The International Student Blog

Choosing a school as an international student is not easy, as you are never sure what schools are right for you or if the school offering you a place is any good! Luckily, we have a guest post from Karen Schweitzer that lists 20 great resources for you to use online to help you choose the right school. The list not only contains USA schools resources, but also European, Asian and African resources - we hope it helps:

A school shouldn’t be chosen based on where it ranks on any given list; there are many other factors that must be taken into consideration. However, college rankings can give you somewhere to start when you are trying to sort the good schools from the bad. Here are 20 college rankings to help you choose the right school.

World’s Best Colleges and Universities - U.S. News and World Report based this ranking of the world’s best colleges and universities on the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings. You can see the top universities in the world. You can also customize lists to see the best schools by location and subject.

Academic Ranking of World Universities - This college ranking (PDF) includes the best 500 universities in the world. The ranking is based on academic and research performance.

Top 200 Universities and Colleges in the World - This international college and university ranking lists the top 200 universities and colleges in the world based on web popularity.

Top 100 Universities in the World - QS.com ranked the top 100 universities in the world based on peer reviews, employer reviews, student to faculty ratio, faculty reputation, student diversity, and other essential criteria.

Global MBA Rankings - The Financial Times ranks global MBA programs each year. This list ranks the top 100 schools and offers interactive features to help you compare schools based on value, employment options, and salary expectations.

Best 368 Colleges - This college ranking from The Princeton Review lists the best 368 colleges and includes a detailed school profile for each.

America’s Best Colleges - U.S. News and World Report assessed more than 1,400 U.S. schools to create this ranking of America’s best colleges. The ranking includes lists for national universities, liberal arts colleges, business programs, engineering programs, master’s universities, and baccalaureate universities.

America’s Best Graduate Schools - U.S. News and World Report looked at more than 12,000 graduate programs to develop these lists of the best graduate schools. The rankings include lists for the best business schools, law schools, education schools, engineering schools, science schools, medical schools, and fine arts schools.

Top 100 North American Business Schools - This list from the University of Texas at Dallas ranks the top 100 North American business schools based on research contributions between 2004 and 2008. The list includes schools in the U.S. and Canada.

Top 100 Canadian Universities - This college ranking lists the top 100 universities in Canada based on web popularity.

Top European Universities - QS.com’s ranking of the top European universities includes more than 200 schools located all across Europe.

European Business School Rankings - The Financial Times Ranking of the best European business schools includes 65 schools that offer MBA programs, EMBA programs, and masters programs.

Good University Guide (UK) - This ranking of UK universities lists the best 114 schools based on student satisfaction, facilities, student to faculty ratio, graduate prospects, and other important factors. The ranking is interactive so that you can compare different schools side by side.

Top UK Universities - This list from QS.com ranks the top 50 schools in the United Kingdom. Rankings are based on peer reviews, employers reviews, diversity, faculty honors, and others criteria.

Top Irish Universities - This QS.com list ranks the top Irish universities. The ranking includes seven schools along with stats on how each school measures up against other universities around the world.

Top 200 Asian Universities - QS.com developed this list of the top 200 Asian universities. The rankings are based on a variety of factors, including teaching quality, research quality, internationalism, and graduate employability.

Best Asian and Middle Eastern Universities - U.S. News and World Report based this college ranking on the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings. The ranking includes 30 Asian and Middle Eastern schools.

Top African Universities - This college ranking lists the top 100 colleges and universities in Africa based on web popularity.

Top Australian Universities - StudyInAustralia.com created this ranking of the top Australian Universities. The ranking includes eight schools that carry out the bulk of Australia’s research and receive 60 percent of all research funding.

Online College Rankings - The Online Education Database created this list of the best online colleges. Rankings are based on acceptance rate, financial aid, graduation rate, retention rate, student to faculty ratio, and other important factors.

Guest post from Karen Schweitzer, the About.com Guide to Business School. Karen also writes for OnlineColleges.net, an online college resource.

If you follow the international student twitter feed, you will have already seen this amazing deal that we have come across from Air Berlin that allows you to travel around Europe (5 destinations to be precise) for the low price of Just €199!

From what we can tell there are not catches, you just need to be between 18 and 27 years old and travel must be in the summer months (July and August) - and you have the full choice of travel to 5 Air Berlin destinations for only €199! InternationalStudent.com is always on the lookout for great deals like this - and if you are in Europe or want to head to Europe this is probably one of the cheapest ways to travel this summer.

Hurry though, only 3,000 tickets will be sold!
http://www.airberlin.com/

The latest edition of the International Student News has just been released and will be making its way to your inbox today. This month we have:

* ESL School Search
* HTIR Internship
* Student News
* From the Mailbag
* Fun Site of the Month
* InHolland University
* Cheap Summer Travel

If you do not currently subscribe to the InternationalStudent.com Newsletter, you can do so for free by visiting:
http://www.internationalstudent.com/newsletter/

The Guardian Newspaper in the UK has published its 2010 league table of University listings in the UK. As one of the leading sources of university listings for UK Universities, its an excellent guide to know what schools are the top performers. This year, Oxford has topped the table again, holding onto its position as the number 1 university in the UK.

Following Oxford is its long term rival Cambridge, with St Andrews University in Scotland jumping from 5th to 3rd and the University of Warwick and London School of Economics rounding out the top 5.

This year has also seen the move of more modern Universities making a charge up the rankings, with some big jumps for schools that were founded in the 1960’s - this includes Bath in 9th position, Loughborough in 10th position and Sussex in 19th position (up 15 places).

The full list of universities are now available online at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/table/2009/may/12/university-league-table

You can also find out more information about studying in the UK at InternationalStudent.com

The latest edition of the International Student Newsletter has just been released and will be making its way to your email inbox if you are a subscriber. This month we have some great information about choosing the right grad school, and with NAFSA 2009 in LA just around the corner a great chance to meet all our team!

In this months issue:
* Graduate School Tips
* InHolland University
* Student News
* From the Mailbag
* Fun Site of the Month
* Leiden University
* Learn French
* NAFSA Conference

If you are not a subscriber you can view the newsletter online at:
http://www.internationalstudent.com/newsletter/issue123.html

and you can sign up for the next edition for free here:
http://www.internationalstudent.com/newsletter/

April 22nd 2009 is world earth day, and we are asking all international students from around the world to do your part to support Earth Day in anyway you can. Its the little things that matter and count, so by doing something small we can all make a difference.

To learn more about Earth Day you can visit http://www.earthday.net/ which has lots of great information, advice and tips for things you can do to support the cause! If you are also on Twitter, you can see all the Earth Day Tweets, which is a great way to see what people are saying.

Happy Earth Day!

We have just released the April edition of the International Student News and it should be making its way to your inbox if your a current subscriber. The newsletter this month includes:

* InHolland University
* Leiden University
* International Taxes
* Student News
* From the Mailbag
* Fun Site of the Month
* Prepaid Phones/ Sims
* Language Schools

Especially good this month is our fun site of the month - so be sure to check that out!

To sign up for the free monthly newsletter you can do this anytime through our newsletter page, aswell as view all our back issues:
http://www.internationalstudent.com/newsletter/

You can also see the latest issue online at:
http://www.internationalstudent.com/newsletter/issue122.html

This is probably one of the best videos I have seen in a long while which charted the adventures of Matt as he traveled…..no actually danced around the world. He did this a while ago, but we still think the video is fantastic and makes us all want to travel the world more! Well worth a watch:

You can also read more about Matt and his traveling adventures on his website “Where the Hell is Matt?”

We all know that Twitter is growing in popularity and fast becoming one of the hottest things in the social media world - and a place to get information, help and advice quickly! For international students, it represents an goldmine to gather information advice and help from not only schools who are twittering, but also from organizations.

One very big use of twitter that has been uncovered by our good friends at the Financial Aid Podcast is utilizing the powerful twitter search function to find scholarships. The following is their excellent posting about how to use twitter in this manner:

Start at Twitter Search. Look for the basic term first to see what’s available:

Our familiar friends, the words deadline and application, show even more insight:

Now, to take action, we should start to look for URLs:

And don’t forget to search for document types, too, like PDFs:

Kick it up a notch and subscribe to any or all of these Twitter searches in Google Reader (or any RSS reader you have)

So as you can see, just like using Google Search, you can also use the Twitter Search feature to find things you need. The main example here is to look for scholarships, but for internatonal students you could try and search for things like:

• “International Scholarships”
• “Study USA”
• “Study UK”
• “Study Abroad”
• and so on……..

The possibilities are endless to find current and up-to-date information - so get searching!

Once again - don’t forget to check out the Financial Aid Podcast and their scholarship site Scholarship Points. You can also follow them on twitter @winscholarships and @cspenn.

Of course, you can also follow up on twitter @intstudent

Its that time of year again, when international students across the whole of the USA need to start thinking about completing and submitting their tax returns to the US government. It is a requirement that all students in the USA on a student visa submit and complete a tax return for the last year - even if you were not working or did not receive any income during the last 12 months.

All international students are required to complete the form 8843, and depending on whether you received any income during the last 12 months or if you have any taxes withheld by your employer (if you were working), you may have to complete additional forms.

The InternationalStudent.com Tax Return center provides you with the guidance to find out what forms you need to complete, and then the online system will step you through the process to get those forms completed. Once done, you will be able to print off all your forms and send them in for processing - and with prices starting at just $9.99 per filing it will not break the bank to get your tax return done.

To learn more about this, please visit the International Student Tax Return Center today.