsessed with how well you 'fit' with the department - pretty different to Aus and NZ applications (and UK, to an extent)!! I was luck to get three days off before the GRE to focus on last-minute revision (craming always helps) but that'd be harder to do while keeping up with your classes! 

One of my references is American, and his insights into the US system actually helped with the recommendation itself so you might find that useful. My quantitative score on the GRE was pretty awful (thankfully offset by high verbal/analytical), but he addressed that by saying that we don't get those general education maths courses as part of our degrees that they do in the US (they do a four year Bachelors vs. our three year Bachelors), that I know it's something to work on, and that he's confident I will build up anything that needs it. Worked out okay - my first year of funding relies on a knowledge of calculus, so we'll see how that goes!

[mubear]

4 hours ago, iuka said:

So... the GRE sounds like hell. I don't have any experience whatsoever with standardised testing. I've downloaded the practice GRE software (and looked at it, and panicked, and closed it again... my grad school dreams are getting closer and closer by the day, can you tell?) i hate these kinds of open-ended questions, but do either of you have advice with regards to the GRE? Outside of 'get your life together and practice'? 

I think it depends which part you're worried about. Maybe find out if any of the schools you're interested in have cut-offs for any of the sections, or check out the results page and see what sort of stats are associated with people accepted into those programs. 

(For me, the quantitative section was the hard bit. The reason I went through this whole application process twice is that I only applied to one program, and my potential advisors there told me straight up after I wasn't accepted off the waitlist the first time around that the only thing holding me back was my GRE quant score (I was 78th percentile, they had a secret 80th percentile cut-off). So, I studied really hard and took it again and was accepted this time round (again, only applied to the one program.) 

So, I only really had to study for the quant section, because I personally found the verbal section really easy, and I wasn't too worried about the analytical. I used Magoosh to study the second time - it was pretty helpful, but you can probably get by with the free options.

I would recommend taking the two ETS Powerprep tests under time restriction - they're pretty accurate in giving you an idea of your score. You could take one now to see where you stand, and another closer to your test date. There are lots of other free GRE practice tests out there, but I think they vary a lot in their quality...

For the analytical section, have a look at the topic pools. Read through the questions and see if you have opinions about the topics. Some of the topics I had absolutely no opinion on (or background knowledge of), so I looked them up briefly. Others I knew enough about that I was confident that I'd be able to just right an essay off the top of my head. My only worry about this section was going in and getting a topic about which I had nothing to say.