 Hello, my people. Welcome to the Internet. Welcome to the SCORE channel. We are live again tonight on this wonderful Monday. This is the last live stream of 2021. I want to make that clear today in case you are coming back next week and you're looking for me and going, where is Meachem? The answer is I'm probably getting ready to go to the United States. And that's what I want to talk to you about today. I'm going to be going to the U.S. for another university tour and also just want to give you a little preview of the content that's coming up and what you're going to expect from the channel going forward. We got a couple of things in mind for early 2022. And of course, we're going to be keeping out everything every week, every Thursday, fresh content for you. So I want to show you guys a little bit about what I'm going to be doing over the next few weeks, because I got an exciting trip plan to the U.S. I'm going to be making another run for universities. I want to show you guys a little bit of what's coming up next so you can see for yourself a little sneak peek for all the friends here. That's a little end of the year gift to you. So, yeah, why don't we just jump into it? I'll tell you a little bit about what's going on. There's so we got some regular contents to working on, like I mentioned last week when I was working on the CV video that we're going to be doing some things related to CVs, so we're going to have some stuff like that coming out. But mostly we're going to be trying to jump into some more university episodes since I'm going to go back to the states for a few weeks for the holidays. And then I'll be basically running around visiting different universities during that time after the holidays are over. So that's why I'm not doing live streams next week or the week after, at least just because I'm going to be flying into the U.S. and getting some time with the family as a holidays. You guys got better things to do than to sit here and watch me on Monday. So once that's over, we're going to be going on a little tour. So I want to show you guys that tour. Let's take a look at what we got here. So the base of operations is going to be in Michigan, as usual. This time around, I was debating going out to California, but I think we're going to save that for later in 2022 because we're probably going to have a lot more students going here in this area as they get admitted to universities. We're also getting really excited for that. By the way, we're probably going to do some sort of like live stream for university admissions and, you know, announcing some of them. So that's going to be really cool. I also was looking in the Philadelphia area because I got a couple of nibbles, had a couple of meetings with some colleges over there. But in the end, we've settled on this area. As you can see here, I got a lot of pins already on the map because these have been very responsive and not going to lie. Chicago is one of my favorite places on earth and I cannot wait to go visit Chicago again. So for me, it's a perfect excuse to go to Chicago in the surrounding area since I got a good response in that area. So I want to tell you guys a little bit about some of the universities that you're going to see coming up next. So the way it goes down is like this. I'm not going to give you my exact dates because I don't want to get doxed and have you guys like stalking me. But here's the deal. I'm going to go into Chicago. I got a couple of visits in Chicago. Now, Chicago is a big city. It's the third largest city in the United States. It's a pretty big area. We got one in the outskirts called Elmhurst University that we're going to check out. That's going to be coming up as a university episode. I'm going to be staying close to there. And then I'm also going to go pay a visit to our friends at IIT. Now, if you guys know, I already did an episode of university on IIT, but it was virtual. And I'm thinking like, man, if I'm going to be in Chicago, I can't pass up the opportunity to go see these guys in person and get to know the campus a little bit. So I already reached out to them to range for a visit one afternoon there. So we're going to get an up close look at IIT to see what it really looks like and hopefully talk to some students there and get their impressions of the place. So I'm looking forward to doing that. Looking forward to actually meeting the people that I spoke with virtually. You know, I love doing the virtual stuff because it lets me reach out to more places. But I think it's really cool to actually go and like see these places for myself and, you know, really, really get to feel the campus vibes. You know, it's a very different vibe. You always see what they kind of put out there in promotional materials and they give you always the best image. And, you know, I try to make everyone look good too. But at the same time, I want to see that vibe for myself. And that's what I liked about, for example, the Pittsburgh trip where, you know, I just get to spend a day or two on campus and see what it's like and really see what people are saying about the place too. So we get a couple of these visits in the downtown Chicago area. But this is also going to be kind of base because I got a couple of visits in this area in Wisconsin, our first trips to Wisconsin coming up. We got one right on the border here, Beloit. Beloit College was super friendly. Had a meeting with them not too long ago and they responded very positively. So we're going to be visiting this one. And I wanted to talk about this a little bit because we're going to be covering several liberal arts universities or liberal arts colleges. And we haven't really talked much about what that means on the channel. So we're going to also have a video coming out in January talking about that, about what you can expect from these liberal arts universities, kind of what it means to be a liberal arts college and what kind of education you're going to get there. So I think that'll be really interesting. A lot of these colleges get overlooked because they're small. They tend to be very small campuses in very small towns. In fact, Hillsdale College, where where I went for the last trip, you know, I visited these guys last time. They're technically a liberal arts college and I haven't really talked much about what that means. So I'm planning on putting out a video to kind of give you guys preview of liberal arts colleges and what you can expect from them. And then we're going to be covering a few of those. Now, Elmhurst actually, funny enough, used to be Elmhurst College. Now they are a university, but they are also a liberal arts college. So we got two liberal arts schools right here that we're going to be checking out and hopefully give you a better perspective on what those colleges are like and whether they're worth your time or not. I think they are. I think liberal arts colleges have a lot of positives. And, you know, what I like about them a lot is that they really focus on undergraduates and their needs. So if you're, you know, looking for a good undergraduate education, I mean, liberal arts college is a great way to go. That's not all in the area, though. I've also booked a trip up to Milwaukee. Now, Milwaukee from Chicago, this is like, I mean, it looks far, but this is actually only like an hour and a half of a drive or something like that. So it's going to be really easy for me to head up here. And this is really interesting. There are a few universities here, but we got a response from the Milwaukee School of Engineering. And this right here is evidence that small schools can be great schools. And that's kind of a message that I want to preach on this trip. Like these guys are a very small university that is right in downtown Milwaukee. And there as their name tells you School of Engineering, that is their thing. They do have a couple of other programs besides that. But basically everything they do is related to engineering and they are some of the best in the world in that field. Like they're consistently ranked in the top 10 for their programs. But if you try to search that university and try to search them in rankings, you're not going to find them at the top of the list. And again, that's because they're a small school. Rankings are kind of broken. So you can't really listen to rankings and you can't sit there and be like, oh, they're no good because they don't show up on my rankings. Like now you got to check out the programs themselves. And these guys clearly you're doing it well and they're pretty affordable. So I've already booked a date to go visit them and also just check out the Milwaukee area. I'm looking forward to that. I think that'll be a fun little trip. I've never been in Wisconsin. I got a friend in Wisconsin, but unfortunately he's way out here at Eau Claire. And that's pretty far. I'm going to see if he can meet me for for some lunch in Milwaukee, but probably probably not. So that's kind of what we got going on in this area. I'm going to spend a few days over here, nail these universities in Chicago and Beloy and then in Milwaukee. And then from there, we're going to be heading down into Indianapolis and Indiana. Well, just Indiana, Indiana, the state and Indianapolis is the city. We're going to be hitting up a little bit over there. Got a big name that you might have heard of these guys. I don't know. You might have heard of a, you know, Purdue. Kind of kind of a big deal. We got Purdue. Oh, we're going to go visit them. And I'm looking forward to seeing these guys. I think that it will be great. I have been wanting to get to a bigger university like Purdue for a while because we have a lot of people applying to universities like Purdue. And if anybody here is applying to them, good for you. These guys, I think are, you know, this is a great university. It's a, it's an excellent public university with reasonable tuition for international students as well. And I think that it'll just be great to see this, you know, university town. Because basically Lafayette now is Purdue's town, right? Like this is a town that's built around this university. And they're a very interesting university that, you know, they've produced like a bunch of astronauts. Neil Armstrong went here. They got their own like, you know, university airport for aviation technology. Like, I think it's super cool. They got a lot of interesting facilities and I can't wait to check them out myself and really see what it's like here in Purdue. So that is going to be pretty cool, I think. And then after that, we're going to run down to downtown Indianapolis. And we got a visit at the University of Indianapolis. So this is a little private school that's in the downtown area, focusing on a lot of business degrees and things. I think it could also be a really interesting option for a lot of you guys. So we're going to check them out too. So that's sort of the Midwest tour that we built here. Now I'm still finalizing things. There may be some more in the works, in the Michigan area, because since they're so close to home, you know, where the little heart is, I feel like I can, you know, maybe squeeze in a couple more. Maybe I had some talks with Western Michigan University, which is out here in Kalamazoo. I'm waiting to hear back from them if we can maybe schedule a visit. I also targeted a couple in this area around here. So if I do go out to WMU for a day, maybe I'll swing by some of these in Grand Rapids. But, you know, there's a lot of really good schools in this area. The Midwest is chock full of really good universities. And we're also going to make a stop at Sienna Heights University, which is another small liberal arts university that you can find in this town of Adrian right next to Adrian colleges. Again, these small towns, like if you take a look at just this tiny little town in Michigan, you might look at this and think, ah, there's nothing here. But you've got three colleges right next door to each other. That's what these small towns are all about. Like these are very small communities that, you know, have a lot of really good small universities nearby. And so I'm looking forward to checking out this town as well, just to kind of see what's going on in Adrian. And, you know, check out a little bit more about these other schools too. I'm going to reach out to them and see if we can't get maybe another visit while I'm in town. So those are some of the highlights of what's coming up as far as these episodes go. We're going to have university episodes for all of these, with the exception of IIT, since I already did a university episode, we're just going to focus on like the campus and the students. Hopefully I'll get a couple more episodes going where I can like reach out to students, especially I think for Purdue, which is a nice big one where I can talk to a lot of people. But if I do get a good chance to speak with a lot of students in some of these other places, I will definitely do that because I think that that content is something that people seem to like. And I think there's a value in hearing from actual students and not just hearing like a university's perspective or just my perspective, like let's hear what a bunch of people have to say about the place. So I'm looking forward to doing that. It is going to be cold and cold can be a challenge when you're dealing with interviews. But I've done it before. I've actually done a big US trip in the winter before for a different project. And on that trip, I was like interviewing people in the dead of winter. I'm talking like December and January, walking around New York City, walking around Chicago, and you know, with a microphone in hand and just interviewing people on the street. And it's totally possible. Like even though, yeah, it's freezing cold and you would think like, oh, nobody's going to want to sit down and talk to me. Not true, not true. People will. We get used to the cold up here. We are a resilient bunch of people, those of us who handle the cold. And I'm also looking forward to doing this in winter because I want you to see what winter looks like in this region. Like if you have never lived in a cold, temperate place like, you know, Michigan or Milwaukee or Chicago. Yeah, it's going to be surprising. Massive tech. What's that? What's that? Ooh, that's an interesting comment, Harry. Let me look that up. I want to see what that is. What's going on with that place? I don't know anything about that. Is that like, there's a website? Okay, cool. Yeah, it's a nice website. Good thing I didn't like, you know, open that up right away. Well played, sir. Yeah. So, yeah, we're going to be checking out some different universities here and you know, getting into that cold weather environment and so I can show you guys exactly what it looks like. I can't wait. I think that's going to be a lot of fun. So that's part of the plans for the trip. Other things that we got in the works, we're going to be covering a few more countries that you guys have been requesting to us internally. We've gotten some requests for a few different places and so we're going to check out some more English speaking countries like New Zealand and Ireland. We're working on the research for those as we speak and I'm looking forward to putting those together as well. You may have noticed I also got my little Japanese theme going on here. This is an actual photo from my trip to Japan and I'm also going to work on the how to study in Japan video because I want to really get people out there. I think it would be a super cool place for you to study. Having been there myself, it's just an awesome place. I genuinely enjoyed the heck out of Japan and I would love to see some of you guys get to go there and study there. It's an amazing culture, an amazing place. So yeah, New Zealand and Ireland are like the English speaking countries that we want to check out because we haven't covered those yet and there is some interest in those places. So we're going to check those out and then also we're looking at a couple of other more Eastern side of Europe, like going maybe to Poland for example or Czechia, formerly known as the Czech Republic. So we got a few different countries that we're going to be covering in that early phase of next year. So pretty much that's the map, that's the outline of some of the content that's coming up. Like I said, we're going to be tackling some application advice, like how to make your CVs better, other things as far as the way you should start applying for college. We're going to be getting into some of these awesome countries that we haven't covered yet. We got a lot more countries to go. I definitely slowed down on those recently since I've had all these university episodes and all these other things that I've been working on. But I definitely want to get back to some of those countries and really the ones that you guys want to hear. We have a couple others that people have requested that we're still working on like Austria. So I'm going to be getting more international countries for you guys to check out and explore all your options. We are big fans of exploring every corner of the world here at SCORE. Like I'm not about, I'm only going to send you to Canada or only going to send you to the UK. Now, if you tell me you want to study in a country, we will figure out a way to make it happen. I don't care where it is. I don't care what we got to do. We'll do what you want because that's what it's all about. It's about the personalization. You know, we want to reach out to people and give them the experience they're looking for. So yeah, we want to keep exploring our options as far as countries go and really help you find some more. So that's what we got between countries and universities. Of course, if there is stuff that you guys want to see, please let us know. Cause like the number one thing I want to do is make you happy. And if you have ideas for content, if you have things that you think would be good for the channel, hit us up, tell us. Like, tell me what countries you're interested in. Tell me what universities you want to see because the more you got, the more I can help you. And the more you suggest things, the more we can research and figure out what people want. So if I get a lot of requests for a university, that makes it easier for me to go to that university, send them an email and say, hey look, here's all these people that want to like hear about you guys. I got this platform, let's do it. It definitely gets easier when we have you guys asking for stuff. So if there's something you're interested in, if there's something you want to know more about, hit us up, let us know because we want to make the content that you want. And we want to make the things that you want to see. So that's the plan. Besides those things, as far as the live streams, we are going to keep live streaming. I do intend to be doing a lot more of these throughout next year. You know, just taking a little break for the holidays, but we will be doing a bunch more live streams. We're hopefully going to be tackling some SAT content. I'll try not to get it flagged this time because we do have the SAT for March, international's coming up and we're going to be doing our prep course in January, February. So I think it would be great to go into some of that and cover some of the material from the SAT. Last time I did those streams, College Board took them down, which was very lame. So I'm still evaluating ways to present some of that content to you without getting us in trouble and without pissing off the billion dollar corporation that is College Board that pretends to be a nonprofit, but totally isn't. Yeah, I got some strong feelings about the SAT and I've talked about the SAT on this channel and the things that I don't like about it. And I've talked about how it's unfortunate that it works that way, but unfortunately that is the world we live in and I got no choice. So we're going to have some stuff out there for that too, though, because we want to make sure that people are well prepared and they got everything they need so they can ace that test. Besides that, that's going to take us through probably about February, I think, between the stuff I mentioned at the outset, the university episodes and the other countries that we're covering. I think we've got our content lined up through like March, even maybe even almost to April, which is sweet because that means I don't have to think about new ideas, but I do want your ideas. I do want your suggestions for content because it's flexible. I can always change this stuff up. I don't have to dump every single university episode on you at once, you know, I can spread them out after this visit. We'll probably be taking other trips to the US this year. So if you've got a region that you want us to check out, tell us like where are you interested in because we're looking at a couple of other possibilities for later this year as well. Like I'm saying 2022, obviously this year is almost over but the, so we do have that interest that I mentioned earlier in Philadelphia. We were looking at some universities there so that could work out. We definitely want to do a California trip. Late next year, we will have a bunch of people admitted to a bunch of universities in the States and we do want to do that follow up success story tour where we see a bunch of those students. So if you're going to study in, you know, the United States next year and you want us to pay you a visit, let us know, tell us, say, hey, you know, cover me, tell me, tell the world my story because we want to share the stories that you guys have. I think it's really inspirational to people to hear from actual students who've made it, who've managed to study abroad. I don't think that we hear enough about that. You know, we see a couple of highlight stories that make it into an Ivy League university but we don't hear about the every man. The average student who just manages to get into a good university and like everybody else. And I think that's awesome. And those are stories that I want to tell too. That's why I did that interview this last week. The video that came out was the interview with Aransa about her transfer experience. Like I reached out and she said yes. And I thought that was cool because I think a lot of people don't even realize that you can transfer that easily in some cases. And we're going to cover that information too. The how to transfer system, it's very complicated transferring. So we're working on how to present that content in a way that's actually helpful because like right now a lot of the answers to your questions would be, well, it depends. That's unfortunately how transferring works. It's like your situation will depend largely on each university and how they view your content. So it's really hard to give people straight advice about transferring. But there are some things that generally apply to all cases that I think we can share with you guys and we can give you some basic advice on how to start your transfer process. But it's tricky. It's not an easy thing to do. So you're going to want to make sure that you get started with that well in advance. That's one of the reasons why we're also putting out a video about when you should start planning your studies abroad, how much time you need to get that done. We've seen that a lot of people come to us last minute and a lot of people are like two months away from applying and they want to try to rush the whole process. It's possible but it's not ideal. It's not what you want to do. You definitely want to work with more time because the more time you have, the easier it's going to be for you. So yeah, we got a lot of stuff coming up for the college advice playlist. Again, check out the playlist if you haven't because I add pretty much every video to a playlist. We've got the college advice playlist that has a bunch of different topics. I'm sure some question you have is in there. The country series, even though I haven't updated it in a little while because we haven't covered another country since the South Korea episode, we are going to be adding a bunch more to that soon. The university playlist is only going to get longer and as we cover more universities in more countries, you're going to see that expand too. We even got some possible trips in Spain. We're evaluating the possibility of international trips for an international university tour. So there's a bunch of cool ideas floating around right now on the Score Channel. A lot of cool ideas in Score in general. Another thing I want to tell you all about real quick before I wrap it up today, let me make a short stream, but life skills. We got a new course that we're starting up in February about life skills, about teaching you all the things that your school didn't teach you, right? Everything that you need to know for life, okay? How to manage your money, how to survive on a student budget, right? You're not going to have a ton of money. What do you need to do? Cooking, cleaning, fixing basic stuff in your apartment or your dorm. These are basic things that you want to know. And honestly, a lot of international students have not been given opportunities to learn that stuff on their own. My parents, I think, they had given me a lot of those tools when I was young. They forced me to do a lot of those things when I was 14, 15. So by the time you're college age in the US, you have a pretty good idea how to handle those things. But as an international student, I think a lot of us grow up in environments in Peru, for example, where you don't have the same amount of autonomy. You live in a house maybe with your parents, your grandparents. You got a lot of people in the house. You might have somebody doing domestic work in your house, cleaning or whatever. So maybe you don't get those opportunities to do those things, but you're gonna have to over there. So we wanted to teach people some of that stuff. We're also gonna talk about issues that are specific to international students. Like as an international student, you are an immigrant and that has implications. You have to know certain international laws. You have to know how to keep your documents straight. You have to make sure your visas don't expire and things like that. There's challenges that international students have. Things like just the electricity systems from one country to the next can be completely different. And if you're not careful, you could blow your iPhone up. So these are all the little things that we wanna teach people so that they can feel prepared when they study abroad. So that's something that I'm really excited about. I'm actually gonna be teaching that course. I'm actually gonna be doing the class. So if you're interested in that class, let me know, hit us up, we'll make it happen. It's open to everybody. So I'm gonna be also doing a little video that's kind of like a, I mean, I won't lie. It's gonna be like half a commercial, but I wanna talk about those skills that I want to cover in that class and why I think it's important that people learn them and also why it's frustrating to me that high schools don't teach those things. I think that that's stuff that we can talk about on the channel. So there's gonna be a video for that too. I got so many things that I gotta do. So now it's just a question of sitting down and editing all that work. Cause I've already recorded a few of these things that I'm talking about, but I haven't gotten the full edits done yet. So we got a lot of cool things coming up. That's basically the plan right now is just to start working on this university trip. Again, this is kind of like what we're looking at here for those just joining us. We're gonna be hitting up this Milwaukee, Chicago area. If there's anything you think we should see, let us know. Gonna hit up this Indiana area with a couple big names like Purdue and University of Indianapolis. So I'm looking forward to this trip, looking forward to showing you guys some really cool universities and just helping you understand a little more of what your options are abroad. I wanna get everybody to the point where we can all study abroad. We can all find a great option for us. It's all about finding the perfect fit. The rankings don't matter. The important thing is that it's a good fit for you. That it gives you what you need or what you want for your future. And so that's different for everybody. And we gotta make sure that everybody's covered and that we cover a variety of different places. So that's why I got a big public school in Purdue. That's why I got tiny liberal arts colleges. That's why I got the tiny school of engineering that's specialized in one thing. So you're gonna see all kinds of universities on this trip. You're gonna see big ones, small ones, everything in between. And whether it's a tech school, an engineering school, a liberal arts college, or a massive public university that has over 200 majors, we're covering it all. And that's what I really like about this trip that it's gonna show us a lot of different perspectives that I don't think we always get. There's a lot of places that don't get the coverage or don't get the attention that they deserve just because they don't rank in the top 20. And if all you care about is the rankings, I mean, that's fine, I guess. You can let other people think for you. I prefer to think for myself. I prefer to give people free knowledge they can think for themselves. Sorry, I don't appreciate it when people only focus on prestige and rankings. I understand that that does have some importance, but it is not the most important thing. It is not the thing that is gonna transform your life. You could go and get a degree from a prestigious university, but if you are still lacking in other skills, other abilities, you're gonna suffer. So that's why I wanna highlight these other universities that might be better fits for you. I mean, just in talking to Beloit in my previous meeting with them before we agreed to do university, Beloit College, such a small college, but they have this amazing focus on this liberal arts curriculum, this idea that you're gonna learn a lot of different skills and develop as a person in your undergraduate years. Not just, okay, you're gonna learn a bunch of stuff and then go to work. It's like, you're gonna learn how to learn. You're gonna learn how to think. You're gonna learn how to connect different ideas. That stuff is invaluable, okay? What's up from New Haven? New Haven, Connecticut? Moises? Yeah, I think that's in Connecticut, right? New Haven? Yeah, hello New Haven. Thanks for saying what's up. That's what I see is like these big universities dominate the discussion because they rank highly and you've heard their names before. You've heard Purdue's name because at some point one of their sports teams won a title and you heard about it. Or because it's just a big name and they do a lot of marketing. And so you're gonna hear about those names and what happens is we start to think that, well, I've heard of this school so it must be really good. And I'm sure Purdue is really good. That's why I'm happy to go visit them. But also like, you haven't heard of Beloit College but maybe it's really good. Just because you haven't heard of it or its name doesn't ring a bell doesn't mean it's a bad place for you to go. And so that's something that we're trying to push here at Score is like, explore your other options. Don't just limit yourself to the big names or the most prestigious schools. Not only is it more difficult to get in with those, not only is it tougher for you to find a place in those schools but they might not even be the best school for you. And then imagine you get into your prestigious university that supposedly is the thing you really want. And then you're like there it wasn't everything it was cracked up to be, you know? My thoughts about Penn State. Penn State's a really good school. I mean, I think Pennsylvania's public schools are quite solid. I think that the obviously there's, you know the sports scandals and stuff with Penn State but I don't really take that into consideration when recommending a university. Like I don't feel like you need to worry about that stuff unless you're gonna join the team and maybe you should be concerned. But no, overall Penn State's a really good place. I reached out to them actually for my trip to Pittsburgh because they're not that far away. I got kind of bounced around to different apartments in the universities like organization and they didn't end up finally like settling a date with me. I talked to like three different departments at Penn State before nobody ended up responding to me. But no, a really good place. I mean, I think that, you know Penn State has a lot of really good graduate undergraduate programs and graduate programs. I think that, you know when you look at those large public systems like Penn State they tend to be quite good. The only downside with those big public systems is sometimes the administrative attention is a problem. Like if you need help for something or if you gotta make a phone call you might not get through, you know, to a lot of people. Like private universities tend to have better support for the individual in that sense. Whereas bigger public universities tend to have a lot of offices for that but they tend to be slower in getting back to you and responding to you because unfortunately public funding often means that they are underfunded and then that means that they have to cut staff in those departments and that can sometimes make it hard for you to get certain services or things that you need quickly. When I compare that for example to like these smaller private colleges that I've talked to you know, when I again go back to Beloit I talked to the international admissions officer he is a former student who comes from Ecuador. So we're gonna be interviewing him for the video but he was telling me that like one of the things that changed his perspective and made him decide to go to Beloit was that he got a personal email like from the admissions team. Like it was clearly handwritten just for him and it talked about his stuff in his CV and about his experiences that he talked about in his essays and they were like wow this is great we would love to have you. That's something that you don't get from a big public school. You don't get that same personal treatment because they tend to just be larger and have a smaller staff compared to a similarly sized private institution. So just know that going if you're looking at a university like Penn State or Michigan State or any of those other big state systems they often you know are a little weaker in that area. That's one of the weaknesses is that personal attention and you've got to understand too that it's like well okay it's a big public system. They have a lot of students their you know student to faculty ratio is not going to be as good as a smaller private institution. If you compare similar sized private institutions the private ones obviously have more money because they charge higher tuition rates so they can afford to have more people to provide services to you and you know to manage those programs more efficiently. But it definitely would be a great place for you to go if you're thinking about Penn State like if you got an acceptance letter from Penn State you should be pretty happy. That's a good university. That's not like something you want to cry about you know it's a pretty good deal. So yeah I would say go there. You know that's how I feel about Pittsburgh too like Pittsburgh being a slightly smaller public school and having the advantage of just focusing on that one area of Pittsburgh does a better job I think with those administrative things you know it was really really easy for me to see that they had a lot of programs for students and support for students whereas you know Penn State has multiple multiple offices right they have different you know campuses it's a bigger system it's harder to manage. On this note I had a meeting with Cal State like this is a good example Cal State I had scheduled a meeting with an international admissions person because I wanted to reach out to them about the possibility of going there and the guy I get on the video call is hilarious this guy sitting back looking like you know California like kind of hippie and but you could tell he's overworked right like you could tell he must have had a hundred meetings that day because he was just like I was like yo I want to do this video and he's like well that's not my thing I can't do that you got to speak to the director of admissions I said okay can you give me his name and he was like use the directory okay peace out bye he just hugged me he gave me a peace sign and then hung up so like that's what I mean right there you know like if I was reaching out to a nicer public school or even a private school they would have probably given me more information and help me out whereas this guy has to attend to a lot of people so he's like okay you don't actually have a relevant admissions question for me get out of my face I don't blame him you know he's working in the system he has but that's Cal State right you're gonna see a difference if you go you know to USC and send them an email you know you're gonna get a different kind of reply so there's just something to think about but if you're the kind of person that can handle yourself you'll be okay I don't think it matters that much but those are the little differences I see and obviously too as internationals we got to think about the fact that you know if you're an international student you're gonna be paying that out of state tuition price that's pretty expensive it can be difficult to afford public universities as an international oddly enough it can be cheap for you to go to a private university because you're more likely to get those scholarships that's another factor for people who are maybe contemplating whether they should go public or private I've been banging on the door of Eastern Michigan University like crazy and they don't respond to me and it's driving me nuts I'm gonna go storm their offices while I'm there because that university gives out of state or sorry international students the in-state tuition price so all internationals pay is the in-state rate with room and board that's less than $30,000 a year that is one of the most affordable options at a good university for international students and I really wanna do like an episode on them I'm dying to visit that place because to me that is like the embodiment of what we wanna do for people at scores like open up more doors open up more opportunities and here's a university that's giving a great price to international students and it's like I wanna go see you guys why won't you take me it's killing me you know but that right there is going back to what I'm saying about public administration like I'm sure that the reason they're not responding to me is probably just because you know they got a lot of stuff to do and a lot of students to manage and it's the middle of application season and like they're probably just too busy to get back to me you know, oh you're gonna apply next semester Moses okay, this is your option number one nice. What are you thinking about studying? Maybe I can give you some ideas you know I got some time right now cause yeah, if you say mainly don't know any other university I mean there's definitely a lot of choices if you wanna stay close to your area it's probably a little tougher over there in New Haven trying to think what else is out that way that you could look at there's a yeah, you know it's less populated over there but I often encourage people to focus on the location first think about where you wanna be and what kind of town you wanna be in or what kind of city, what kind of climate that stuff's important cause once you kinda have an idea of where what kind of environment then you can start picking specific locations I'll show you a little thing that I like to do that I find very helpful this is literally how I find universities for my visits right, if you just search universities in and then like add a city right here like let's say I search universities in Chicago you actually get kicked to a special Google search result you see this, this is like a great way for you to find more universities ooh, political science and you're thinking like New England area, yeah okay, that's cool PolySci, yeah, there's a lot of good programs out that way in the northeast for that stuff you might wanna look around the Boston area too cause there's a lot of good stuff in that area for that, like that Boston upstate New York area has a lot of good programs in that regard Boston's chock-fully universities, you know but this is what I do, man I go into this search and once you do this search like specifically universities in and then you drop a city you get all the universities that are in that area or almost all of them I think, I haven't really seen it miss any and you get fast facts like acceptance rate and you know, average cost keep in mind that that average cost after aid is gonna be the average cost for most domestic students who are paying in-state for public schools so like, you I see here University of Illinois, Chicago that number is gonna be a lot higher if you're an international student I actually did a video about that recently talking about in-state tuition versus out-of-state but yeah, you can see like a big difference between the University of Chicago which is one of the top ones in the country has a 7% acceptance versus like Loyola or DePaul, which are around the 70s yeah, if you wanna hit us up my man you can hit us up at info at prep yeah, let me, you can hit us up right there if you want and we can maybe show you around yeah, it's part of what we do with our full like counseling services is like, we'll go through and make a list with you and the fact that you're applying next year means you got a lot of time, which is great I would definitely, you know, tell you to think about it obviously I have an interest in telling you that but you know, it's a good time to start thinking about it but this is a great way for you to start looking around and seeing some different universities that maybe you would not have discovered otherwise you know, so I went through here and this is how I made my contact list for university visits like I just started putting down the names of all these universities figure out who their international admissions people are contact them and see what's up and you know, this is where you'll find maybe some options that you wouldn't otherwise we have students, for example, applying to this place, Columbia College, Chicago again, place you probably wouldn't hear about but they have a really good performing arts program and it's very open to students who maybe didn't have the best academic records so it's a place where we have recommended a lot of people go for that particular career we got students applying to acting over there right now and you know, then there's other little places like Roosevelt, you wouldn't normally hear about that place, it's a small university but it's right in downtown Chicago, amazing campus very, very cool building that has a bunch of historical things in it and like has been used in a bunch of films it's so much more to these places than meets the eye so yeah, that's what I recommend you do is like maybe think about some cities or areas that you wanna check out and just start like searching like this and make a list of what interests you you can also filter here by different degrees so if I know I wanna do engineering I can hit that and it will filter out places that don't have engineering programs so you might like I mentioned that Columbia College Chicago now is not on the list cause that's not something they do so that's a really convenient feature as well if you know for sure like okay I wanna do business I wanna do education I wanna do natural resources and conservation there you go, like so use Google to your advantage on this stuff I really feel like it's very helpful for just exploring your options in different cities but start with the cities start with what places you're interested in I cannot suggest that enough like I think you know again when people focus on prestige and focus on the names that they know then they tend to get kind of caught in a trap of focusing on the university before they focus on themselves and you wanna think about what you want and what kind of environment is right for you I chose to move to Peru part and I did it by just looking at factors that I wanted in a new home right what kind of place did I wanna be in and when I did that I saw that Peru met those criteria Peru had the low cost of living it had the touristy destinations it had a good climate that I wanted to be in it wasn't too far away it you know had Spanish which is something that was important to me at the time so those criteria as I made my criteria I found that Peru was the perfect fit and I'm here 12 years later so that's kind of the idea instead of focusing on oh I really wanna go to this place I wanna look for criteria that I can kind of itemize and then on those criteria find places that match and that's sort of the approach that we use here at SCORE we talk to people find out what they want what kind of environment they're looking for and then we you know give them some options and help them find that and if you don't like those options and we'll say okay fine we'll find you more ones like that's what we do so yeah it's a lot of fun definitely feel free to hit us up if you wanna send an email there I have that inbox like open all the time right here so if something comes in I will see it and you'll get a response back from us pretty quickly and yeah I'm looking forward to this trip I'm looking forward to doing another run of universities as always I appreciate you guys coming over and hanging out and appreciate the input that we get from you guys anything that you tell us like I write it all down I keep track of everything that people tell us whether it's a recommendation for a country if one person recommends it I will do it like I don't care what you know what other people are thinking about or what is like maybe on my mind I'm more interested in giving you guys what you want so if you tell me you want something you go and get it eventually that's the question is when takes me a while to get stuff done but we keep it going I'm very pleased that we've done a whole year of weekly uploads I propose that to myself as a goal for last year and it was like at first I was like man are you sure you're gonna be able to do this but yeah so far it's working out so that's cool yeah so I'm excited about that but I think that's gonna be about it for tonight unless you got any other questions or anything else you wanna know about we can go over that for a little bit more I got a few more minutes left trying to get on my Christmas shopping done too I'm looking forward to the holidays I like having gringo Christmas once in a while I've done Peruvian Christmas many times and I like Peruvian Christmas too but something about gringo Christmas something about the whole wake up have breakfast, get open presents I like the morning presents thing that we do you know I kinda like that style a little bit more myself so yeah I'm looking forward to that gonna have a nice time back home and then hitting the road love Chicago honestly I am such a fan of Chicago I would encourage everybody to go there at least for tourism if not to stay there I was before I came to Peru I was actually contemplating living in Chicago like I was seriously planning it and it was kind of a goal of mine to get a job there and move there because I really like the city and I think this will be my like fifth trip there approximately I've lost track because I've gone several times I've gone by myself I've gone with friends I've gone for projects I've gone with family I mean this might even be more than the fifth I don't know anymore but I love Chicago so when I got a bunch of response from universities in Chicago it was like woo awesome I'm gonna actually go to Chicago and have some fun too not a ton because I'm gonna be very busy that time but I'm looking forward to being there and hopefully showing you guys some cool stuff so I think that's gonna be it for today my people thank you very much for hanging out and watching thank you for your questions Moises, been a pleasure and if you guys need anything you can hit us up at preposcore.com you can always just leave me a comment on these videos I check them all and I respond to them all so if you hit me up I will get back to you or you can always hit us up at our email we got the info on the website too if you go to preposcore.com we got all the details as far as how to contact us we have a WhatsApp number that's always on you can hit us up there too so whatever you need we got you my people all right so I will see you Thursday I'm not gonna see you next week on Monday because I'm not gonna be here Monday next week I'm taking time off from streaming so that I can enjoy family and holidays so Thursday videos you'll see them every week and we'll be seeing you next time next time I stream I'll be in the States so I will see you in the United States of America my people thank you very much have a good night