Saturday, September 28, 2013

How to study in the USA without spending a fortune. (For Malaysian students)

It's been a while since I last updated my blog.  So here's some tips and advice I'd like to share with any aspiring Malaysians that would like to study in the USA but don't really have the financial capabilities to do so.

The first step to succeed is to have the will to study abroad.  If you really fight for it, take initiative to research and find out about all the different scholarships and financial aids then I have no doubt that sooner or later you will eventually attain one.

So let's move on to the details.  I won't be talking about any post-SPM scholarships since a lot of the post-SPM scholarships are determined mainly by your SPM results + what you do back then in secondary school (ECA's).  I will be discussing about the steps you can take after SPM and whether or not you did badly in secondary school would not affect your chances of obtaining scholarships.  This means that what you do after SPM is entirely up to you, but in general cases, most people will study a type of pre-u in the form of IB, A-level, STPM or etc.  

There are basically two common pathways for people to attend a US university/school/college with financial help:-

1.  Getting funding from private/government organizations from Malaysia to fund you in the USA.
2.  Getting financial aid from colleges/universities/schools in the USA itself.

I did number 1, 

For number 1, you have to first understand how these private/government organizations select their scholars.  Some stuff to keep in mind is that most companies have a specific list of universities that they are willing to sponsor students to. Although university rankings are certainly not a true measure of the quality of an institution, most of these scholarship providers unfortunately choose to use some kind of ranking either way.  In addition to that, you got to make sure that the major you're applying to fits the field that the scholarship provider is sponsoring.  

So, to follow these pathway, you need to:-

1.  Get into a university that is in the list of the scholarship provider.
2.  To do this, you need to do your own preparation. (Doing a pre-u and of course applying a university)
3.  Study a course that the scholarship provider is willing to sponsor.

Example of scholarship providers:- Khazanah, Petronas, Sime Darby, JPA, MybrainSc, Malaysian Airports, Jeffrey Cheah Foundation, Yayasan Terengganu/Sarawak, Maxis, Astro, Shell, Maybank, Bank Negara and etc. (Do your own research!)

For number 2, it is somewhat more flexible and you get a more variety of choice for the schools you want to attend.  It also upholds the whole concept of "fit" for US college admission (since you got to "fit" into a school for a school to really want you to attend thus giving you financial aid).  To follow this path, you got to do more research to find out which colleges are generous enough to give you financial aid.  Most of these data can be found on each college's respective website and if you're lazy, here's a rough guide.  It takes a whole lot more time to do number 2 since you got to start your whole understanding of US financial aid from scratch.  You will need to learn what's "need-blind", "need-aware" or "need-based".  You'll need to weigh in your chances of admission vs. the amount of financial aid you're receiving--stuffs like that.  However, most people that I've known that took this path ended up really happy with their schools in the end.  So yeah, it is a perfectly viable route for an affordable education in the US.

Of course, this is just a brief explanation.  If you really want to do it, better start early (because trust me, there's a lot of work to do).  Like I mention above, a lot of the application comes down to your own research and whether you want it badly enough to take the initiative to know about it and apply.  I'm just here to spark the idea in you and hope that more Malaysians will take the time to consider the vast opportunities out there.

I guess I'll end my blog post for now.  I will try to explain in further details about the two pathways if I have the time (and if there's a demand).  If you have any questions, feel free to message me at dylanlerhongjing@gmail.com or add me on facebook with the name "Dylan Ler" (be sure to message me telling me who you are first!).

Oh yeah, there are a lot of other ways to attend schools in the US and this is by no means the only two ways.  I'm just here to share my experience and to talk about what I observe after my experience in applying. =)

Cheers!

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