agency

Answered

Most international students struggle with the American college applications process because it is quite complicated and unless you know what you are doing from 9th grade, it's often difficult to catch up and make sure you have the right balance of coursework, extracurriculars, community service, independent research and other intellectual spikes to qualify for the top universities.

If you have the means to pay someone to help you as an international student navigate through the process and make recommendations to your coursework, that's always the best option. If not, I would highly recommend that you attempt to use the chancing profile and chancing engine against your list of colleges to see where you stand in relation to other applicants. CollegeVine provides those features for free.

Since there are over 4300 colleges in the US, you will be challenged to find 10 or 20 that works best for you. CollegeVine, only accesses about 15% of the colleges in the US, primarily the most important and popular ones so keep that in mind when you make your list. I would select from some of the ones you have heard about already and then pick some state colleges and smaller liberal arts colleges so you have a good mix. Once you fill out your chancing profile as best as you can, CV automatically runs their chancing engine against your profile and attributes to see how you fare currently. Next to your school list, you will see percentage ranges and a corresponding tag of either it being a Hard Reach, Reach, Hard Target, Target, or Safety school. If all your listed schools are either all reaches or all safety, you should pick a different list of schools to find a better fit for your academic narrative.

Besides the additional time and effort, you must make to learn all the ins and outs of the college admissions process, you also have to be aware and prepared to take either the SAT or ACT (which includes test prep, travel costs, test costs), TOEFL or IELTS (test for English proficiency), and if you are admitted anywhere, all the paperwork and cost relating to getting your travel and student VISAs.

If you are a top student in your country, you will find that colleges will work with you better. If you are an average student, it is very difficult to get financial aid to afford to attend a 4-year college in the US. So the first hurdle which is the most difficult is that you have to figure out the colleges you have the highest probability of getting into. Once you do that you can work on your college applications and pay the application fees. But always be cognizant of the cost of attending. Only the very best school provide generous aid to Intl students. The rule of thumb is that the best the school, the better the aid. Therefore as an international student, you should try to figure out which type of schools will most likely admit you and determine the cost of attending as soon as possible.

Good luck