What should I do if my high school does not have a counselor?Answered
I'm an international student so I don't have any counselor or any teacher who is familiar with the college application process in the US. What can I do?
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4 answers
I think it depends on how you intend to apply to your colleges. I can help you based on my experience as an international student who went through the same situation. Firstly I am applying through Common App (which is very convenient and I highly recommend!). On the Common App, they ask that I link a counselor to my applications in order to send my transcripts to the colleges. But like you, no one speaks english or knows about the American college process.
When it comes to resources I cant help, but when it comes time for you to send your transcripts I recommend you contact your Universities and explain your situation to them (that your school doesn't know how it works). Unfortunately all my colleges required that only my high school send my transcripts (to make sure they aren't falsified). Since I didn't have an admissions counselor, I contacted one of my English teachers to help make sure my high schools administration was doing everything correctly.
Hope this helps!
P.S There is a youtube channel called SuperTutor which offers great help and advice!
So some free options are just google various tools for admissions process and just read those though my first option would be to pick a very selective school ie ivy caliber and just email saying
Hello!
I am insert name and I am a insert grade from insert city in insert country. I am struggling with the admissions process do you have any resources that can help me.
Thank you very much and have a good day!
Sincerely,
Insert name.
I’d also email any public school in the Big 10 Big12 SEC ACC and PAC 12 and send the same email.
Also YouTube if available is an amazing tool. I’d recommend SupertutorTV and Iris Fu as those videos are high quality and provide very useful information.
Hope this helps and please comment if you need clarification as I’d be happy to help clarify!
Since you are an international student and have no US-focused counselor, I would continue to join forums like this one or Reddit or Quora to collect basic information and do your own independent research from the college guides like US News & WR, Niche, WSJ, and other ranking services. On CV here you can input your HS info and stats into the chancing profile and get a good idea of what your acceptance rate is versus published rates. That will help you figure out what you need improvement on. If you have some financial resources, there are dozens of highly qualified college admissions counselors for hire in the US that are reputable and have direct contact with many of the elite colleges. Again, you should do some research on that path if you have some financial resources ($2K-$20K). As you pick harder and harder colleges the stakes become higher and more students of means want to get into that college. There are many wealthy families around the world that have donated into the Ivy League for example to give their kids an edge when applying. Applying to American colleges is NOT based on merit for many of them. I can say that MIT/Caltech is purely merit-based but not so much the other top Private elite colleges. Best of luck.
There are plenty of resources online. There are many websites that help out on the college application process (like Collegevine!) along with many videos of people recounting their college app experience. I'm sure there will be some videos/articles that focus on international students. Best of luck!
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Thanks for your answer! I will also be using the common app. I'm not applying this year but I will definitely be following your advice!