Steps

The Steps You Need to Follow When Applying for a US University

To enroll to a graduate school in the USA, three major steps need to be taken:

Write letters to as many schools as possible asking for Application Forms and for other related information;
Qualify in TOEFL and GRE;
Apply to several schools, that is, fill out the Application Forms and mail them with required application fee to the schools that you wish to enroll .

TOEFL & GRE exam scores. Most universities in the USA require a total TOEFL score of at least 550. In general, getting just 550 or slightly higher is enough for getting an admission from a university. However, the higher score you get in TOEFL, the higher is the chance for you to get accepted by a university. Unlike TOEFL, there is no a minimum limit for GRE. Each university first decides how many foreign students to accept each year. Then they select those students based on each student's undergraduate transcripts' scores or GPA, the university or college from which he/she earned his/her Bachelor degree, his/her TOEFL score and his/her GRE scores. Therefore, the higher you score in GRE, the more competitive you become in terms of getting accepted by a university. In most cases, getting very high scores in GRE also qualifies you to get some kinds of scholarships, such as Teaching Assistantship and Tuition Waiver. Grade Point Average, or GPA, corresponds to a standardized average of all the scores each student earned during his/her undergraduate or graduate studies. A conversion table suggested by the author is included in this website. The information provided by this website will help you to find schools that are proper for you. When you write your first letter to a school, your letter should be very brief without containing any personal information. Because this letter is just for getting Application Forms, and the person who reads it is only the graduate secretary of individual departments. The decision on your admission will be made by the university's Admissions Office only after you send your completed Application Forms. The list of schools provided in this website contains the title and the address of the person to whom you should send your first letter. For your convenience, I wrote a sample letter on the next page.