Financial Aid

The international students studying in USA may need financial assistance as the education cost, cost of living are little higher. This section includes all the relevant information to get financial aid for the international engineering students studying in USA.

How to apply for Financial Aid?

Apply at the time of taking admission

You may need to send application form for the financial aid at the time you are sending your admission application form to the USA engineering college/university. However, there is no separate application form or document you need to send to get scholarship. You require mentioning your interest to get the type of scholarship in your admission application form.

Apply after you start your course

If you are late to meet the deadline to get financial aid from your university or you have been refused to get it, you can even apply for financial aid after your join the course at the USA college/university. In this case you may need to arrange your cost of education and living cost from your pocket at least for one semester of your study. During your first semester you need put on active efforts to get aid from the second semester onwards. Though there are lots of students who apply after starting the course, there are fewer chances for you to get financial aid after first semester. Hence it is advisable for the international students studying in USA to apply on time and get financial aid right before you leave for your education.

Main Sources of scholarship

• Financial aid given by the university you are applying
• Various government and private organizations connected with the university you are applying
• Federal government of US
• Various companies connected with the university you are applying

Types of Scholarship

Out of above sources of financial aid, the grants provided by the university are the most availed financial aid by the international students in USA. Following are the types of scholarship provided by the USA universities:

Full scholarship in the form of Aid or grants

Full scholarship covers your total cost of education and cost of living for the complete course duration. You can avail this by applying for the same right at the time of admission.

Partial/Full Tuition Fee Waiver

This can be as the complete or part tuition fee waivers that include certain part of your total tuition fees. This can be availed before or after your start your course.

Teaching Assistantship

This can be availed by providing assistantship to your professor in working with him in the lab, preparing their lectures and presentation material for which you are paid money by the university. You can apply for teaching assistantship after starting your course. It is mandatory in almost all university in USA to take TSE (Test of Spoken English) to get this assistantship.

Research Assistantship

Like teaching assistantship, research assistantship includes helping out professor in his research for which you are paid certain amount of money by the university. You can apply to get research assistantship after you start your course.

Essential factors you need to have to get financial aid:

Academic record: Most of the scholarships are merit based and hence your past academic record is the most essential factor not only to get admission but also to avail scholarship.

Standardized test scores: Your GRE and TOEFL scores are the second most essential factor to get scholarship. Besides GRE and TOEFL, you also need to take TSE test to apply for teaching assistantship.

Inclination and motivation: Your personal attributes like inclination and motivation level to earn degree from USA is also equally important factor to get assistantship/scholarship. Through your statement of purpose the university judges your personal inclination for the course you are applying to. The admission committee judges the relevance of the selected course and your academic performance on how successful you will be in achieving your career goals.