Q&A – Bank Balance, College Tuition and Blog Layout

Mithun has 3 Questions and Suggestions on following topics

Hello HSB,

Your blog’s have been very informative. They helped in answering most of the questions that my parents asked me. Since I am new to these processes, I couldn’t answer them myself. But I answered most of their queries with the help of your blog. However, I do have some questions remaining still :

1. Bank Statement
2. College Tuition fees ( In-State and Out of State)
3. Changes to Blog Layout

When to Send Bank Statement

1. Even though you did answer the query “when should i submit my bank statement“, I still felt that you were not clear in specifying the actual time – I mean I still don’t know if its ok for me to NOT to send my bank statement at the time of submitting my application. Since I have financial constraints, I will not be able to arrange for funds immediately. As such I plan to submit only a letter to the respective universities stating that I will submit the bank statement only at the time of receiving an admit. (this is because I hope to raise a loan by submitting the admit letter to the bank). Your blog did mention this as well, but it was vague in commenting if this procedure (of submitting the bank statement AFTER getting the admit) was fine or not.

Submitting bank statement after getting admit is fine, ONLY if University has specifically stated that you have to send bank statement only after they send the admission acceptance letter. But, that’s not the case with most of the Universities. You will be required to send bank statement and financial  affidavit along with other application materials.

Even, if you happen to get an exception by writing to university beforehand, you CANNOT get student loan by using the college acceptance letter. Banks in India will approve bank loan only if you have I-20 from the University.

Universities will NOT send I-20 without bank statement from you. So, you have no other choice, but to send the financial documents before you can get bank loan ( mostly with application materials)

In-State vs Out of State Fees

2. Since i qualify as a international student, I am very much confused with the tuition fees thing. Though I did read you “in-state vs out-state tuition fees blog” it still didnt answer my doubts. Is that fees structure for the whole year, or for the whole 2 years that I will do the course?

Here is another article you may have to read – How International Students qualify for In-state Fees. If you don’t qualify for In-state fees, you will have to pay Out of state fees for entire duration of your Masters program. Typically you qualify for In-state Fees, if you

1. If you get Research Assistant position
2. If you get Teaching Assistant position
3. If you get Scholarship ( certain scholarship types only apply)

In the worst case scenario, you will have to pay out of state fees for duration of your program. Out of state fees is usually 3 times the In state tuition fees.

Blog Layout Suggestions

3. Also, though I found your blog very useful, I felt that all the information were scattered and some proper organisation of the blogs was needed. Perhaps you could re-arrange all the blogs under categories, with the categories arranged in the order in which an applicant will encounter them in the process to apply to the universities
ex: The blogs could be arranged in the following categories (step wise) :

• a. GRE
• b. TOEFL
• c. Explanation of the terms used in US universities (like course credits, different types of universities -public,private…etc)
• d. Steps in applying to the university

This is just an example. You could categorize them in many other ways.
Again, I must say that you are doing a wonderful job. You have covered most of the queries that any newbie will have. Keep up the good work.

Thanks for your suggestions and it’s well taken. Good that you didn’t see this blog 2 years back.

1. Blog is different from a website
2. You can see Blog Categories Displayed on all pages on Sidebar. All the articles posted here will be associated to right Blog Category (mostly).
3. We are planning to create a page that will outline all important steps about Applying to US Universities.
4. There are over 800 Articles and it’s hard to come up with a Navigation Structure that will cover 800 articles.
5. Blog Internal Search is Powered by Google. Most of the 800 articles are indexed by Google and you can search for the contents with keywords.
6. Also, Related Articles below each post usually refers to right articles.
7. If you have  suggestions/examples to solve the Navigation, we would like to hear from you.

Related posts:

1. Q&A: Does U.S. Citizens Pay InState College Tuition Fee?
2. Will Professor Pay My College Tuition Fees?
3. Bank Balance of $37,100 Without Student Loan?
4. I-20, Tuition Fees and Bank Balance Explained
5. When To Send Bank Statement to U.S. Universities
6. Reader’s Question: In State Tuition fee Qualification