 together, we work together and we prosper together. I would like to welcome our international students joining us from around the globe for our Education USA interactive series and a special welcome to our virtual guests from Lima, Peru. I am Krishna Das from Education USA, a United States Department of State network of over 400 advising centers in 170 countries where millions of students find information about how to apply to accredited colleges and universities. Visit our website at educationusa.state.gov to find a center near you. We are here today to provide you with information to find out which school is the right fit for you. We will discuss the choices you may have while looking at the diversity and various types of institutions, programs, geographical climates and cultures when applying to U.S. schools and colleges. To help us answer your questions related to the diversity of choices, when it comes to U.S. higher education, we have George Mihafi from the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and Lindsay Addington from the National Association for College Admission Counseling. George and Lindsay, welcome. I would also like to welcome our special on-camera viewing party in Lima, Peru. Hello Lima, thank you for joining us as well as our online audience that's you thanks to all of you for joining us. To participate in this chat, please log on to the live chat area and ask any questions you may have for us or tweet us questions with the hashtag study in the USA. Within the chat space area, we also have EducationUSA staff and other colleagues who are here to help answer your questions and direct you to resources to help you. By the way, I, like you, came to the United States as an international student myself. And again, thank you so much for joining us. Let's start off our first question by asking our guests. How many types of colleges and universities are there? What for example is the difference between a community college versus a four-year institution, a private college versus a public university? Lindsay and George, I'll direct this question to either of you and then the other person can chime in. I think I'll start. I'd first like to differentiate and talk about the terms college and university in a U.S. context. In the U.S., these terms are used interchangeably, almost synonymously. College and university refers to post-secondary education. So something students are pursuing after high school or secondary school. Oftentimes, you'll hear students say, I'm going to college. That could be a college. It could be a university. But they're going to pursue education beyond their high school diploma or secondary diploma. One of the greatest strengths of U.S. higher education is its diversity. And we have over 4,700 accredited degree-granting institutions in the U.S. You mentioned some of the distinctions, two-year versus four-year community college versus university, public, private. And maybe, George, you could go into a little bit more detail about that. Thank you. Well, Lindsay said 4,700 colleges, universities, public, private, private or for-profit, like the University of Phoenix, or not-for-profit, like Harvard University. For most of you, whether it is a private college or a public college, probably doesn't make much difference because the programming at the level of on-the-ground programming is probably very similar. But the governance questions are different as a function of the two types of institutions. Public universities, many of you are familiar with public universities, they're owned by the national government or by provincial or state governments. In our country, we don't have many national universities, a couple, but not many, most are owned by our states. And then we have lots of private universities, and they're governed by essentially self-governed. But as I said, for you, that's probably not a critical distinction because as you take classes and you attend an institution, whether it's public or private, probably won't make an enormous amount of difference. But the challenge for each of you is to think about 4,700 universities, colleges, and say how do I start to figure out where I want to go and where I fit and where I will get the best kind of institutional experience. That's why we're here today. That's fantastic to know because there are so many different choices with all these 4,000 plus institutions. So let's go to our online questions and online viewer asks. From our viewers, we see a lot of interest in scholarship and funding opportunities. What about financial aid for international students? Does it depend on the university, a college, and the program of study? Sure. I'll start. The question mentioned, does it depend? And I think a lot of US higher education, the answers are it depends. So I think primarily what we advise students to do is to reach out to the college or university that they're interested in and ask about what type of financial aid opportunities are available to international students. One of the things that we have to be mindful of as international students or advising international students is that a US college or university's policy around financial aid for domestic students is often different than international students. The other thing, distinguishing factor, is the term financial aid. Generally, it refers to a type of aid that is only a benefit to US citizens. But institutions can choose to offer a type of aid, either scholarship or need-based aid to international students, but it really depends. And that can also sort of translate to the whole concept of assistantships and fellowships, correct? It does, yes. And I think, again, that's another thing, a distinguishing factor between US citizens and international students is the visa regulations around your ability to work. International students do have the opportunity to work. Generally, I believe it's up to 20 hours a week on campus or through internship opportunities, but that's, again, something that you'll work with your institution and the international student advisors at your institution to help find. And we might, I suspect the question will come up at some point, but we might want to, as long as we're talking about financial aid and financial support, we might want to talk for just a minute about college costs. In general, college costs in the United States operate at kind of three tears or levels. The least expensive college opportunity in the United States comes in our community colleges. Those are the two-year institutions, and they are in communities all over the United States. You can only get an associate's degree most of the time. But they are the least expensive of the three categories that I'm going to give you. The second category of institutions are the public institutions, and those are generally, with respect to tuition in particular, sort of in the middle. And then you have your private institutions, and those are normally sort of at the top end in terms of cost structure. But as Lindsay said, the thing that makes this frustrating is that you can find a very expensive institution that then offers a very generous support package even for international students. And so at some point, once you sort of figure out where you want to go and what kind of institution, what part of the United States, size of institution, some of the issues we're going to talk about today, then you have to go to the institution itself to find out what its particular policies are. We have public universities in the same state with different regulations as a function of how much they're able to provide from private endowment support, for example. So when we say, and we'll say often today, it depends. Unfortunately, it really does depend on individual institutions. And so what we're going to try to do is kind of narrow down and give you some frameworks for thinking about this. And then is when the homework really starts for you. Which is interesting, which leads us to our next question about probably all these different kinds of colleges. And online viewer asks, he's interested in learning more about pursuing a associate's degree. And what are the options to continue studying for a bachelor's degree? This probably goes back to your question about the different types of colleges and associate's degree. What offer of associate's degrees and the bachelor's program or a master's degree, et cetera. Would one of you like to take this question? Sure. I'll start. Associate degrees used to be, primarily and used to be offered by two-year institutions, what we call community colleges. But just to make it complicated, just so that we keep you on your toes here, many four-year institutions also offer associate degrees. But if you want the least expensive associate degree, you'd go to a community college for that. But the question also was, can I use that associate degree and then move that into a four-year degree? And the answer is absolutely, and yes. But when you start the associate degree, you need to be already knowing what arrangements that college has with universities for transferring that credit. And now just to really complicate the matters, let me add one other interesting piece, which is in the world, what we've talked about is 4,700 institutions, physical locations. But to really complicate things, many of those institutions have online programs that you can pursue subsequently after you come to the United States. You can then continue that work through online in other parts of the world. And so there are many variables to think about here. That's good to know. Would you like to add to that? Yeah, I just wanted to add that I think the community college model is one of the least understood models of U.S. higher education. And that close to 40 percent of students in the U.S. are educated by community colleges. And it's a great opportunity to begin your education, to earn your two-year associate's degree, and then continue on a path towards a four-year bachelor's degree. Again, it's cost-effective. The quality of U.S. community colleges are very high. And oftentimes, community colleges and other four-year college and universities have articulated agreements to facilitate your transition to continue your education to complete your bachelor's. That's good to know because then it can get complicated. But to simplify these sort of issues, you may want to find this EducationUSA center near you. And for that, you need to go to our website at www.educationusa.state.gov and find an advisor who can advise you on all these different issues. Let's go to our next question. An online viewer asks, what about differences between campuses at different colleges and universities, particularly job opportunities? I think this goes back to your question about job opportunities, Lindsay. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I'll first say that, again, U.S. colleges and universities have very well-established career centers that are there to support students. Again, you're there to get a degree, to help facilitate kind of what you're going to do after college or university. And so that's a major emphasis. Studying a particular major or minor to prepare you for a degree or prepare you for a career after graduation. And so the Career Services Center and as an international student, you'll need to work closely with your International Student Services Center to help think about opportunities for you to get complementary work experience and internship experience while you're studying. And then also, international students have the opportunity to pursue work after graduation. And for that, the international student could go and work with his or her international student advisor who normally could get them in touch with the Career Services Office. Definitely. They generally have close relationships. The International Student Services Centers on campus generally work with all of the other student support centers on campus to facilitate international students' journeys through undergraduate education and to make sure that international students' needs are being met. But Lindsay, you also said that international students can work, but up to 20 hours usually only on campus. Is that correct? Again, I don't want to speak to the kind of visa implications for an international student working per se, but generally speaking you have the opportunity as an international student to work 20 hours a week that can be on campus or through curricular practical training off campus. But there wouldn't be any, I wonder whether or not, I'm not sure about the answer to this, but there wouldn't be a prohibition against volunteering in an internship as long as you're not paid for it. That would open up many other opportunities. Potentially. Yeah. And the reason I mention that is because what we find in the United States is that many of our own students get jobs because they've been in some kind of internship or volunteer work environment during the time that they were in college. And so that's worth thinking about as you're considering coming to the United States. Yeah, internships opportunities are really, really fantastic in terms of giving you the opportunity to get experiences. When I was an international student I did have the opportunity to volunteer and intern at the local community services. And that gave me a tremendous sort of insight on the experiences that I took along with me about the community and the United States in general. Let's go to our next question. I see many of our viewers are interested in graduate and professional programs in fields, including engineering and law. Where can they find information to find colleges and universities with programs that will meet their needs? But right before this, let's go to some of our questions in Lima, Peru. Let's go to a viewing party and ask them some questions. How about that? Lima, do you have a question for us? How important are test scores to animation success? Lima, could you please repeat that question? How important are test scores to animation success? I believe the question was how important are sports? Test scores, sorry, the audio was a little bad. Test scores for applying for admission. Sure, I'll start. Maybe George, you can jump in. Generally when we talk about admission at US colleges and universities and there's different types of admission selectivity. But generally we talk about admissions as a holistic review process. So while test scores are considered as part of your application, they're not the only thing that colleges and universities in the US look to. And this varies from other national systems around the world where a performance grade on a particular test gets you into a certain tier of institution in that country, for example. Again, SAT and ACT tests in particular for international students, TOEFL or IELTS language proficiency exams matter, but that's not all that matters. Generally speaking, your application will consist of essays, recommendation letters. And I think primarily what we've found through my association and our research is that colleges and universities put the most emphasis in evaluating a candidate for a mission on the high school transcript and the rigor of your courses that you're taking, the rigor of your curriculum, and how you've performed over kind of your three or four year secondary education. OK. George, would you like to add? Nothing? OK. Let's go to our next question, Lima. Do you have a question for us? Yes. What are rolling admissions and why do universities choose to have this type of admissions? Yeah, I think it was an admission question. Rolling admissions. Rolling admissions. So what do you think? Frankly, one of the reasons for rolling admissions is that if you waited as an institution until you had all your candidates, and then you made decisions about all those candidates, and you selected exactly the number that could actually fit your freshman class, and then some of those students decide to go elsewhere, then you're left at the end without any students to fill that class. And so rolling admissions is a process by which you begin to admit students and then give them a certain deadline for when they have to respond and say, yes, I'm coming. And then the rolling process allows them to better manage the admission process overall. That's really what that's all about. And the rolling admissions, is it consistent throughout a community college, or is it just? Again, it varies by type of institution and varies by individual institution. Generally speaking, the rolling admission probably is used, I don't know, Lindsay would help me with this, probably used more often in selective institutions. When we say selective institutions, again, in terms of levels, there are institutions that generally will take anyone who fits within a certain minimum set of criteria. Community colleges are typically that. If you have a high school diploma and you want to go to college, you can go to a community college, almost without exception. And then there are what are called open admission institutions for your colleges and universities, where generally speaking, again, the same rules apply. If you have a high school diploma and you have generally all the sort of minimum standards, you're accepted automatically. And then there are the elite and selective institutions and various levels of selectivity. But the most selective institutions, they'll have 10,000 applicants and they'll take 1,000. And in that case, they start really worrying about things and they use all kinds, as Lindsay said, all kinds of measures of your background in order to make determinations about which students they will choose. I'd say of the more highly selective institutions, the elite institutions, they tend towards having a particular deadline by which all students will apply. Generally speaking, it's around early January. And we can talk about some of the other methods of applying, because there are things such as early admission. And in terms of applying, a group of students will apply by, say, January 15th. They will be noticed of their application decision, say, mid-March and April, and then are asked to reply to an institution with their decision by May 1st. So I'd say there's a lot of institutions that follow a more strict application process and deadline system. And that's the reason it's really, really important to do your research. So each institution sort of differs. And it's very diverse in terms of all of these sort of requirements. Lima, we will come back to you soon. But for now, let's go to some of your online questions from our online viewers. I see many of your viewers are interested in graduate and professional programs and fields, including engineering and law. Where can they find information to find colleges and universities with programs that will meet their needs? My specialty is at the undergraduate level. But similar to the undergraduate level, there are sites that help you find programs based on your interests. So if you are interested in law programs or engineering programs, for example, within a search site, for example, the Department of Education has a site called College Navigator that can help students based on their criteria identify institutions that meet their needs. There are also accrediting bodies, such as ABET, which is for engineering, that you want to make sure that a particular degree program or particular offering is accredited. And so that's another avenue that students can take to identify quality programs. The piece that I would talk about as a cautionary tale for all of you is to be cautious about rankings. You'll see a number of ways of ranking institutions in the United States. And when I talk to international students in particular parts of the world, the first question they ask, well, how are they ranked? And they're usually talking about US News and World Report, which is an American ranking system. There's also the Shanghai Jiang Tao. There's the Times of London ranking. There are a series of rankings around the world. Be very cautious, me speaking. This is not State Department, but this is me speaking. Be very cautious of rankings. Here's the reason why. Rankings measure things that don't matter to students. Rankings measure things like how many scholarly papers did a professor publish last year? Rankings measure things like how large is your endowment or things like that? Almost no ranking system in this country or around the world will tell you as a student what the student experience will be for you. And so you need to be very cautious about that. So that's good to know. Thanks, George, and thanks, Lindsay. So the key is, again, do your research well. And for that, go to our website at educationUSA.state.gov. Find a center near you and talk to an advisor. He or she should be able to be a great source of information for you. When we talk about students finding the right school, we often use the term fit. What does this mean when we say a school is a good fit or a bad fit for a student? I think this is a great transition from the ranking conversation that George just cautioned students about. A ranked university, a top 50 ranked university, may be a good university, but it may not be a good university for you. And so when we talk about fit, again, one of these concepts that isn't fully understood, I think, outside of the US concept context, we're talking about an institution that's going to help a student achieve their academic, personal, cultural, social goals for an undergraduate or graduate education. And so we like to talk about personality, that campuses, colleges, and universities have a personality, and you have a personality. And as a colleague likes to talk about it in terms of friends, you have really close friends, you have acquaintances, similar to university, you're trying to find a personality match between you, what you're looking to get out of your educational experience, and what a university has to offer. So while you kind of are searching through these 4,700 universities to narrow down to the university that you're going to attend, colleges and universities are also looking to see if you're going to be a good fit and contribute to their university. So it's this matching game. Which is great to know because some personalities may not be suitable for a four-year institution. They may want to go to a two-year institution or a bigger university. And also according to the community, according to the location, according to the geographical area, the climate. Some may be suited for the South, which is where it's warmer than the Midwest, where it's colder, or the North. So again, it depends on you. And for that, that's why it's very, very important to do your research as to which university you want to apply to, which school you want to apply to, where you would like to be within the United States. Robert Carlo Gill writes, I am interested in studying forensics and want to know if there is an English language standard across all colleges and universities. George or Lindsay, I don't know if you could take this question. Yeah, again, it's one of those. It depends. There is not one English language proficiency standard across all colleges and universities. Many colleges and universities, again, will require non-English speaking international students to take an English proficiency exam, TOEFL or IELTS. And those colleges and universities will have minimum, generally minimum scores, proficiency levels that they are looking for their students to meet. Now, sometimes a college or university who may have an English language program or English language institute on their campus may be able to accept students who have lower English proficiency because they can offer some English language coursework prior to starting the full academic degree-seeking coursework. So again, it depends. So it depends on the institution. OK, that's good to know. Thank you, Lindsay. Let's go to our next question. An online viewer asks, will curriculums be the same from school to school for the same subject? How many can curriculum vary? Well, we're still, we're going to spend a lot of time talking about it depends. The first thing is, is that there is almost no curriculum in the United States that is standard across all institutions, almost none. Instead, there are broad general outlines of the curriculum that are reasonably standardized in some areas, some fields. Lindsay mentioned ABET for engineering accreditation. If you take an engineering degree and it is ABET accredited, it is likely to be fairly standard across all ABET kinds of institutions, not all institutions, but all ABET institutions. On the other hand, if you find an English degree, you can find an English degree that will take you 40 different directions. And you'll find different curriculums for different English degrees at two institutions that are sitting side by side. And that's one of the fascinating things about the American education system. I mean, I could start in college X and have a particular subject and have a particular curriculum while in college Y, I could take the same subject and have something totally different. Absolutely. So it depends on the school, on the university, et cetera. Accreditation, program accreditation is distinguished from institutional accreditation. There are two kinds of accreditation in the United States. When we talk about accredited institutions, we're talking about institutions that are accredited. But within institutions, there are specific programs that are also accredited by different accrediting organizations, law, medicine, social work, engineering, a whole series of those disciplines, teacher education, there are a variety of those. But America is the Wild West in terms of the program and program differentiation. And for many countries where once you take a particular field of study, it's the same no matter where you are in the country, it's bewildering to find out how much variation there is in the United States. But it's a function of the way we grew up. We grew up trying to make sure that we did not have national control. That was George III. We didn't think that was a particularly good idea. And so what happened is all of our institutions grew up in different states, or they grew up as private institutions, and so we have enormously different historical trajectory. And that's good to know, George. Basically what you're saying is that the universities and colleges in the United States have a lot of autonomy. Let's go to our next question. Yuri, one of our online viewers says, is curious if there is an average age for graduate students in the United States? Does it depend on the program or school? Again, it depends. It depends on whether or not students started their undergraduate degrees directly after high school or secondary school. In which case they may be 21, 22, 23 years old when they begin their graduate study. But I think one of the things that, again, distinguishes graduate education and nowadays even undergraduate education is the range and ages in which people pursue education. There's great variety. And again, that's one of the fantastic things about the US education system. You can start off at in your 20s, go and work for a while, come back in your 60s. So even 70s. I mean, I myself, I was a very traditional student, got my first graduate degree in my 20s, I worked for X number of years, and I refused to divulge my age. And I came back to school for my second degree after X number of years. And I don't think that would have been possible in any other part of the world. But that's one of the fascinating things about the American education system. Thank you so much for all these great questions. Keep sending them in using the chat or on Twitter using the hashtag study in the USA. Let's go back to Lima now for a couple of more questions. Lima, do you have another question for us? Yes. What kind of extracurricular activities will help me stand out in my application and is more better? The question is, what kind of extracurricular activities will make a person or an applicant stand out when he or she applies to a college or university? I'll start by saying that colleges and universities, as they're reviewing applicants, are looking to see what students are passionate about. More is not always better. I think quality over quantity is something that colleges and universities look for. They want to see perhaps that you have dedicated a lot of time and commitment to a particular activity and perhaps will hold a leadership position in a club or organization or your first chair in your band or music group. So it depends. Again, it depends. But colleges and universities really want to see what students are passionate about. And so that can help kind of dictate your extracurricular passions and activities. Now, I would also say that what would be increasingly what institutions are paying attention to is not only the activities that you had within your high school, for example, but the community activities that linked you to the broader community. There are a variety of states that require service learning, where students go out and work in the community and provide service and learn, hence the term, service learning and volunteer activity. But again, as Lindsay said, connected to passions and so that you begin to, you don't have a list of activities just to have a list of activities. But you have a list of activities that suggest who you are and what you care about and where you want to go. And that's going to be much more compelling than just I did everything, but I sort of dabbled in everything and I didn't get deep into anything. And Lindsay, going back to the extracurricular activities, it could include sports or community service or working with a volunteer organization, correct? Even working part-time. Some students need to work to help support their families and colleges and universities recognize that that's an important contribution that you're making. And so, yes, not one particular thing stands out, per se, over another. Again, we could get into, also, and likely we will later, the discussion of student clubs and organizations and extracurricular activities and what's available at the college and university level. And basically, I think your institutions are looking for a very well-rounded individual, which includes your extracurricular activities and your grades and the programs of study, et cetera, correct? Lima, let's go back to another question. Do you have a question for us? Yeah, why do some US universities offer big financial aid to internationals and others to serial? Yeah, the question is, why do some institutions offer financial aid to international students and some do not, or some may, and different types of sort of financial aid? So the question is basically going back to what we discussed earlier about financial aid. Sure, sure. Well, some of it is, obviously, is a function of how much endowment or what the resources are of a particular institution. It's also, we have institutions that don't, frankly, pay a lot of attention to internationalization efforts and other institutions that are deeply committed to that. And there are limitations in the public sector, public universities, about how many international students they can take. So it depends, that's our favorite phrase now, but it depends on the character and the personality of that particular institution, whether they're deeply committed to that work. So a lot of that depends on the institution. Lindsay, would you like to add to that? Yeah, just again, complimenting what George had to say that some institutions, again, an increasing number of institutions are recognizing the benefits that international students bring to a college or university campus. And with that at some institutions, they have the ability to offer some aid or scholarship, merit and money to attract international students, to help contribute to that environment at the College of University. That's good to know. We have a lot of more questions coming in from our online viewers. Our next question is, what's the difference between a college in a major metropolitan city versus in the suburbs of a city or in a small college town? And how many of the campuses and school sizes differ between schools? This is such a great question. I love to hear questions like this, because students, there are so many choices. And it's not just the school, but the geographical location. And some people may be more apt or happier in a small college campus than a big university. And many of these universities are like many towns themselves, but 40, 50, 60,000 students. So would you like to take that question? Yeah. I mean, I'll just say, again, a college or university, an urban college or university, I think one of the major differences between an urban institution and one that may be in a suburban area or rural area is the self-containment of a campus, per se. So a George Washington University or an NYU has buildings spread out throughout the city. It's not a defined campus, per se. And that many times suburban or rural campuses will be self-contained within a campus community. It may be a more residential area. But again, we bring up a lot of good points. There are six different time zones in the US. And with that comes different climates. International students may be interested in how close an institution is to an international airport to facilitate travel to and from. There's a lot of things that we can discuss about kind of how you select a type of institution in what US region. And then, again, urban versus rural. Yeah, which, no, I think the part of what, if you are from an urban area, you may feel more comfortable in going to school in an urban area. And similarly, if you are from a rural area, you may find a large city university very confusing or very difficult to navigate in. The size somebody asked, or part of the question was about size, our institutions range from less than 1,000 students. The largest of our universities is more than 60,000 students. Public university, Arizona State, followed by University of Central Florida. So you've got all kinds of ranges there. You've got rural institutions where the rural institution is the only institution in this tiny community. And that has a bearing on what kind of study you want. If you want to have extracurricular activity as a rodeo, you better go to a rural institution where they have rodeos. So again, that depends on, depends. My own experience coming in as an international student, I grew up in a city with 15 million people. And I grew up where the temperatures were the coldest. It would get to 70 degrees. And I went to a particular place, which was a small little town, rural community, and where the population was 50,000. And it worked out great for me. So again, it depends. It depends on your personal choices. And I found out about this, I fine-tuned my choice by talking to an EducationUSA advisor at a center close to me. And for that, please go to educationUSA.state.gov. And I'll just add that this stresses the importance of getting to know the university. If you can visit in person, I know that's sometimes difficult for international students or students who live further away from campus, but that's one option. Many colleges and universities these days have virtual tours. And then get online and talk to the current students. That's another way to start to get to know the personalities. And they're a great resource, your peers. Let's go to our next question. An online viewer asks about cost of living in the United States for an international student. How much does this differ from place to place? Again, I'm going to say it depends, but then let's ask the experts. Well, the answer is it varies enormously. Your large cities, particularly on the east and west coast, are your most expensive places. And the Midwest, the middle part of the country, and rural are often the least expensive part. But again, we haven't yet talked about housing options, and we're going to get to that. But cost of living sometimes is mostly about, principally, about cost of housing. And you can live on campus or off campus. Sometimes on campus is less expensive. But then getting around, how much does it cost to get to campus and then other things like that. So generally speaking, most expensive on the east coast, west coast, large city, generally less expensive in the middle of the country and less expensive in rural than urban settings. OK, that's interesting. Because also, I think, apart from the location also, at a university, there is a difference in costs between certain programs, certain professional programs like business or medicine may be more expensive than a liberal arts program. Am I right, Lindsay? Yeah, tuition does vary, again, by institution as well as by sometimes within program. Generally, undergraduate degree programs are typically, regardless of major or discipline, are typically the same price. But what I was going to suggest is that each college and university is required, should they be admitting international students, to provide an estimated cost of living above and beyond tuition and fees. So you can reach out to the colleges and universities and ask for them to provide you with this information. OK, that's good to know. Let's go to our next question. How about housing options for students? Where do students typically live? Well, the two typical options are they live on campus in residence halls. And I'll come back to that in just a minute. They either live on campus or they live in the community. They live with other students. They live in apartments. They live with families. So those are the two basic differences that many campuses have housing on campus. And on campus, housing varies enormously from very traditional residence halls, small room, two people, four people, to what look like very fancy apartments with suites of students all together and with a central place to fix meals and socialize. So within our institutions, there are enormous variations in on-campus housing and then off-campus on an unlimited number of options. And again, it's something that when you get to the campus and start talking to the advisors on campus, they help you figure out that stuff. And that's the reason one needs to do his or her research before coming to the US and by going online or by talking to our advisors at educationuniversity.state.gov. We're getting closer to the end, but we would like to go back to our viewing audience in Lima, Peru for just a couple of more questions. Lima, do you have a question for us? Yes. What are the limitations of student biases? What can I do? What can't I do? Yeah, the question is, what are the limitations of student parties? What can they do? What can't they do? Student parties? Parties, parties, I'm not sure. Could you please repeat that question? Was that? What are the limitations of student visas? Oh, student visas. OK, I'm sorry, the audio is a little off. But yeah, do you have any thoughts on that? Well, I would just, because there's a lot of particulars around student visas and different categories of student visas, typically students, international students are attending on F1 or J1 visas. But that each college and university has at least one individual dedicated to working with international students to better understand some of those limitations and some of the opportunities. Again, we talked about work. That's a big one, that there's a certain number of hours up to, say, 20 that you can work while you're a current student. But again, there's opportunities to work full time after you graduate and receive your degree. You need to maintain good academic standing. Be registered for a full course load of classes. Certain things like that are what you should work with your international student advisor to better understand. Admissions officers may have a general understanding or could put you in touch with the international student advisor on your campus. So it's extremely important for international students to work with their international student advisor, whom should be looked upon as their friend. Definitely. Let's go to a few more online questions. Do schools have religious cultural groups for students to participate in? Absolutely. Every college or university in this country has student groups. Some of them are religious. Some of them are cultural. Some of them are areas of interest, like chess clubs or sports groups. The list is absolutely amazing, the number of organizations on campus. But I want to make one quick comment that's a little bit along that line, but a little bit off-center, which is that one of the things I worry about is whether students go to a campus in the United States and they only hang out with students from their own country rather than trying to fully integrate themselves into a new culture and to take advantage of that culture. So one of my criteria would be I want to go to a place that doesn't have too many of the students from my country there so that I will hang out with students from many different countries and a lot of students in the United States so that I absorb that culture rather than just be a little isolated cell. And so my urging to all of you is if you come to the United States, try to make sure that you get beyond your comfort level and beyond students that are like you. That's interesting, but again, the comfort level does make a difference. And again, it depends on individual choices. Let's go to the last question. Where can I find information on American colleges and universities? What resources, sites, can I use? I think, Krishna, you've brought up a few times that EducationUSA advisors are a great resource. And I mentioned earlier in the program, the Department of Education has a tool called College Navigator, which allows students to input criteria and prioritize things such as location, size, major to, it will pull from its database of the 4,700 colleges and universities to help you identify a good fit institution. And again, that is so important to do your research and find the right resources. Again, let me reiterate, please go to our website at educationUSA.state.gov. And that's a great source of information. You will be able to find a lot of things that you're looking for. Unfortunately, we have run out of time. I would like to thank our guests in the studio for this extremely productive chat. Thank you so much, George and Lindsay, for joining us. It's truly been a pleasure. And thanks to those who joined us from Lima. Lima, thank you so much, appreciate you joining us. And also a big thank you to all of you, our online viewers from around the globe who participated in this chat and submitted those great questions. This program would not be possible without your participation and fine input. So thank you again, thank you so much for joining us. Although this chat is over, you can continue to participate in our discussion on Twitter by using the hashtag study in the USA. And don't forget to visit our website at educationUSA.state.gov for more general information on studying in the United States of America. Tune into our next program in March to learn about sports in US colleges and universities. Thank you and goodbye.