Visiting from abroad: visa, funding, etc.

[bobafett]

I've been accepted at one of my top choices and would really like to attend the admitted students' event before committing. The school offered some travel allowance, but it's nowhere near enough to cover both flights and visa fees. Does anyone know if it's acceptable to ask for more allowance on top of the maximum stated amount? Also, is it difficult to get a US visitor visa for the purpose of visiting grad schools? 

[TakeruK]

1) Yes, you should ask for more monetary help if you need it. You may not get it though. Usually, international students from outside of North America only visit if they are already in the US (e.g. as an undergrad or some other purpose) or if they are combining a few visits together. If you have applied to other schools nearby, maybe you can try to visit more than one school in one trip and split the costs? When I was visiting schools in California and Arizona from Canada, the cost would have been too high for just one school's travel allowance but I was able to visit both by combining them. It did mean that for one school, I visited at an alternate date instead of the official visit days (but there were 2 other students visiting with me too, so it wasn't just me!). I visited one school on Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday was a travel day and then visited the second school on Thursday and Friday. If you are asking for more support or to split costs, it is helpful to present the costs and proposed expenses so that you are asking for a concrete number and can justify it. This will likely have a better chance of succeeding than just asking for a higher number.

2) Whether or not it's easy to get a visa completely depends on your country of origin, what passports you have, and your own history. You would likely visit on a tourist visa, there's no special visa for visiting grad schools. So, you can judge what the process could be like by finding out what people from your country normally do if they want to visit the US. If people from your country can regularly get visas to visit the United States, then it should be straight-forward! You may ask your school for a letter of invitation if that is necessary for your visa application. 

[bobafett]

@TakeruK Thanks so much for the response! That was quite helpful  

I'm planning to combine money from different sources, if possible, but I don't think I'll hear from other programs anytime soon, and there's not much time left to sign up for this visit. Ah well. Maybe a miracle will happen and I'll get a couple more acceptance letters and $$$ very soon... If not, I just hope I won't arrive at my new school and start to regret my decision!

I'm from a country where getting a visa to go anywhere takes forever and costs a kidney, unless you own lots of property and have your passport covered in foreign stamps. Part of the reason why I wanna study borders, ha! But an acceptance letter and an invite will probably help with the paperwork, if not with the cost.

[TakeruK]

It's also okay to reach out to some of the other nearby schools at this point and let them know what you have an offer from X and hope to visit on Y dates. You can say that you are planning ahead because you hope to be able to combine trips to reduce costs and also because you want to leave lots of time for visa processing. Then, you can ask if the school has made decisions yet and if not, do they know when they expect to be able to make them. 

This will hopefully get you a useful response like: 
"We will send out decisions by Feb 9" (this is good to know because then you might be able to wait a few more days before making plans). Or if it's a later date, then maybe you want to pick later visit dates where possible. 

You might also get a rejection right there (most schools will wait until later to send rejections so you might already be in the "no" pile and not received notice yet). This is not fun to get, but it helps you with planning. Or, they might be able to give you some kind of indication of approximately when you would know and your chances. I wouldn't ask about the decision directly though, I'd phrase it as a question about decision timing instead.

[bobafett]

That's a good option to keep in mind. Thanks again for the helpful suggestion!

If I end up unable to afford the trip, do you think it'll be worth it to visit after making a decision, and asking the school if I can still use the travel allowance for my flight to the US to attend the program? F1 visas allow students to arrive 1 month before the program's start date, so I'm thinking I could take advantage of that, arrive early, and familiarise myself with the town, the campus, and hopefully the department. 

[TakeruK]

You can ask, but some schools may not allow you to use that travel allowance for the moving trip. But other schools are explicit about this (one school that accepted me said that I have a $1000 budget that I can use for any combination of travel to the admitted students day or moving expenses, however I wished). So it's worth asking but be aware that many funding sources have restrictions on how the money is spent, so they might not be allowed to use the funds in this way even if they wanted to.

[bobafett]

41 minutes ago, TakeruK said:

You can ask, but some schools may not allow you to use that travel allowance for the moving trip. But other schools are explicit about this (one school that accepted me said that I have a $1000 budget that I can use for any combination of travel to the admitted students day or moving expenses, however I wished). So it's worth asking but be aware that many funding sources have restrictions on how the money is spent, so they might not be allowed to use the funds in this way even if they wanted to.

Gotcha! Thanks for all the help so far