how to apply to U.S. graduate schools -- Virtually Advising Q+A

The Q: Can U please tell me how should I go about if I do my PhD from U.S. What is the right procedure and what are the requirements of U.S. Universities.

The A: I'll be honest: The process of applying to (and getting admitted to) U.S. schools as an international student is often a long and frustrating one, and may well come down to how much time, patience and money you have. So before you invest too much of your energy into the process of finding and applying to U.S. schools, I'd encourage you to be sure that a U.S. management degree is indeed what you most want -- and what you most need to achieve your personal, educational and career goals.

There are some pretty good Web sites out there that provide resources and information for students looking to study in the U.S., including these two:

InternationalStudent.com, an excellent starting point for folks looking to study in the U.S.
Education USA, a U.S. government resource

But I'll also run through the major steps in coming to the U.S. below, so you don't need to keep hunting around for the basic information. So here we go!

STEP ONE: PICK YOUR SCHOOLS. Your first step in coming to the U.S. is to decide which schools you'd be most interested in attending. There are several good Web sites you can use to search for Ph.D. programs in management, including Peterson's and The Princeton Review.

Using the results you get, you can browse schools' websites, contact their admissions offices to receive brochures and other information, or look up information on them in grad-school or business-school guides. (Both U.S. News, a news magazine, and Peterson's, a publisher of college guides, publish books packed with information about U.S. graduate, business and law schools, as do companies like Barron's and The Princeton Review. You can usually find these books online, or perhaps in large commercial bookstores near your home or office). All these resources should help you put together a list of schools you'd like to attend, and will give you a better sense of what each school's admissions requirements are like.

STEP TWO: PREPARE FOR ENTRANCE EXAMS. While you're working on this, you may also need to prepare yourself to take the various entrance exams you may be required to take before U.S. graduate schools will admit you. You'll want to contact each of the schools you're interested in to find out what tests they require -- if you already have some type of graduate-level degree, for instance, it may help you out here. But you might need to take tests like: the TOEFL, which checks your English-language skills; the GRE, which U.S. graduate schools use to measure your ability to read, write, calculate and analyze problems; and the GMAT or LSAT, which are similar to the GRE but used specifically by business schools (GMAT) and law schools (LSAT). You can help prepare yourself for these tests by visiting their websites (www.toefl.org, www.gre.org, www.gmat.org and www.lsat.org, respectively) or by visiting the websites of test-preparation companies like www.review.com and www.kaptest.com, both of which offer rather expensive online courses to help people prepare for entrance exams.

STEP THREE: CONTACT AN OVERSEAS ADVISING CENTER. Relatively early on in this whole process you'll also want to get in touch with the folks at a nearby U.S. Educational Advising Center. These offices exist around the world and are staffed by professionals hired by the U.S. government to provide information and counseling to people hoping to study in the U.S. The directory of centers throughout the world is on this page:

http://educationusa.state.gov/centers.htm

The people at these centers are specifically trained to help students in your area continue their education in the U.S., so they should be able to lend a hand with everything from finding the right school to sending off your finished applications.

STEP FOUR: FILL OUT APPLICATIONS. Once you've gotten all this legwork done, the real fun begins: Filling out the applications provided by each of the schools you've decided to apply to. You'll need to submit your personal and academic information (in English, if possible), test scores, recommendation letters (which you should be able to get from coworkers or, more preferably, professors from universities you've attended) and one or more personal essays in which you talk about yourself, your goals and how they match up with the school you're applying to. Then it's a waiting game, while the schools you've applied to receive, file and look over your application before deciding whether or not to accept you.

When you've finally been accepted by one or more schools, and made your final decision as to which school you want to attend, the last step is to get your U.S. student visa and head on over to the U.S. to start your Ph.D. program. The school you've chosen will help guide you through this process, as will the U.S. Educational Advising Center you've been in touch with, but mostly you'll just have to fill out a bunch of forms and prove to U.S. immigration officials that you have ample reason for coming to the U.S, that you're coming only to get a graduate degree (not to get a job, move to the U.S., etc.), and that you'll have enough money to pay for tuition, housing, and whatever other expenses you'll need to cover during your time in the U.S.

And that's it! Sounds nice and simple, right? :)

Unfortunately, as I said way back at the begining of this long e-mail, it's definitely quite a long and tough process to come to a U.S. graduate program. The whole adventure (from school-hunting to receiving acceptance letters) normally takes about 18 months for U.S. students, so it could easily take a few months longer for people outside the U.S. And, though I don't mean at all to discourage you even further, keep in mind that because of our sluggish economy here, more U.S. students are now applying to graduate schools than in quite a long time -- which means the competition for the few spots available to international students could be even tougher. At the same time, though, thousands of interntional students come to the U.S. for graduate school every year, so if you decide it's what you really want to do you most certainly can do it.

Best regards!

—Myles Helfand, General Advisor