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Most students who are pursuing academic studies at a college or university in the US must first obtain an F-1 student visa.
There are common exceptions to this general rule. For instance, if a student is a citizen or permanent resident of the US, or if the student is participating in a short-term J-1 program, they do not need an F-1 student visa. So, what does this F-1 visa allow students to do? Students may lawfully enter the US. After being admitted to a US college or university, the student applying for the F-1 visa is issued the Immigration Form I-20. The F-1 visa allows a student to lawfully enter the US. The student applies for the F-1 visa after being admitted to a US college or university that is authorized to issue the Immigration Form I-20. Many international students apply for their student visas at the US embassy or consulate closest to their residence or home country. Students on an F-1 visa may work part-time during the academic year while in the US. The visa application process involves a brief in-person interview, and the application instructions vary by location. For a consultation or training in this process to apply for a visa, contact LAEC experts for more information.
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When many students begin their college applications and send off their college applications, they may actually forget that the application itself is just one part of what needs to be submitted. There are several other documents that must be received before your file is considered ready for review by the college. And because of this, many students are going to receive a ton of emails and postcards just after they submit their applications, notifying them that all their materials have not been received. Panicking parents and students will begin to stress out. Here are some ways to avoid having your application sidelined in the admissions process.
School Forms / Naviance Your school college counselor should have a list of colleges that you will be applying to several weeks before your first deadline. He/She will need to prepare all the forms that need to be submitted from the school. Some guidance office will rely on students to pick up the documents and send them to colleges, while others will collect and send all the school materials together. So, what are the forms that MUST be received by each of your colleges? Teacher recommendations, the guidance counselor recommendation, your transcript, and the school profile MUST ALL be received by each of your colleges. Some schools now file electronically via the Naviance or Common App, but other schools may still remain locked in the era of paper and the U.S. Post Office (also known as snail mail). Thus, it will be important to give your counselor plenty of notice as to where you will be applying. If school materials get lost in the mail, some colleges will wait a few days for another set to be sent, but it is better to avoid this situation. Test Scores (SAT I, SAT II Subject Tests, or ACT scores) These test scores must be sent directly from the reporting agency to colleges, unless you are applying to a test optional institution. The only scores that colleges will accept come directly from the Collegeboard (www.collegeboard.com) for the SATs or the www.act.org for the ACT. With an unusually high number of issues with missing SAT scores during some of the early admissions, it would be best to request your scores at least 2 weeks before your deadlines whenever possible. Payments Students, do not forget that in order for your application to be processed, your payment must be received. Most college allow credit card payments, and/or checks. Make sure you put your ID or SSN number on the check and send it directly to the admissions office (follow directions). For students who are submitting a fee waiver, be sure to call the admissions office and make sure that the required information for a waiver was received and that your request was accepted. Supplements While all the aforementioned are important, the Supplements is the part of the application that can be deal breaker. Colleges may wait for late SAT scores or payments, but if the supplements are not transmitted by the deadline, the application may be rejected. So, make sure you work carefully on these essays and submit them on time. For college services, contact Lee Academia consultants and avoid application rejections.  This week, Lee Academia's team gathered data from 2002-2013 and created this graph on the left. We can see the increased interest in U.S Colleges/Universities as more and more International students apply and seek LAEC's High School/College/Graduate School Counseling.
Lee Academia limits the number of students we work with, as we dedicate our expertise and professionalism in helping each and every one of our clients. In 2012-2013, we see a tremendous increase in our International Students (especially from China) applying to U.S. Colleges seeking our help during the Spring and early Summer term, thus limiting our availability for American students. Here are sample services that we helped our International Students with:
1. IELTS, the International English Language Testing System, is an English language proficiency test designed to test communicative English abilities of non-native speakers.
2. The IELTS is a paper-and-pencil test with 4 sections : Listening, Reading, Writing, and Speaking. The Speaking test includes live, face-to-face interview with a trained ESL professional. 3. A variety of question types are used in IELTS to test a wide range of skills. For example, there are matching, classification, multiple choice, sentence completion, short answers, diagram label completions and more. 4. There are two versions - Academic and General Training. The Academic version is used for higher education and professional certification, while the General Training is used for work or migration purposes. 5. IELTS is accepted by more than 8,000 organizations worldwide, including over 3,000 U.S. institutions. If you would like to know more about the IELTS, contact us for more information. With approximately 450 boarding schools in 2012 and tuition at these schools ranging from free (yes, free!) to well over $50,000 per year, many parents and students choose to go to boarding schools.
There are plenty of reasons why attending an independent school is a great idea. With boarding school experiences adding another dimension because it involves the student 24/7 for weeks at a time; the academics, athletics and extracurricular activities are interwoven into a student's schedule in a remarkably balanced way. So whether a coed school or a boys' school or girls' school is chosen, you will find a boarding school which meets your requirements. Additionally, you can find boarding schools that offer military training, educating students with learning differences and special needs. Financial aid is given at several boarding schools with general financial aid packages. Everyone boarding school is unique so ranks do not matter there. What does matter is finding the school which best fits the child. Find the right boarding school for a child is one of the most important and expensive decisions you will ever have to make, similar to the college process. Parents and students can research thoroughly on their own, only to find that most websites look alike and very few give information on the profile of typical accepted students. Families who want the guidance often turn to independent educational consultants, like Lee Academia's Educational Consultants, who have worked with over 50 students and parents this past admissions cycle. These professionals are paid by the families to advise them on the boarding school search and admissions process. Many offer full service comprehensive packages that span over a year’s time, and others have shorter packages or an hourly rate. A typical consultation will start with a focus on the student’s background and interest in boarding school; this includes a review of his transcript, testing, activities, interests, and academic successes and challenges of the past. Lee Academia's professional consultant will talk with the student and parents about goals for the future and what they hope to get out of the boarding school experience. We have given examples of schools that are nurturing or offer learning support, or those which give extra help to students when they need it. We discuss the pros and cons of the more rigorous schools, or might help a family decide whether to repeat a year. Lee Academia's professionals know the inside scoop on boarding schools, and they get this through their campus visits, meetings with admissions officers, and by seeing the successes of the students who they place at schools. We help families determine a list of schools to apply to, and this discussion customarily takes many months, but in certain cases can be done within one meeting. For information or a consultation to see if boarding schools are right for you or your child, contact us. Stay tuned to our success and admissions results, as they will be posted up on the website as we receive them. The TOEFL Junior is a Standard Test of English created by ETS for young learners ages 11-15. With the ever-increasing number of young international students applying for admission to schools in the United States, this test meets the demand for an English language assessment. There are many types of institutions that can use the information provided by the TOEFL Junior tests to help make placement decisions or measure student progress in English: English-language programs, private middle schools, and schools in Non-English speaking countries.
There are two TOEFL Junior tests: Standard (launched in Oct.2010) and Comprehensive (launched in July 2012). The TOEFL Junior Standard test is administered in paper-based format testing: Listening Comprehension, Reading Comprehension, and Language Form and Meaning. Each section contains 42 questions, and the approximate total testing time is 2 hours, with total score scales ranging from 200-900. The TOEFL Junior Comprehensive test is administered on computer testing: Listening Comprehension, Reading Comprehension, Speaking, and Writing. Each section in Listening Comprehension and Reading Comprehension contains 36 questions, with each of the sections in Speaking and Writing containing 4 questions each. The approximate total testing time is 2:15 hours, with total score scales ranging from 140-160 in the Listening and Reading Comprehension sections, and score scales ranging 0-16 for each the Speaking and Writing sections. For more information about this standard test or our TOEFL Test Prep Programs, you may contact us. |
Stephenie Lee
Stephenie, having been a tutor/instructor/mentor since 1996, discovered her passion and founded Lee Academia Educational Consulting, LLC. after she left the dental and medical field. She loves teaching/mentoring and counseling her students. Her passion lies in educating others and helping them pursue their educational path. Today, certified in College Counseling and with more than 10 years of experience, Stephenie and her team continues to blog about current updated educational news and events. Archives
April 2016
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