WES Blog

We asked Jackie Vogl, Assistant Vice President for Global Education at SUNY Plattsburgh, to help us answer some of the student questions we’ve received during our webinar on undergraduate admissions. From standardized tests to financial aid, find out more on how admissions officers weigh different parts of the university application for international students. Rishav: For […]

If you have been accepted to a U.S. university and now need to get your student visa, WES Advisor is here to help! Now that you have been admitted, the U.S. university should have provided you with an I-20 form. You will need to get your financial documents together to successfully pass the visa interview. The following […]

When undergraduates are thinking about studying abroad for an advanced degree in the U.S., they have two options: apply to a master’s degree or doctoral degree program. Here we will talk about the differences between master’s and Ph.D. degree programs and also compare the lifetime earnings of both degrees in respective occupations. What Are Master’s […]

When I moved from Sao Paulo, Brazil, with more than 11 million inhabitants, to a much smaller city in the middle of the Midwestern U.S., I was definitely expecting a lot of cultural shock and lifestyle differences. Indeed, when I first arrived here for university, I sensed big gaps in culture, weather, political views, and […]

When international students start to live in a foreign country, they encounter a lot of valuable experiences that they never had in their life before. These experiences allow them to broaden their perspective and even change their life. A new life in a new place is very exciting, and meeting new friends makes life even more […]

In this post, we ask Jessica Sandberg, Director of International Admissions at Temple University, five common U.S. college admissions questions asked by international students. Do all U.S. universities require standardized exams for admissions into a degree program? There is a growing trend in the United States for going test-free in the freshman application process. This trend applies […]

A credential evaluation converts the academic credits or degrees that you earned overseas to their equivalencies in the U.S. or Canada. At the end of the process, you’ll receive a credential evaluation report. This report is easy to understand for people who are only familiar with education systems in North America. It can help them […]

If you are thinking about applying to business schools in the U.S., then you should be aware that the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) is not the only exam you can take. Over the last few years, more than 1,100 business schools, including Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and Yale, have agreed to accept either the Graduate […]

When speaking with international students who had recently applied to a Canadian university, the most common words they said were, “I can’t believe how straightforward and easy the process was” or “That’s it?!” And it’s all true. Applying to Canadian universities is extremely straightforward and the entire application process will take you under an hour […]

A large number of international students receive funding from their home government: in the past two academic years, more than 57,000 international students studying in the U.S. received financial support from the government of their home country or from a university in their home country. If you are an international student looking for funding to […]

Many international students wrongly assume that they are not eligible to work while studying in the U.S. But, in reality, there are several employment options and visa types that international students can take advantage of in order to gain some professional experience while studying in the U.S. F-1 Visa The F-1 visa allows entrance to the U.S. for […]

In this post, WES Advisor sits down with Morgan Volkart, the director of international recruitment at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA. We asked her to provide guidance to prospective international students on how to write a great personal essay. Morgan, can you explain the importance of the personal essay in a U.S. college application? Although […]

Chances are if you studied in a non-English speaking country, you will need to take an English proficiency exam. The most common exams are the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and the International English Language Testing Service (IELTS). These two exams are administered by two different companies—and now that you know that, you may […]

In this post, we sit down with Dr. Myron (“Mick”) Thomson, Associate Provost and Executive Director of the Graduate School Emeritus at State University of New York at Buffalo, to talk about the criteria for selecting a graduate school. How important is it to find the best fit school for an international student? When a […]