(00:00) we're not talking about just one University in today's video we are looking at the entire state of Texas so let's talk about why it's such a popular destination for international students whether you're trying to do an undergraduate degree or a graduate program and does it really have everything to offer let's get into this so let's start off with just Texas in a nutshell now Texas is the third most popular state in the US for international students and before we move on I want you guys to put it in the
(00:26) comments below what do you think is the first and second it's a very obvious choice I was there in both of these places in the last 2 months if you've been watching the videos which I'm sure all of you have anyway um it is also the fifth most culturally diverse so good to know has an average tution fee and living expenses which is comparatively less than the national average compared to other states in the US and it is home to some great weather now of course we we all know that there are Parts in the
(00:55) US that get really hot and really cold with like
temperatures going in the negatives so being in a place where you have like a pretty decent weather is definitely like something on the criteria that a lot of students want to have now we know that Texas is a very very big state so some popular destinations for international students include Houston San Antonio and Austin now out of these places we have universities with an acceptance rate of 9 to 90% which is a big range to be in and this is why I've actually picked
(01:24) Texas for today's video we have colleges Like Rice University which is considered you know at par with the leagues in the single digit acceptance rate uh Texas A&M UT Dallas UT Austin just to name a few good colleges and there are so many other colleges not just these that have an acceptance rate go going from like really low so being Elite popular and known as like the top 20 colleges in the US to some really high ranked colleges with acceptance rates close to 90% that can be like good safety options for you
(01:55) guys as well and just to kind of give you guys um a ballpark of what type of international diversity you get we have the number of international students being from India which is the highest at around 22% and then other students comprising of China Mexico Vietnam and Nepal so this just goes to show that you'll never really feel alone and you'll always be surrounded with some amount of culturally diverse uh population within the university itself as well so according to me the two most important factors when deciding which
(02:23) colleg is going to be your top pick you know needless to say are tution fee and living expenses and I feel like Texas universities kind of like nail all of these to the point so I've kind of like put this in a nutshell and the sources the reason why there's like a range that you guys see here is because the reference and the sources here is me I've been doing this for the last four years so I've ballparked these numbers to give you a rough idea because we're looking at the entire state in today's
(02:50) video and not just one University so if we look at the minimum tution fee in the state of Texas we have $220,000 or 16 lakh rupees approximately and a maximum being $60,000 now 20 and 60 are pretty good ranges and this is before any sort of scholarship or financial aid and when you compared compare that to the rest of the states in the US especially New York State and California we have average amounting to 40 or $90,000 per year in tuition fee now these are huge numbers to go off of other than that you also have to
(03:23) consider living expenses which make up a huge portion of your finances in Texas you can probably get like an apartment for as little as $500 whereas the same thing in California or New York City would be $700 plus you'll be sharing this with like so many people um if you were to like rent an apartment on your
own 12 thou $1,200 per month is a good figure to have in Texas you probably get a nice Studio or a one-bedroom apartment but the same thing in New York City or California would be $2500 a month in just rent enough with
(03:56) all of that heavy talk let's look at how you actually apply to these Texas universities for students that are applying for undergraduate degrees you guys will be applying through Common App this is like a huge relief all of majority of the Texas universities are on Common App and you'll be paying an application fee ranging somewhere between $50 to $80 which I feel is kind of on the lower side with all of the other colleges that we've seen uh the deadlines are rolling again this is good news as well which means that you can
(04:25) apply at any time of during the year and you'll be considered for the next or upcoming intake so here are some top universities in Texas for undergrad students now number one on my list would be Rice University now this has an acceptance rate of 99.5% and it is definitely considered to be IV League level it is one of the top Elite universities and it has a lot of cool facilities so very competitive nature out there other than that UT Austin and Texas A&M are good options as well which have a lot of research centers dedicated
(04:56) engineering and business programs and have you know acceptance rates between 28 and 64% now other than these there are many out there again with rolling deadlines that you guys can also apply to using common app now coming to my graduate applicants there are many students who opt to go to Texas for Master's or PHD programs the biggest reason being the living expenses being very very cheap so if you are going for example for a PhD program where you're getting a stipend and your PhD is funded whatever stipend you get you can
(05:27) comfortably spend the next four to 5 years years of your PhD uh paying your own rent and taking care of your food without taking out any huge amounts of loans now when it comes to applying to these universities remember that as a graduate student you will be applying through each University's application portal so there's no one platform that you'll use to apply to all the universities the application fee that you're looking at is around $80 to $100 per application which is pretty standard that's typically what the range is now
(05:56) deadlines run from late Jan to Feb each year so you have plenty of time to apply as well some of the best colleges in Texas in terms of return on investment because let's face it especially for grad degrees it's important that there are good job opportunities after you actually graduate from these universities these include the University of Houston which has a ton of grad programs with an acceptance rate of 65% UT Arlington is another good one with a reputable CS program acceptance rate 90% And we have Texas Tech
(06:26) University which is known for engineering business and Health Sciences with an acceptance rate of 67% so some these are just some of the universities again there are a lot more that you can explore depending on the major and the specialization that you want to get into now with all of the students that I have personally mentored over the years I know what an ideal student profile looks like so let's break this down for Texas universities so we have undergrad as well as grad profile now if you are an undergrad uh
(06:54) applicant you are looking at maybe like a SAT score of 1420 and remember that I'm not trying to say that that this is like the most elite University that you're applying to keeping the eliteness and the IV League level aside this is basically a typical student profile that can get into a Texas University um ACT score of 31 I feel is good enough if you are a grad student if you have a GRE of 305 that puts you in a pretty good spot now for my undergrad applicants having a 75 cumulative GPA in your school so
(07:26) between 9 to 12 will put you at a pretty good chance of getting EX aced into at least one Texas University and the same thing goes for my graduate applicants as well having a minimum of 75% put you in a good spot and remember that especially when you're applying to programs like PHD programs this is the minimum requirement so you want to make sure that you have at least 75% or else you may not even be eligible to apply now as an international student you will also have to write some sort of English proficiency test and the two most common
(07:55) that we're looking at is TOEFL and is so if you have a TOEFL of 95 you're pretty good and and a 6.5 is band uh puts you at a good requirement to satisfy this um other than this just remember that sat act and GRE have become optional for many colleges so moving forward the admission criteria and eligibility May kind of wave up and down so you never know what these Texas universities may ask for for some of them you may have to write some additional essay so be prepared to do that and additional things that you can do to stand out is
(08:27) of course paying attention to your extra curricular activities and making sure you have a wholesome profile now one of the best ways to do this whether you're applying for an undergraduate or a graduate program is through some sort of a research experience on top of that if you have that research published that is kind of like the cherry and top and it shows a lot of academic rigor and credibility now there are many programs out there that are worth thousands of dollars but the one that I want to kind of emphasize on is the research boot
(08:56) camp that is going to open up for enrollment in just a few days this is by in cognito blueprints last year we had over 150 students throughout the world this is group research which is virtual so basically anyone in the world El is eligible to apply for This research boot camp you guys will be paired into teams between three to six students and for a duration of two months over this summer you'll work on an individualized team research project all of the research projects towards the end of the boot camp will be your teams so you can maybe
(09:28) take it to comp petitions you can submit it for Journal Publications and basically do whatever you want with it these aren't refreshed or picked up from the internet they are current with Cutting Edge technology and Innovation so the enrollment for the research boot camp is going to open up soon definitely check it out because the early bird pricing is going to go by super quickly so with all of this talk about all of the great things that Texas has to offer the biggest question that we still haven't answered yet is is Texas even
(09:57) worth it especially for an intern international student let's look at the cons first and then we'll look at the pros the first con is that Texas is a very big state in general it's just size-wise it's huge so you may need a car to move around public transportation may not be enough especially given that it gets kind of hot so of course it doesn't snow or whatnot but uh moving around getting from one place to another you may need a car for a used car you're looking at somewhere around $20,000 so
(10:25) that may be an expense that you ultimately have to invest in at some point of time if you're planning to move there another thing is private colleges can get expensive now although I showed you that range that you can have for your colleges some colleges can be towards that upper range of $60,000 per year which is still pretty expensive when you're comparing other options as well you do have bigger class sizes which means that there'll be less oneon-one interaction or you'll get like less attention from your professors
(10:56) because there are so many students that Texas in General um excepts within the international population as well as domestics the class sizes tend to be in the hundreds now whether you are an undergrad or a graduate applicant need-based financial aid is very minimum in Texas universities I have no idea why it was just a common Trend that I noticed one of the reasons could be that in general the tution fee is slightly on the lower side so maybe they just removed need-based for international altogether but there's no clear reason
(11:28) as to why this is uh there may be Merit Scholarships possible for international students if you are applying for an undergrad um degree and the scholarship can range anywhere between ,500 to $10,000 us per year in some cases very rare cases it is possible to get up to 100% tution fee uh waver which means the scholarship so that is something that undergrad students can apply for now coming to The Graduate applicants the only funding opportunities that may be a available for masters or PhD students are in the form of research
(12:02) assistantships or teaching assistantships both that usually come into play after you've been admitted and after you come on campus so these are something you have to apply after getting the admission and you'll be working with a professor either to teach a class or part-time in some sort of a research and you get like a monthly statman for it that you can use for your living expenses so definitely not enough to cover your whole tution maybe enough to cover a part of tution plus liing expenses all right guys that's all that
(12:31) I had for this video I hope you guys like the different take that we did on universities covering one state at a time now I want you guys to put this in the comments below uh which state should we do next all right guys that's all that I had for this video I hope you like the different take that we did instead of just focusing on one University we looked at the entire State now I want you to put it in the comments below which state should we cover next we will pick the most commented State for the next video so you know don't
(12:58) forget to drop the comment and let's get this video to 500 likes like it's been a long time since I asked you guys to do this it keeps me motivated subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and I will see you guys in the next one [Music] [Music] bye woo
