Is there an American UCAS?

Can anyone help with American uni info..funding/courses etc?

• I've begun to consider my uni options and i think America would be an amazing experience. I've searched google and other searches but cannot find out about a british citizen applying, or any course or funding information. Is there an American version of UCAS?

• Answer:

  This turned out lengthy so I'm going to preface it with my top recommendation, which is to go to the Fulbright USA College Day in September (that's where my journey started, and it ended up with me graduating from a US university) and check out their info guides, which cover most of the things I've discussed below and more! http://www.fulbright.co.uk/eas/index.html Unfortunately there isn't an American version of UCAS - the closest thing they have is the Common App http://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/default.aspx but that really only provides an application service, it doesn't have all the course information that UCAS does. And it doesn't cover all universities, an awful lot have their own unique applications. The Princeton Review is a really good source of information about colleges, standardised testing and all kinds of other things. http://www.princetonreview.com/college/default.asp US News also has a huge rankings site - http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankindex_brief.php which is useful but obviously don't make your decisions based on ranking alone. When it comes to courses, since you don't usually apply to a specific course, it isn't a major concern in the way it is here. If you know what you want to study, then make sure the colleges you apply to offer your subject but otherwise go with an open mind - your major will only make up about 50% of your classes, and you never know what you'll wind up being interested in. As a UK citizen applying, you will still need to do standardised testing (SAT or ACT) if the universities you apply to require it (almost all do). You can sit them in the UK, but you may well end up doing them on a military base you never knew existed. Check out http://www.collegeboard.com/ for info on the SATs and http://www.actstudent.org/ for info on the ACT. You'll also need decent results in your A levels, some places might be happy to accept you with just AS or even GCSEs, but I'd recommend going ahead and finishing your A levels - a lot of colleges will give you credit for the work you've done or exempt you from required courses, which would free up more time for elective classes or allow you to graduate early. Funding - you're not eligible for any funding from the UK or the US governments (alas!), so your best bet is to apply to private universities rather than public ones, since they are more likely to offer you financial aid. The key thing to look for is universities that offer need blind admission for international students (this means that they will decide whether or not to admit you without taking into consideration whether or not you'll need assistance, and if you do get admitted, you should get help.) It's not impossible to do by any means, my degree probably ended up costing about the same as it would do in the UK, despite the "sticker price" tuition being a whopping $28k. It's easiest to get hold of need based aid (assuming you can demonstrate genuine financial need) but merit based (scholarships etc.) assistance is available too, but most likely only through individual universities - I found that most other scholarships were restricted to US citizens and permanent residents. It is a lot of work to go through to get admitted (but I think it's totally worth all the effort and extra expense for tests etc), and if you decide that you don't want to go for the full 4 years you can always apply to a UK university that will allow you to spend a semester or a year at a US university.