Preview UIS Online - International Student Webinar

Hi, welcome to the University of Illinois, Springfield 101.

Sorry about that noise.

Uh.

So we're just going to wait a moment while we have people join us today while everyones joining. If you wouldn't mind dropping in the chat, can you hear me? Where are you joining me from today? I'd love to hear where you're all joining me from.

At from Gujarat, Nice.

India.

I haven't been yet, but I've had a few good friends from there.

Where is everyone else joining us from today?

Sir, kinda is that also in India? Can you tell me where that is?

From the Gambia. I'm sorry I haven't gone. We had a professor that actually studied in the Gambia and he went pretty frequently. He was in our public health program, but one of these days I'll make it there.

Great.

So waited just a few seconds, so let's start again. My name is Anna Bradford on the international admissions counselor here at the University of Illinois, Springfield. This presentation is meant to be an introductory course to the UI S usually when you see what I want to attach to a course. Here in the uas, that means introduction, so that's part of the name of the presentation today. This presentation is specific for international students, so while a lot of the information in this presentation will be a little bit similar to the standard.

UAS 101 presentations that we give this information. Here I'm going to be spending a lot more time on things that students who are looking to come to uas specifically on an F1 visa. Need to know. So first, let's take care of a little bit of housekeeping.

If you've never used this platform before and you're having a little bit of issues logging in, just keep in mind that the best browsers to use while viewing this platform are the opera browser in the Chrome browser. You also want to make sure that when you were on this slide that you were on full screen, so at the top of the screen you should see that little button. It's a little box with the four arrows. If you just click that and hit full screen, it should give you a better viewing experience. Also, if you haven't noticed already, you can engage with me by going down to the chat.

The chat is live, I can see it when you type in it, but something to keep in mind is that I'm the only one running the presentation this morning, so I would love it if you drop your questions in the chat, but also something that I want you to know is that if you registered and you ask that question at registration, I do have those questions in front of me as well. So when we get to the end of the presentation I will be going through those questions and then I'll go through the questions in the chat and as we launch into this agenda today, I'm just keep in mind that I'm not going to be actively reading the chat.

While I'm giving the presentation, but I will promise that I address all the questions at the end. So before we get into a little bit more of the presentation, I want to start off with a video.

Great, so thank you for joining. Hopefully you had a great viewing experience for that video, so here's just a little bit of the agenda for today. I'm going to be going over the uas profile talking bout our admissions requirements, exploring some of the funding opportunities or institution is able to offer and then I'm going to be going into some of the process of obtaining an I-20. And if you're not familiar with one, and I20 is that is the documentation you need to be able to reserve an appointment at an embassy in order to obtain it.

F1 visa, I'll get a little bit more into that later on in the presentation. That's going to be a little bit of the next steps after admissions, and then I'll give you a little bit information how to do more virtual visits with us as well. At the end, as I mentioned, getting to the Q&A, so let's get into the presentation.

So UIS is a public liberal arts institution.

And do you know what that means? I know when I was younger I really had no comprehension of what liberal arts really meant and what liberal arts means is it's aligning itself with the style of education that actually dates it's self back to Ancient Greece. So this style of Education is to help you meet your educational goals. Of course, we're here to equip you to launch you out into the workforce, but a liberal arts education is a holistic educational approach. So what we're doing is wanting to give you the skills that you need to succeed.

Not only as you enter the workforce, but to be able to transition within the workforce if 2020 has taught us anything, being able to be flexible and adaptable is more important than ever. So what does that mean in the classroom? And that means that the first few years that you're in a liberal arts education, it's really focused on giving you that fleshed out holistic experience. So courses like Comp. 101, so composition 101, composition 102, introductory writing speeches required, so giving you that verbal communication skills so that you can relate.

The information that's needed so like for example, if you're going to be an accountant, you're not just going to be crunching numbers. You're not always going to be alone in a room running through reports. You're going to have to communicate that information to your supervisor. You're going to have to talk with clients, and you're going to need a really diverse set of skills to be able to meet the demands of the workforce today. And that's really the goal behind a liberal arts education. To give you that skill to be one of those really great contributing members of our society.

So where is uas located in the what would be called the Midwest portion of the continental United States? Right here is located a map. Illinois is highlighted in blue. We are bordered on the western border of Mississippi River, the longest River in continental United States, and on the northwest corner where Chicago is. Haven't you heard of Chicago? It is right next to the Lake, MI that is part of the largest freshwater system in the world, the Great Lakes. So that's where we are constantly located.

In the United States, but the city of Springfield is located right in the center of a state of Springfield, and we are located in the state capital. So our capital, like of course the capital is the seat of government here in Illinois, and we're also the hometown of Abraham Lincoln who was the 16th president of United States. So not only is Springfield of receiving a lot of heavy traffic due to of course anything legal, so legal, we have two different court houses. So the County Courthouse and the governmental courthouse here in Springfield.

And we also have legislature. We have all the different agencies that are located here out of the state capital. But we have tourism. So Abraham Lincoln's hometown hometown. We have his house. There is the original state capital where he served, so there's a lot of different things going on in Springfield and it could have a little bit of the atmosphere of like a small Midwest town. But it has a lot of the advantages of being part of that seat of government. So we have an airport with the train station about 10 minutes away from our campus. Alot of different things going on, so it is.

A really dynamic area where you can get kind of the best of both worlds. So in Chicago is about 3 hours away. The train goes straight there. We are also really close to Saint Louis, so that gives you a little bit of a location of where Springfield is.

So by the numbers, these numbers are current. As of fall 2020, so our population sizes just over 4000 students, so unlike some other public institutions, public institution in the United States is funded by Illinois taxpayer dollars. Its tide to our state. So typically when people hear public institution there thinking a large institution, maybe 40,000 thirty thousand students, 4000 students at a public institution means that you get all of those same opportunities.

That would be available to you at those larger public institutions, but with kind of like a private school feel in the USA we typically think of private schools, is smaller, more intimate campuses, and that's really what you're getting at uas like that public school opportunities. But the private school feel so that 4000 students you're going to get to know your professors. You're going to get to know your classmates. It's a real community here, specially this year, with everything going on, uas did resume on campus in a hybrid model, and so there are social distancing measures in place.

The University of Illinois system actually developped spit test to be able to monitor covid on our campus. So we are able to monitor that and there's weekly reports it. This smaller, intimate, respectful community has been able to maintain this pretty well. We do have less than 1% rate of infection and we do have quarantine measures set up, so it's been able to be sustainable with the size that we have right now, I'm more expecting to be able to continue this in spring 2021.

But definitely go to our uas website. There is at the top of the page there's a banner in light blue that will take you to the most updates. We also have a chancellors update that happens every week, so in this small community we want to make sure communication is prime. Were able to get that communication to you as soon as possible. The numbers here are accurate to this fall 2020 terms. About 78% of the population of our campuses from Illinois, about 30% is around from Chicago from all over the state. And of course there's a lot of students that come.

From local areas, so you'll get to meet locals to Springfield people from the rest of Illinois and actually students from all over our country. So we have students from California from New York, Florida that find their way here to Springfield. And so it's a really dynamic community where you're going to get to meet all sorts of people.

This slide here is dedicated to some of the academics at US. We have 31 different bachelors degrees, 20 Masters degrees in one doctoral degree, and there all divided up into 4 colleges. So if the College of business and management, the College of Education and Human Services, the College of liberal Arts and Sciences and the College of Public Affairs and administration, so these four colleges are going to host a lot of are really popular programs. For example, computer science, public health, environmental studies.

Just being so close in the state capital, we have great political science and legal studies programs in criminology and criminal justice, and we also have programs for pre medical. So if you're looking to become a doctor of veterinarian, actually I'm one of the questions someone submitted today was looking to become a dentist in the USA. You first have to have a bachelors degree, so that would be the first degree that you get when you finish your high school degree and with that degree you would when you finish it, you could take a concentration and maybe our pre.

Medical or if you're looking to go into law like pre law we have a great Pre Law Center here too. But both of these Pez prepare you for these exams that you take once you graduate with your bachelors. So if you're looking to go to medical school you would be taking the M Cat. And if you're looking to go to law school you be taking the L sat. Once you get these scores you are able to apply to medical school or law school and our schools really launched out a lot of students really successfully that way. For example, if you're looking to go into medical school, you be studying things like biology.

Biochemistry you really could study any major and if you attach that premed minor to it, you'll make sure you get the science heavy courses that you need. If you want to ask any other questions about that at the end of the presentation, I'm going to tell you a little bit about how you can reserve a one on one time to talk with me. Any questions that I have with in the chat or within the submitted questions during registration? If it's really specific to your program, like how you can become something, I really suggest that you do a one on one chat with me. That's the best way to talk about it.

So that's a little bit more information about our institution. Another thing I want to highlight on this slide before I move forward is our accreditation by the higher Learning Commission. I'm in the United States. The Department of Education isn't actually the accreditation body for any institutions or national accreditations aren't the benchmark. So if you're looking around, I know uas is just one of your options, but while you're looking around to make sure that you have a legitimate institution, you want to make sure they're regionally accredited.

So the US government has authorized seven different accreditation bodies to be below credit US institutions and for our region for the Midwest region. It would be the higher Learning Commission, and they're the ones that are authorized by the government to give us our accreditation. We get it every 10 years and the last time you were credited was actually 2017, so it's not coming back up again until 2027. So UIS is fully accredited. Both are on campus and our online options, so we are safe.

And healthy community to be apart of academically and socially.

Talking about socially, here's a little bit of information about our student life. The average age of students here at uas is actually a little bit older, so about 26 for undergraduate degree, an 33 for graduate degrees. This means that when you enter your classroom, you're going to need a lot of students that are, of course, the traditional age for going to school, but you're going to meet people from all different walks of life, so that's going to be a really great opportunity to get a very dynamic and engaging classroom atmosphere in the United States. When you enter your classes, you're really encouraged.

Ask questions to engage with your professor, and that's going to augment what you're learning in your books because a lot of times you'll get into stories and a lot of our professors have worked in the field, and those stories are super helpful to be able to flesh out what akarere in the field that you're setting is really going to look like. Valuable information as you launch yourself out. Other things I want to highlight on this side or the $7,000,000 in research funding. As I mentioned earlier, uas is liberal arts institution and a lot of times people don't associate research with the liberal arts institution.

But we still have those opportunities that $7,000,000 in research funding is equally distributed to professors based off of the projects, and they're really encouraged to pull her undergraduate students into research. That's not an opportunity that a lot of colleges are able to offer. I'm especially if their research institution they're going to be allocating their research funds to their Masters students, their PhD students, but we want to be able to see our students get their opportunities as soon as possible, so we've actually had students that were able to.

Research alongside their professors and one student from India in particular in his undergraduate amuse studying chemistry and he worked with his professor looking at soil court like horse oil samples and he researched alongside of him. He actually the professor brought him with to present and he was able to launch out into grad school with research actually having his name published. That's amazing. Not all students get that. And when you're looking to diversify your portfolio, whether you're looking for a job or whether you're looking to continue onto a Masters.

Or maybe even on to a PhD. Having that kind of experience is invaluable. In uas with the kind of opportunities we can give you some really great place to be able to seek that out.

So why you ask? In addition to a lot of the great things that I mentioned in our previous slides, uas is part of the world class University of Illinois system. Actually, for the second year in a row, we were nominated as the number one public regional University in Illinois by US news and World Report. Those stats just came out this last week, so we're really proud to have that again. We were teaching focused institution as like on the last slide. It actually had our student to teacher ratios, about 13 to one, and that ratio really gives you that.

Dynamic classroom experience, but the full on attention of your professor. Also, I mentioned earlier that we are located in the state capital, so all of our courses, even if they're not public service oriented, do have a little bit of public service imbued into them. 'cause we realized that there's nothing that we do within our communities that doesn't overall impact the public good. And that's part of our mission here at uas is to create true global citizens that are engaging with their communities engaging with their careers, and we want to see people thrive in that way.

So here are some services that are specific to international students. The Office of International Student Services is here to assist you with things like oh PT and CPT. And if you're not familiar with what those are, CPT or called curricular practical training that is attached to courses here at uas. So not every course is going to have CBT on them. You'll have to reach out to the office to know when an upcoming semester registration comes up, what classes is CPT available for?

Typically, for example, things like accountancy, I think MBA has some definitely computer science. There is different majors that will have some classes that are CPT certified definitely reach out to ISS, they'll know, and that class gives you the opportunity to seek an internship while you are enrolled in that class. So, for example, one of our students in his undergraduate was looking too. He actually got an internship at Google and he was able to work with you IS2. I think. Look at CPT and opete. I can't remember which one he ultimately came too, but he was able to.

Are taking that internship this summer amazing experience for that student. Opete is attached to your degree when you graduate with a degree here at uas, your visa is extended for up to one year and that is called optional practical training and that optional practical training you're able to partake with students like our international student services office is there to help assist you and maintain your visa status. Well, that's happening and we also have four different programs here at uas that have the opete stem extension on em, so that would be.

Or management information systems. Data analytics. Environmental public health as well as computer science, so those programs would be available not only for that one year of Opete after you graduate, but a 24 month extension. There are a lot of other support systems in place or events in place for international students. Things like our International Student Association. It's one of the 90 plus student clubs that we have here at uas. Great resources I know this year with everything happening in Covid. They're doing a lot on line.

And there's a lot of different events that they've been able.

What is student life trying to figure out online. Things like setting up a huge outdoor screen. I know our student life had that for TV, so students were able to kind of sit especially now while the weather is really nice. Sit out in the grass and enjoy TV once the like the TV would draw. Enjoy a movie once everything got pretty dark so we're doing what we can to make your life as engaging and sustainable. While you're here with us, they also give you a lot of information like guidance with life, here at uas, so I know one of the number one things that students look for once they get. Here is how to get their drivers license.

So they do have a presentation and some guidance that they give on that every year as well. So there is a great resource for all of our international students here at Uas.

Other campus resources are listed here on the slide an it's just scratching the surface of everything that you could take advantage of. Here. One of them that I really love talking about is the career development center. Alot of students make the mistake of waiting to use a career Development Center once they're about to graduate and you don't want to do that because as you're exploring your different options, just keep in mind that the things that you get involved with while you're pursuing your degree are going to be the things that you put on your resume later. So if you have a career in mind that you're thinking about.

Go talk to the career development center and even if you don't, they are able to ask you a lot of questions. They have a lot of resources to help you navigate things that you could think about. They can help you with advice and like what kind of clubs would be great to get involved in, what kind of initiatives are internships are available to really flesh out your portfolio while you're a student, so definitely take advantage of them. Other great resources or like the office of disability services. If you have a little bit of struggle in different, like for example, one of the services they provide.

Is a completely quiet testing zone, so maybe have a hard time concentrating when you're under the pressure of a test. Definitely reach out to the office of disability services and they might be able to assist you in making sure that all the exams that you take it uas are in that room. Everyone here wants to see you succeed and will do everything we can to work with you. So definitely let us know what you need and will help you find what that services here at you as to get that to you. So I'm going to be launching into another video right now.

It's talking about resident life here at Uas.

So that was a great video giving you a little bit of insight into what our campus looks like. Living on campus is a great experience, Anil it's definitely convenient. All of our residence halls are maximum 5 to 10 minute walk to your buildings where you're going to be taking your course is the picture I have right here on the slide is for our residence halls. For our freshmen and sophomores, so freshmen are first year students. Sophomores are second year students and in your first two years of your undergraduate degree it is required at Uas.

I'm unless you meet the exemptions for you to live on campus and living on campus is a great experience. Is not only going to help build you that community, but make sure that you're here where you need to be to have academic success right. Here is a picture of the floor plan and the floor plan has two beds to one bedroom and two bedrooms to 1 bathroom and that is the style that we've maintained this year. Actually. As we've opened this hybrid plan, we do have our students living on campus again this year and.

It has been enough for us to be able to maintain that under 1% of infection rate. So here it covid. So it's been a very safe and sustainable social distance model, specially since these are good sized bedrooms and students have still been able to get the space that they need to be able to study to live happily. But also the amount of community they need to have that engagement not feel isolated, especially your first 2 years as you leave, and especially for international student leaving and coming all the way here from across the world. You want to make sure you have a community.

To really engage with so this has been a healthy way that we've been able to launch out this year. Something you can look forward to. Living here on campus for all those students that are not going to be first or second year. Bachelors students. If you're coming as a transfer student so junior senior student or graduate student, there are options for living on campus available to you as well. Right here, you're going to see a floor plan.

For our apartments and townhouses. Actually the two girls playing right are playing right in front of our town houses and they were actually here this summer. Not able to return home everything else they're staying here this summer and they were able to keep themselves occupied and engaged by playing outside. They were able to still rent a lot of stuff from our rec center where they were able to get the ball so that's a picture from this summer and then down at the bottom is a picture of the outside of our apartments as well as what the kitchens look like so there's a lot of great storage space to be able to cook and live on campus.

And again, it takes you probably maximum 10 minutes to walk to class at any given time, so definitely very iaccessible. Very affordable if you want to know more information, just reach out.

So now to talk about our admissions requirements. Uas does have an application fee for both our grad in undergraduate right here on both sides. You'll see it on the next one as well, and uas also does require that all transcripts that don't meet the criteria for a waiver have an evaluation on them. And I'll talk a little bit more to that. If you slides after that, 'cause I have a slide dedicated to that information, something I really want to highlight for undergraduate admissions is. Traditionally uas has required the ECT or S80.

And what these are our college entrance exam specific to US admissions and traditionally we have required it, but of course we're fully aware of all of the difficulties available this year and we've gone. Test, optional and what test? Optional means is that we will consider the test if you submit it, but it is not going to hurt your admission one way or the other not to have it. And we're actually in the process of relaunching our scholarships to be able to factor in the fact that a lot of students aren't going to be able to submit test scores this year. So it is test optional.

But because we've gone test optional were asking that you submit your personal statement in previous years that personal statement has been optional, but this year it's going to be vital information to flush out your academic portfolio. You can do that in the form of a traditional statement which is between 5 maybe to 800 words maximum, or we have four prompted questions that you can see located on your application. If you have any questions about that, definitely reach out to me for one on one meeting.

For graduate students pretty similar when it comes to how we received the transcripts with an evaluation as well as the app be again for both of them English proficiency. I'll talk to you in just a few more slides for this level of education. Previously for undergraduate admissions is the primary one processing your admissions decisions, but at the graduate level, admissions is going to receive your materials. Vet them for meeting minimum standards, and then at your application actually gets pushed to the graduate program. There's a committee of professors.

But altogether read through all of the applications and select students, so we're not the ones that are making your final admissions decisions, but we're processing it and help you. You get your materials to you, as there's only three programs at uas at the graduate level that require the jury or the Gmat. And that is management information systems. the Masters of Business Administration, as well as the Masters of public health in each one of these programs have set criteria for how they will waive these. So, for example, the Masters of Business Administration in the NBA.

They will waive it if you have at least a 2.5 GPA as well as a few other things. For MIS is a 3.0 and for Masters of public administration public health, it's going to be some post Bachelor credentials. So like a second Masters I'm certain types of tests the exact criteria for how these are going to be waived. That's controlled completely by the Department. So what happens is admissions if you believe that you meet the criteria for a waiver, we don't wave it for you, but we will push your application to the Department for them to review.

About the test. So that means you're still going to see it on your application checklist, but you're not going to have to turn it in to be able to have the Department see it to give you a decision. Hopefully that's clear, if not, just reach out to me. I'm happy to give you more clarification and as well as understanding the other program requirements 'cause each program is going to have different requirements. For example, computer science only requires that you submit your transcripts with the evaluation as well as your English score, and they're going to use that information that they can pull from your transcripts to issue decision.

Where is programmed like environmental science is going to want that information as well as letters of recommendation, personal statement, and they're actually going to want you to reach out to a professor to know who's going to be a research assistant. So there's a lot to keep in mind in the graduate admissions process, but I'm here to be able to help you navigate that. So always reach out.

Transcript submission if you happen to be attending any University here in the United States or an institution that has US accreditation through program, like through different groups like that regional accreditation that I mentioned, like for middle states or what is it? Western states Association those two? I know they're credit. A lot of institutions abroad, so if you happen to have that, let me know if you're an Internet like undergraduate student studying at International School that has like an IB curriculum or an American accreditation for high schools and let me know.

You might qualify for an evaluation waiver. I can talk you through that if you do qualify for that or you have domestic transcripts, they need to be sent from your institution to incoming transcripts at uas.edu or to the like that physical address. The Postal address listed below any other institution. If it's from outside of the United States, including Canada, the UK, anywhere from outside of the United States that doesn't meet those criteria are going to require any sees evaluation.

So what is Macy's, nay seizes the National Association of credential evaluation services and this group. They don't perform evaluations themselves, but they set a high ethical standard, so they're going to set best practices are going to keep these groups accountable to make sure that the valuations that they're doing our ethical there timely that they're using your private information. While Uas wants to make sure that we're protecting you. So we're only going to take evaluations from, like from companies that are.

Vetted and they are doing best practices, so there's a 19 current members of Macy's and there are all found on this link here. If you go to the US website, I've actually put together a PDF that has rough estimates of how much things would cost as well as the exact evaluation that you need to order, like for example, for West you would need a course. By course I can in order to be able to get exactly what uas needs and the way that this works is that you order your transcripts from your institution. They get sense to uas.

Do not see you as they get sent to Macy's whatever company you choose and then they then it gets sent to you. Yes, so you only ever have to order one transcript and that'll go to Macy's and then to uas. Uas is going to take the transcripts that we get from that Macy's member's official because we've gone through up trusted third party.

Looking at the English requirements, these are the exams that uas currently accepts, so all of these exams have been vetted by our academic committee. An we can accept them. These are the scores that are needed. I know for sure, especially with everything happening right now. I'm total is a viable option on line, but the best option on line if you haven't taken an English exam yet, is the itab. I felt indicator is not something that uas takes right now, but the Ielts itself. We do so if you happen to have an.

Ielts Test Score and Please send that to us electronically for Toefl there is a code that I'm going to drop in the chat bar right now that 1787 to be able to have your test scores sent directly to uas from Toefl PT can also have it sent to us directly so these are the exams that uas will accept.

And here is the qualifying information for the English waiver. All of these standards have been set by our academic committee, and if it isn't, if you're trying to contest and petition your English to be waived, and it's not one of these standards, it's not going to pass through. It's because this has been accepted by your academic committee. For example, qualifying degree from a nation with English as a native language or an official language of instruction. We have a really well fleshed out list of nations that meet this criteria.

So of course that's going to be nations like the UK, Canada, Australia. But there's also nations listed there like the Ghana, Singapore, Nigeria. There's a long list if you follow that link, you'll be able to see all of the different nations to see if your nation qualifies. If your nation is not on that list, you'll have to submit something else. Other things like qualifying academic curriculum. So the kind of institutions that I mentioned earlier. If your institution isn't listed there, we won't be able to take it qualifying coursework.

Completed before transferring. That's also flushed out on that website, so please read it. And if you have qualifying work experience if you've worked physically in one of the countries that has English, is that native or qualifying language you could qualify for that. So definitely read through all of it there. Let me know if you have any questions, but petitioning with anything outside of what we've already detailed, you'll have to take a test. Please know that.

So pricing your education as we mentioned earlier you IS is a public institution. So we look at your tuition is in state or out of state. So you're going to be paying the same amount of money whether you're from Tokyo or you're from New York, so that you could qualify potentially if you happen to be listening to this presentation in your US citizen or permanent resident living abroad, or you're an early bird who wants to be awake in the morning like me to be able to do this. If you happen to be in the USA, and you think you meet that criteria.

Definitely go to that page or reach out to me for some clarification. The price is at uas are fixed for your undergraduate degree, but there's something called the truth intuition law that was passed in the state of Illinois, and that's actually unique to the state of Illinois, and that truth. Intuition law means that the prices that you pay during your first year at your undergrad or fix for the entire T of your degree. So we do freeze tuition. You don't have to worry about things going up if, like tuition changes in your current student, you don't have to worry about that for later.

So you can see the price per credit hour every course at US institution is given a certain number of credit hours, typically is between three or four, and that can help you gauge how much you're going to pay US. Doesn't have a deposit, so when you become a student and you accept your admission to uas, then you're not going to have a certain amount of money you pay until after you register for classes, and after those classes begin. So for example, for fall 2020, the term started on August 24th, but the census state was the day that your bill.

The bills for students became fixed in the first payment date that students are aware of is this month. September 28th is the date where tuition is due. There are different payment plans that are available going from six months to maybe, I think 3 months. So if you are interested in that, there's a $40 fee to get involved, but then that could break up your tuition and there's different options to be able to kind of look at how you can pay to make it affordable to you. I'm something to keep in mind for undergraduate students if you're looking at housing and tuition, all of the costs that would be associated with studying in the US.

It's about $35,000 and that is our tuition. I mean R I-20 amount for undergrad like for graduate students, it's going to be lower than that for the average program, maybe somewhere around $25,000 for one year and one year being 2 academic semesters. So maybe fall term and spring term combined, but that I-20 amount is the amount that you would demonstrate to the US government to make sure that you're able to live healthy, happy. And if something happens, you have money to get home as things are going on, you can have money to be able to get a car and be healthy and happy here.

That is, the amount of money that you need to demonstrate to the US government. So that's the I-20 amount.

So funding your education. Uas does have different opportunities for students. Of course, fast was not available to those that are not fasfa being like a financial aid application here in the United States. It's available to US citizens and it's available to you as permanent residents. So if you happen to be one of those listening to this, definitely that's opening up October 1st. Please do that. But if you don't fall into that category, don't worry. There's still opportunities for you for undergraduate students, so students pursuing a bachelors degree.

We have our uas merit scholarships. These merit scholarships are tide solely to grade scores and they're going to be assigned to automatically based off that site criteria so that knew scores are going to be setting release pretty soon. Up here, we're expecting that new grid pretty soon, but that they could range between $1500 to the potential of what would be a full scholarship. So definitely keep in touch with us if you happen to be coming for spring 2021. There's a stab, Lish grids that are on our website for things that you can look at for consideration.

Definitely reach out to me for that information transfer students. We have their international student award. This titir GPA that goes between 2000 to $4000 and all of our merit scholarships are renewable annually. We have music scholarships so if even if you're not going into music not as Akarere where this is actually for you, this is a minor that you would take. So let's just say you're going into political science, but you are great at violin. You have an option of maybe getting awarded the scholarship and that's $10,000 that would.

Attached to any academic scholarship, renewable for up to four years. You just performing get involved with in that community. We also have athletic scholarships assist students that are able to be involved in our sports. At times we have about 15 different teams here at uas at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. If you have been really competitive in the past and you want to continue that, just let us know like there's a perspective athlete form that I can connect you with and maybe just submit that information to the coaches you might qualify and that could attach also.

To your academic scholarships, we have institutional scholarships that will become available this fall. There's over 340 different options that have about 60, like 606 hundred, 30,000 different amounts of money available, so that's available to not just undergraduates but grad students. So keep I open for the like for that email talking about when the scholarships became available to apply for those typically would open December 1st, but things.

Going to vary a little bit, so keeping keep that in mind.

There's a lot of work opportunities, so for graduate students that are looking for work opportunities, these are great viable options. Alot of our students have been able to finance their education this way. Something to keep in mind and I want to say this right off the bat is these opportunities you require that you need an F1 Visa. Some of the graduate assistantship opportunities do not, so you would be able like if you were awarded that. It could potentially be something you take with you to a visa appointment, but the graduate public service internship or if you happen to be pursuing a PhD and you're listening to this.

That's something that you'll have to demonstrate to the US government outside of it, and if you particular these programs that will definitely be able to help you while you're here. These graduate public service internships are internships and assistantships at state agencies and nonprofits. There's a lot of different crate dynamic opportunities here. So, specially if you're looking at programs like Environmental Science, is the Department of Natural Resources has a lot of great research opportunities, but for all of our major, so for computer science, there's a 90 IT department in every single program.

Data Analytics there's so much data to crunch for all of these different state agencies, they can really use you. There's a char and different employee resources, so for accountancy definitely options for you as well, so keep that in mind. There's a lot of other on campus experiences. For example, we actually have a graduate assistant in the office of admissions this year from Scotland, so there's a lot of different opportunities in different offices here on our campus as well.

So here's some of the chest of really small snapshot of some of the job opportunities that are available to our students that they've gotten after they've graduated the student on this slide is Vincent Joseph. He graduated in about 2018 and he was a graduate public service intern. He was able to get hired on and that's actually the Illinois Auditor General's office. Right now he's actually in Texas, so he's been there this year. He after he graduated, he spent some time with the Illinois under general office, but he wanted to go on for his PhD.

So he's pursuing that path right now, but he's just one of the great success stories we've edited. Other store student India who actually was able to launch out. She went to Harvard. She got her another Masters in the UK and she actually went back as she studied on political science and reporting and she went back and she's actually covering the last elections in India. So I was able to talk with her while she was working on that. I'm going in and out of the embassies, so there's been a lot of great dynamic opportunities for students, especially if you're willing to travel and go around.

You're going to be able to see that the UI degree does open doors.

Next steps, and we definitely encourage you to start the applications. Applications have opened for both spring 2021 an fall 2021. If you are looking to get an F1 visa, just make sure that you're looking to apply for both spring or fall terms. If you're looking for summer, summer is good for online or if you don't need a visa. Traditionally, even before this year, summer terms were fully on line. We usually encourage students to look at starting your applications about 6 to 12 months waiting.

Sam took like right when you're ready it doesn't cost you anything to start the application. You don't have to pay the application fee right away, but if you can get that application started and get things going earlier, it gives you a left room to be able to get that visa appointment to be able to get your life in order to come and move to Uas said, we, that's why we have that really large band of time for the six to 12 months, especially since some of the nieces companies depending on who you choose to work with, might take a little bit more time than others. And especially right now where I know that a lot of you are having issues getting ahold of your institutions.

If you are having issues getting ahold of your institutions for transcripts, one of the companies for Macy's that I want to recommend is span Tron. They have a verification service, so contact them and look a little bit more into it and they might be able to assist you. Am it really would depend on your institution. If you have any other questions about the timeline or things to keep in mind when you're applying, just let me know an here is some information for contacting your counselor if you're on this presentation, I'm probably your counselor when you submitted your application, you'll see my picture in the top screen, so.

Definitely reach out to me, I try to keep my turn around times for messages pretty quick here is just a snapshot of what the checklist would be so once you submit your application. This is what a checklist on your application form would look like, at the top has the items that are needed if they are received or waived you'll be able to see them. There everything else marked as awaiting definitely read the information underneath it. I will give you information specific to how you need to send your transcripts and then wait out the bottom you'll be able to see where you upload materials and please, do not.

Upload unofficial documents that will be deleted. So unofficial documents like your transcripts. You're not going to see drop down for it 'cause we don't take him that way. As we mentioned earlier, we need the evaluation so if you get a little bit confused or if you see something that you don't quite understand, I'm here to help you navigate it and this one you can actually see a picture of Aaron better. He's one of my colleagues. And just like what would be my picture underneath that, you have all of our Contacts. So reach out anytime.

So if you're on this presentation and you happen to be admitted to ask, Congrats. Here's what's next for students that are looking to apply. This is what you can anticipate and think ahead for while the your while you have that time waiting so first except your offer to you as attached to that intent to enroll form is some legal information that we need from you that we don't collect from you until after you're admitted, so that you know for sure that none of that information was part of that admissions decision once you've had.

Sorry, once you've been admitted, you're going to get an email within two to three days to set up your US account. Please do that 'cause You'll be able to use that information to log into the I start system from the office of international student services. To be able to get your I-20 other things to keep in mind is that orientation is going to be mandatory for undergraduate students. You're going to be doing that through kickstart for grad students, especially transferring grad here. It says highly recommended it is mandatory if you're coming with an F1 visa, because that's when you're going to check in.

But if you're happen to be listening to this and you're not going to need that F1 visa, it's recommended 'cause it's going to give you a community in Contacts but not needed, and definitely consider living on campus.

You're going to need to obtain your immunizations so you can obtain your immunizations, some of them, depending on what they are in here at uas. So if you're not really sure which ones you need, contact our Department of Health Services. They'll be able to help you navigate. Which demonisation is you should get in your home country? Which immunizations should get here? But if you're getting immunizations in your home country just to make sure that we have one universal document for purposes of clarity for Health Services, they ask that you get it on a World Health Organization Card. This cards free. You'll just have to kind of track it down.

And they will help you be able to track that down as well.

So if you need that F1 student visa, definitely go to the ISS website. They have a page that gives you step by step for how to obtain the visa. I'm here to help you with the admissions process, but I actually don't work with my 20s so I'm not able to give you detailed information on how to obtain them more than just that general information. So the $35,000 that you have to demonstrate that you have to go to, I start. So definitely once you're admitted, be on the lookout from email from someone from the office of international student services.

So this is a slide. Some of the names that you'd see their assigned to you based off of the 1st letter of your family name. So Joel Richie, Rachel Tracy, Jolene Anrich, you're going to be getting an email from one of them. Make sure that you reach back out to them. They're going to be a huge source of support for you while you're a student at uas. So not just coming to ask but helping you maintain status, helping you to explore your CPT and opete options, and they run a lot of those cultural events that happened here on campus.

America Suzuki her name isn't on this this side because she doesn't have one visas but she is there to assist you with a lot of student events. So and if you get admitted, you'll be invited to join the WhatsApp Student Group. Erica is a part of that as well. If you have questions about I 20s or out, the visa process definitely reach out to ISS. And before we kind of launch into a few other things and we're going to go to the last video.

That video is a little old spot a year. Not that old, but like a year or two old and there's a few faces that I'm really missing to see, especially now. That is a lot of our campuses having it masks, but this message message is more true than ever. You definitely are welcome here. So listed here is the link to be able to find out more about our virtual visits through this link you can find information about reserving a virtual appointment with me. I'm actually going to drop in the chat right here, the link, but if you want to have a one on one virtual appointment with me.

I'm reserve a time we can do a one on one chat. That way I can dive into a lot of those one on one questions that I know I'm not going to be able to get too, especially since it took a little bit longer today talking through some other things 'cause I wanted. I read all of your questions beforehand, so while I was talking about slides today I wanted to try and interject more information to make sure I got to it while I was on that side.

So in addition to reserving an appointment with me via the link that I just dropped in the chat, here is also some information about how to get ahold of our office. So of course there's this address here, but that's my information directly. I also have WhatsApp account that I monitor, so definitely you can reach out to me that way. Another thing I'm going to drop into the chats like slide. Yeah, another thing I am dropping into the chat right now is the link to the slides today, so if you follow this link you'll be able to find this slide deck.

All of the hyperlinks that you have seen maybe have not gotten the chance to be able to kind of shut down. You can follow them by following this link. So definitely get ahold of those who should be able to download them right there from that, like from the link as well. So I'm going to launch into just a few more questions that I pull from the chat. I'm not from the chat, but from the registration, but if you have questions an things that I'm not going to, I'm not answering. Definitely drop them in the chat. I don't have any problems staying after.

Year we're about to close the official time in about 5 minutes. If you do want to stay with me, it'll just listen to some of the questions. I don't mind staying longer on line to get to those questions. I want to make sure your questions are answered, but if you have to leave now if this is the amount of time that you've allotted. Thank you so much for joining me today for getting through this time slot whatever time slot it is for you. I hope that you've had your questions answered really. Would love to talk with you more about uas. So definitely reserve an appointment with me.

Call me, I'd love to hear from you and talk you through your next steps. So thanks for joining and if you have to leave today, I hope you have a great rest of your day. So now let's launch into a few of these questions that I would be given in the chat.

A lot of questions that I got were asking about how spring 2021 is going to look right now, just full transparency. This is, I'm sure all of you have heard. This is unprecedented times. This isn't something that our schools ever had to navigate before, but I think the plan that we put into place for fall 2020. I've see it working. I've actually physically on campus right now. This is my office here on campus to be physically on campus students, faculty, everybody is taking.

The test once a week and the tests have a 24 hour turn around, so we actually get an email that lets us know, hey, you've seen like there's something there. Test roles were in this test. Results were inconclusive. Come back for another test or you're good to go, so a good majority like I've received all of my messages on time. Things that I've needed to know and then we have a less than 1% infection rate. We knew bringing back all these different people to campus that people were going to be bringing something with them, so we actually set up quarantine centers.

And those students in quarantine have been able to get in contact with their residence life and different. I'm student organizations to make sure that they have exactly what they need to be comfortable. Being a smaller area in a smaller town, we definitely been able to cater to the needs of those around us. So this plan that we've been rolled out for fall 2020 is our intention to move forward for fault. Like for spring 2021. Being that hybrid model. So students on our F1 visas we had, we had a few of them that were able to come that were new because a few countries in Europe had their embassies open up again and time to get a visa.

And thankfully, some of our students that had to defer their nations says I think I'm in India like the embassy in your Hydrabad reopened, so some of the students that deferred were able to try and get visa appointments using that deferral for spring 2021. So if it happens, if you happen to be one of those students that are here on this today, hope really hope to see your face this year and spring, but that's what we have the plan for right now. Our chancellor does have different videos going out, so if you want to join us is actually today at 1:00 o'clock. The Chancellor does meetings.

Every Thursday at 1:00 o'clock central Daylight Time. I am not aware of what time that would be for most of you abroad. So definitely go to the recordings page. You'll be able to see what those weekly meetings talk about, but it's a weekly town Hall meeting, so you're going to hear questions from faculty questions from students. It's very dynamic, pretty engaging, and I'm really happy with that clear and transparent communication that are universities been able to give. So while we don't have all the answers now, we're doing our best to be as communicated as possible and do the best to be as safe as we can right now.

So I hope that answers all of your questions. Some of the documents things that you have difficulties getting hold of. Just let me know. I'll give you a rundown of what your options will be an will keep in touch. Uas really wants to have you here and will do what we can to talk with you with it through anything that we can. There are limitations, but we will be honest and work with you through those.

And other opportunities think a lot of the questions that people asked things like funding. I spent a little bit more time on those sides 'cause I've read those questions before. Let me see if there are others here that I didn't address.

Ann

looking through all the questions that were submitted during registration an I was pretty intentional about making sure I answered a lot of them, like if another one is like when will you start the application for fall? The application for fall 2021 is open right now, so if you want to apply for fall 2021, definitely go do that. Another question are things like how to get an I-20. I did talk through that. If you have more questions just let me know. Things like the fellowships. Some students did ask about how.

To use like a fellowship or a GPS, I internship to demonstrate funding for 20. That's why I spoke to it on that side. That is going to be something like some of those assistantships. You're going to be able to interview online, but especially for the GPS I internships. Those are internships with state agencies. State agencies need to know that you have your visa before they are able to interview you, so there's a high return on investment if you get it. For example, there's, I don't think I mentioned this, but there's a stypin, so this type in is about either $900 a month for GTA, or like around $1200 a month for the GPS I internship.

As well as the tuition waiver, so the tuition waiver is going to probably for a lot of students as their full tuition bout nine credit hours this semester while you're enrolled. So it's very, very high return on your investment, but it is something that you can't take with you to that visa appointment so you can talk with him about it and that you've been maybe gone through and been vetted as you know, but your eligibility is and what your opportunities are. But it's not a paper that you'll be able to bring with you for that. I do see that two questions were dropped here in the chat.

So do employers prefer Illinois residents over international students while employing and the question is no. I mean answer is no. Sorry really. What employers prefer is your work experience, so they want to know what it is you bring to the table. Americans are really skills oriented and work experience oriented, so if you have a lot on your resume, if you have great things for experience wise to be able to share and something that I would really bring to the table and highlight during your interview. As an international student is your flexibility and adaptability.

You can't be a successful international student without having those skills. Not to mention it takes a very courageous and fearless it's person to be able to move abroad. I lived abroad for five and a half years. Ann. I remember the entire flight of going from it was a 14 hour flight going from my hometown to that nation, and it took a lot of nerve like my parents were crying when I went to go leave and it's exciting. It's an adventurous personality, but it's also that flexibility and adaptability more important than ever in the workplace.

You're going to have to like its new ways of learning how to learn and how to communicate. Those are great skills and I think that our employers, especially the GPS I internship employers here at the state agencies. They really value that because there's a lot of things that get questioned when you leave your home country to study somewhere else. And that is a amazing skill because not everybody gets that experience and the very act of you leaving where you're from to go somewhere else is going to make you very, very marketable. Whether you stay in the US, go to another country.

Or if you go back home, if that's something that you always want to highlight, is the ability to enter an engage in a new culture.

So definitely I wouldn't say that they prefer Illini residents over international residents. I think they really are going to come back to how you present yourself in an interview. What your resume says and how you communicate exactly what you can do. The next question is it compulsory to have the $35,000 in your account when applying? It doesn't have to be in your account, so when you are applying, maybe there's more than one account that you have presented the exact information about what you need to bring with you to the I-20.

I am going to pull it up right now and Drop it into the link from the office of international student services. They have exactly 1.

Kind of funding you can demonstrate for your initial for my 20 so I have the link right here. I'm going to drop it right here. Abraham when you scroll to the bottom of the page, you're going to see exactly what they'll accept and what they won't accept. It doesn't have to be on one account, but you do need to have cumulatively $35,000, whether it be in funding from an account, whether it's from scholarships, and not just uas scholarships. There are those institutional ones, but there are a lot of different opportunities to seek funding outside.

Love you as another link that I want to drop in. Here is a link from internationalstudent.com. This is a resource that's backed by NASA, so there are different options that you might want to be able to explore, and so I would say that link and read through it and see if any of that applies for you. I hope that you all found today really valuable. The information that I shared useful, so let me know if there's anything else that you need by emailing me or reserving a virtual appointment. I appreciate your time.

And I'm going to be concluding this event. Thank you so much for joining me today by.

Thanks.