Thinking of going abroad? The four main countries for furthering your study - The United States
Many students and employers highly prize an education from the United States, a fact that was emphasised in a South China Morning Post/TNS Opinion Leaders Survey earlier this month which confirmed the widely-held belief. Sixty per cent of opinion leaders surveyed believed North American graduates were superior to their Hong Kong counterparts. Creativity, leadership skills and analytical thinking were identified as the particular strengths.
It is no wonder that the US is a popular study destination. Across the country more than 1,700 universities and other institutions offer graduate programmes and each varies in terms of traditions, missions and the types of students they attract.
The more famous universities, such as Harvard or Yale, are highly selective, competitive and have achieved their renown chiefly for the high quality of their research and graduate programmes.
Although the university is important as it is largely responsible for setting the intellectual atmosphere, providing resources such as libraries and other facilities, studies will take place predominantly in a single department or programme, so the reputation of the programme should take priority over that of the university.
Students need to identify institutions that offer their subject area or specialisations they wish to pursue within that area of interest.
For example, if a student is interested in engineering and wants to specialise in biomedical or bioengineering, MIT may be one of the top engineering schools but Johns Hopkins University actually offers one of the best biomedical graduate programmes in the US. Students would then have to decide which would suit them better.
Leading US universities look for candidates who have strong academic backgrounds and can demonstrate their command of English. For many programmes, scores on one or more standardised admissions tests are required, such as the Test of English as a Foreign Language, Graduate Record Examination and Graduate Management Admission Test.
Applicants also have to show they have adequate financial resources - although students can apply for financial assistance such as research or teaching assistantships, mostly available for doctoral programmes.
Tuition fees vary widely depending on the subject. Katherine Fung-Surya, director of the Institute of International Education in Hong Kong, said: 'For science and engineering majors, students will most likely receive some sort of financial aid, such as a graduate fellowship, teaching assistant or research assistantship. Departments and institutions award different kinds of assistantships on the basis of academic merit, normally covering the costs of tuition and fees and sometimes monthly stipends.' Students can thus earn money legally by being a teaching assistant or research assistant while they are studying.
For programmes such as an MBA, education, medicine or law, students normally must pay in full, with course fees ranging from about US$25,000 to US$35,000 a year.
Dave Chan, who studied for a postgraduate degree at the Rhode Island School of Design, said: 'Postgraduate courses in the US tend to work you very hard. You are there for one thing only - work. It's very different to an undergraduate life, where you may be part of a sorority or fraternity which takes up a large part of your student life.
'In that respect you get your money's worth as an overseas fee-paying student. Life revolves around what you are there to do in terms of the course, as opposed to the distractions that university life is supposed to bring.'
Useful websites
exchanges.state.gov/education/educationusa A US government website that provides information for international students about studying in the US
