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.

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

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 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.

As part of our effort to try and make travel easier and more affordable during this economic downturn, and on top of the current offer of an extra $20 off the price of flights booked through our airfare booking engine. We are now also offer a FREE 4 Day Brit-Rail Flexipass that is valid for travel all throughout the UK - and in first class!

The Brit-Rail pass offers 4 days of first class travel throughout the whole of the UK over a 2 month period, and would be a great addition to anyone who is wanting to travel during Spring Break or this summer! The total cost of the pass is $489 and we are giving it away free!

To have a chance of winning, all you need to do is purchase one of the many rail pass options from our student rail center during the month of March and you will automatically be entered into the draw to win the pass. Travel can be anytime during spring break or the summer months.

Check out our rail center today:
http://www.internationalstudent.com/travel/rail-pass/

Also - you do not need to purchase a rail pass now and use it immediately. Most rail passes offer you the flexibility so that you can purchase it now and use it over the summer or when you like!

The latest issue of the InternationalStudent.com Newsletter has just been sent and is winging its way to you right now! This month we have lots of fantastic information for students all around the world including:

* InHolland - Bachelor Degree in English
* Student Airfare Discount
* Study Abroad Loans
* Student News
* From the Mailbag
* Fun Site of the Month
* Visas and Immigration
* iHipo Internships

If you are not currently a subscriber to our newsletter then you can see the latest issue online at:
http://www.internationalstudent.com/newsletter/issue121.html

or better yet - sign up today to get the email each month directly in your inbox!

If you are interested in reaching over 185,000 international students please contact us to explore our many advertising options we offer!

When people talk about Twittering and Twitter, many international students will probably be wondering what they are talking about. But Twitter is slowly gathering steam among students and companies alike, as its user base grows and its short 140 character excerpts take over the social networking world.

So what exactly is Twitter?
Twitter is a social networking site and micro-blogging service that allows you to post short text based messages (of no more than 140 characters). Accounts are free from the Twitter website, and once setup you are free to start posting updates to your profile. The idea of Twitter is that you have people either “follow you” so they can see your updates and what you are doing, or you “follow other people” so that you can see their updates (or “Tweets” as they are known)

The following video is quiet a good summary of how the service works and the purpose of Twitter:

Twitter Lingo
There are a few unique ways to use and interact with other people who are using Twitter. A few of these are:
- The “@” sign is used to direct a message to a particular user. For example if you see a question posted or want to tweet to someone you just put the @ sign in front of their name and post a message
- “RT” is used when you re-tweet something someone has already posted. For example if you see a post about a scholarship and want broadcast it to all your friends, just copy the message and put RT in front of it and credit it to the original poster with the @ sign and their username.
- The “#” tag is used to tag a particular tweet. For example if you post a tweet about football, you would add #football to your tweet so that other people can easily search for your tweet to read it.
- You will also notice that many tweets have these funny looking URL’s that are very small. As Twitter only allows 140 characters, you can use these URL shrinking services so that you can still post long URL’s. Tiny URL is one of the most popular ones, but there are many around.

Twitter for International Students
Of course, when you first sign up to Twitter you will have no followers and no-one following you. But over the course of time, as you spread your friend network and your followers grow you will notice that it can provide you with a lot of good information and help.

One of the most useful features of Twitter is for you to follow schools and companies that may be able to assist you and provide you with information about studying in the USA and abroad. To find these companies and schools you can use the Twitter search feature:

From a quick search, a few schools we found (and there are many more) include:
Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worecester MA @WPIAdmissions
Coventry University, Coventry UK @CoventryUni
Saint Leo University, Saint Leo FL @SaintLeoUniv

There are also a number of companies/ organizations that offer help and advice, they include:
InternationalStudent.com (of course you can follow us) @intstudent
Study in Australia @StudyInAust
GoAbroad @goabroad

Schools and companies like those listed above are now using Twitter to broadcast tweets with information, help and advice to their followers. So for example we use our twitter feed to update students on what is going on at our site and in the international education field in general from around the web - information that is not enough for a full blog post, but helpful and useful. For example, if we see news about international financial aid we will post a message on twitter so that all our followers can see it and learn more about it.

Twitter also provides you a great way to ask questions, not only about international education but with anything you need help with. For example, if you are traveling to San Francisco you could post a tweet asking if anyone knows a good hostel to stay at when you are there, other twitter users will see your message and post a response back. Its a great way to get help and advice on any subject - whether its education related or not!

As Twitter grows, so does its strength to work as a social networking tool for everyone. The larger the user base, and then more widely it is used - the more use you can get from it. For students, its definitely offering a unique way to find information and get answers to questions quickly and easily.

We look forward to you following us, and please ask us any questions. If you also have any good people to follow - please post comments below with their account name.

UPDATE - Thanks to @bloghighed and their great blog posting I was able to track down a list of higher education tweeters which has a growing list of schools you can follow

A feature that not many of your will be aware of on InternationalStudent.com is our video profiles for various schools around the world. The video profiles are of schools from the USA, UK and Europe and offer you the opportunity to learn more about campuses and what a university is really like through online videos.

A few of the schools that we currently have online video profiles for include:

• University of Richmond, USA
• Columbia College, USA
• Georgian Court University, USA
• Nottingham Trent University, UK
• UCL, UK
• University of Greenwich, UK
• InHolland University, Holland

You can also see all the college/ campus video profiles online at:

http://www.internationalstudent.com/school-search/video-profiles/

A short seasonal video to international students from all around the world. Thank you for making 2008 such as great year, and we look forward to helping more international students into 2009!