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Updated June 8, 2022You’re reading an excerpt of Admitted by Soundarya Balasubramani. Written by an Ivy League graduate from India, this is the proven guide for students worldwide looking to pursue undergraduate or graduate study abroad in the U.S., Canada, or Europe. Purchase for instant access to the guide and other exclusive resources—including sample SOPs, sample resumes, scholarship lists, and a private community with other readers.
We hope you took a break to relax after all that hustle for more than six months. Loans and visas are two topics that are almost thought of as a given, that everyone will get them with time.
But valuable information on these topics is neither easily available nor intensely searched for.
My father is a veteran banker, so he took care of most of the procedures related to securing my loan. For my visa, I went over a few posts on Facebook groups to look at past visa interview questions, prepared for them, and got it on my first try. However, I ended up taking out a bigger loan than needed, and heard about visa categories such as O1 and EB1 much later in my journey than I would’ve liked.
Even barring those consequences, I know, in hindsight, that the following chapters contain information that I dearly wish I had known a few years ago. Let’s begin with helping you secure your loan!
We get it. Learning about loans doesn’t sound interesting. You would rather spend time taking an online course or setting up your LinkedIn profile (which you can do in the chapter LinkedIn, Networking, and E-learning).
actionBut before you skip this chapter (and we hope you don’t!), read and re-read the following three principles so you don’t commit a huge mistake later on:
Loans are not the only way to fund oneself. First, try to source as much money as possible from other sources like scholarships, assistantships, and fellowships—as discussed earlier—before resorting to a loan.