[an AMEND. original] Updated 31-08-2026
Completely human-written if you’re into that kind of thing.
This guide is mostly for Indians who wish to study in the US.
Note: It is good to independently verify this guide before committing to anything that can affect your education.
This is a compilation of the knowledge that I’ve collected over the course of my ‘Applying to College’ journey (which is still ongoing). I’ve fished through Reddit threads at 1:00 AM in the morning, read others’ experiences, talked with people already studying elsewhere and other such stuff. Please read the guide completely for maximum understanding. Even if you know a bit, you may find something new.
US Admissions are weird. Weirder than anything I’ve encountered in India before. You’ll get to know about it soon.
But first, money.
As Internationals, the options become pretty limited. Well of course, a country would like to support their own people above all. That is perfectly fine… for them. Not for us.
Visas are getting increasingly rejected. The US Job market is pretty saturated, especially in the domain of tech. Racism and increasing violence against people is another matter entirely.
Update 31-08-2026: The US has paused processing of all immigrant visas. Moreover, the processing of CPT Applications (mandatory for doing any kind of internships in the US, whether paid or unpaid, remote or on-site.) This should not affect F1 Visas, which are non-immigrant Visas, but may be indicative of stricter actions henceforth. Tread carefully.
The point I’m trying to make here is that it would be worth getting into only the top 30-40 schools (by schools we mean colleges) in the US. It is quite expensive to study there, unless you’re applying for aid (which would come up later). We’re talking about ~50,000 USD/year in Tuition alone in most public schools. That is like… 48L/yr + . If you get into a mediocre school, it would become hard to get a job or pay off your debt or whatever (not that I recommend taking out debt at all). Choose wisely. Place subject rankings above all (for example, if you’re taking CS, evaluate the CS rankings rather than the general rankings). Talk out all the monetary concerns with your parents properly.
Also, T30 (Top-Thirty colleges in the US) college admissions are…. let us just say a black box, which means no one can guarantee any outcome. People with perfect grades and a 1600/1600 SAT are sometimes rejected, while some 1450 SAT and 3.7 GPA person may get into Harvard because of what he did or how he helped his community or whatever. This is of course vastly different from JEE/NEET and other Indian entrances, where if you get a rank, you’re in.
So, keep options open. Do Indian colleges too, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea are also good options, as they value Merit above all. Feels like
Most internationals would look to ‘break free’ of the rat race and get into holistic admissions. I am one of them. Here we hit our first point of concern.
Holistic Admissions evaluate you as a person: Not only your merit/grades but also your extracurriculars and your personal statements/essays. So If you're the stereotypical ‘study 12 hours with no life’ kind, you would want to look at countries which value academic merit above all. Like Korea. Like HK. But not the USA. (If you have Olympiad medals and JEE merit, that is a different scenario, but I will assume most reading this guide don’t).
If you’re the kind of person who helps people ‘because why not’, actually goes outside and displays curiosity, loves your field of study and have done things in it aside from academics, welcome Dunning Krueger.