 burgers, fries, and apple pies, machine guns, and really big buns. It's the only country in the world where you can use a flamethrower while riding a tiger, while dying of a perfectly curable medical condition because you don't have enough money to pay for health care. My people, the day has come. You asked for it. You got it. It's how to study in the United States of America. But before we begin, I would just like to say a big thank you to all of our new subscribers. Since we embarked on this glorious road to one billion subs, we have seen 1.14 new subs per day, which means in 2,379,397 years, we will have reached one billion subs. So you can literally speed up time and make that happen faster by hitting the subscribe button. So let's talk about the United States. In the United States, you're supposed to graduate in four years. But because we have this thing called freedom, you can kind of do whatever you want. And there's no rule that says you can't take longer to finish university. So that means a lot of times people might graduate in a little bit longer. This is why a lot of universities show you their six-year graduation rate instead of their four-year graduation rate. And it's another one of the reasons why college rankings are totally broken. I really need to fix that thumbnail. Another cool aspect of the university system in the United States is, again, freedom. Because of all the freedom that we have, you can essentially enroll in whatever courses you want. Of course, if you were admitted to a specific faculty or school within a university, they're going to expect you to take courses from that faculty. But what about the rest of your time? Your major is only 50% of your courses. That means you can do a whole bunch of other things with your time. You can study all kinds of different electives. Choose a foreign language, for example. And many universities require you to take some different courses in different areas. A lot of students will take these general electives and general education requirements in their first and second year of university, which means that the United States is by far the best country to study if you have no idea what you want to do with your life. You can experiment a little bit in those first couple of years and settle on a career from there. The U.S. is also easily the best country in the world when it comes to modern education. There are degrees in blockchain technology, digital art, and even eSports. Or you can study all three of those and just sell NFTs of your Twitch streams for Dogecoin. So when do you need to apply? University deadlines come in three flavors. There's the early admission, regular admission, and then rolling admission. Early admission typically comes due around November or December of the year before you're going to study. So that means that here in 2021, if you're planning on studying in the United States in 2022, you need to have your application ready by the end of this year. Regular admission typically takes the first three months of the year that you're going to study, so that would be January through March. And then after that, there might be opportunities for rolling admission. Rolling admission is just how universities fill in the blank spaces that are left after their early and regular admission deadlines. Top schools that have lots of demand generally don't even have rolling admission because they're full months in advance. Now don't get confused between early admission and early decision. These are two very different things. Early decision is when you commit to enrolling into one university if they accept you and provide the financial aid you need. It's sort of like a little promise that says, hey, if you accept me and give me everything I want, I promise to go with you. You can't give more than one school the option to be your early decision school. So choose wisely. So with that out of the way, what are you going to need to get in? Let's go to the pre-rex. Because of our infinite freedom, you really don't have a lot of pre-rex per se when it comes to universities. Universities can set whatever standards they want for entry. And generally, as long as you have a high school diploma from somewhere, you can get admitted to university. It doesn't have to have 12 years of education like European countries require. Now you'll hear a lot about the GPA or the grade point average. US high schools measure your grades from 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th. And those four years are what the US is going to consider for your GPA regardless of where you come from. Now converting your country's grades to the US GPA can be a little bit confusing because the GPA is a scale out of four, even though most US high schools use a scale out of 100. I would say that's strange, but then again, this is the same country that thinks 12 inches that equals a foot and 5,280 feet equals a mile is a logical way to measure things. Why are we, why are we like this? Why do we do this? The OECD website actually has a handy little conversion table that you can use. It's not an exact science though. A lot of universities are just going to want you to submit your transcripts and give them an estimate. And as long as your estimate isn't a ridiculous one, like saying that you got a 4.0 GPA when you failed half your courses, you should be fine. But grades and your high school, they really don't matter. The thing is, the United States universities don't really know what your school was like in another country. They don't know how rigorous your system was or how strict your country's curriculum is because in the United States there's really only one country that matters in the world. Guess which one it is? You guessed right, America! History began on July 4th, 1776. Since most Americans can't even find other countries on a map, can you name a country on this map? Everybody does Africa? Let alone tell you about their education systems, the only way you're going to get admitted is if you take a standardized test. That test? The SAT. If you need help preparing for the SAT then you definitely want to go to prepwithscore.com because we're preparing for another round of group classes for the upcoming SAT right now. Now some programs, especially STEM programs, will often ask you to take AP courses or have AP exams. AP stands for Advanced Placement and these are classes that are basically like entry-level university classes. American high schoolers can take these programs when they're in high school. But what about international students? Well, you might have a United States-based high school in your local area and they might sit the AP exams. So look around and see if there's any American high schools near you that could offer you a place to sit the exams. Of course, that means you're going to have to teach yourself about the AP courses but there's a lot of online course material for free. You can also buy textbooks and study on your own. If there's no way for you to take these AP exams, don't stress because universities understand that that's outside of your control and you can generally get an exemption if you can show that there's nowhere in your country for you to take those tests but at least you've tried to learn the content of the courses. So you've got your GPA, you've got your AP exams, you got your SAT scores. What comes next? Now you gotta go to the Common App. The Common App is the United States Central Portal for Admissions. Almost every university uses the Common App. One of the things you'll have to do is make the Common App personal statement. From there, each university may ask you for additional essays which means that you're going to have to check back in the Common App around August or September to see what the essay requirements are. Some universities won't ask you for anything. Others will ask you for lots of things. Be prepared. You're going to need help and if you need that help, go to preposcore.com. So when all of your essay requirements are done and all of your information is in the Common App and you've got your transcripts and your SAT scores and your AP exams, you're ready to apply. Almost ready, actually. You're still going to deal with the language barrier. American universities are going to ask you for an English exam if you're coming from a country where English is not the first language. We often say that the TOEFL is the exam of choice for the United States, but that's kind of starting to change. Even though the TOEFL is widely accepted across the United States, so is the IELTS. And generally we recommend that students take the IELTS over the TOEFL these days. You can also look at the Duolingo test if you want some tips for how to kill the Duolingo test and check out my video from a couple of weeks ago. So most universities are going to ask you for an IELTS score of at least six, probably closer to 6.5 or 7, and a TOEFL score in the high 80s or low 90s. Overall, the English requirements for entry to universities are not that bad. And if you come up a little bit short, a lot of times universities will simply give you the option to come a little bit early and study English for a while. What about the social side? Now, a lot of people will read and hear horror stories of discrimination and people being given crap for speaking other languages in public. But let me be the first to tell you that in the United States, we are used to dealing with people who do not speak English as their first language. I cannot tell you how many times I interacted with people where people were not able to speak English as fluently as I could. It was never a problem. The United States is a country of immigrants, regardless of what some people say. And it's totally normal for people to not speak perfect English. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. So all in all, what's the language barrier of studying in the United States? I would rate it just one KFC double down out of five. The double down. I really don't think there's a better example of American culture than the double down. I mean, it's a chicken sandwich made of chicken sandwich. Try finding that in Kyrgyzstan. Why do you do this? Why do you add lib things that are not in the script and then force me to do? Now I gotta go online and I gotta search for KFC in Kyrgyzstan and see if they have anything like the double down on their menu just to make sure. Turns out looks like they do not have the double down. So this statement that I made in the video is perfectly admissible. But still, why do you do this? Why do you make it harder on future meacham? Alright, let's get back to editing. Oh my. I wouldn't normally do this, but the United States is just such a massive country brimming with freedom that we have no choice but to break it up into two parts. So come back next week Thursday and you'll see the second half of how to study in the United States, complete with information about finances, visas, and more. We'll see you then.