How To Navigate A College Website For Academics Related Information

If you have been following us in the series, the research done till now must have helped shrink your college options from thousands to a dozen. Now that you have a more manageable list of colleges, it is time to move from general research to more specific research.

Till now, all the websites we discussed provide information about colleges and universities. But there is no better research than looking at the source of information. Which means College websites.

College websites can be confusing to navigate because there is loads of information available on them. When you first visit a university website, you should first look for admission related information. Sometimes there is a separate tab called 'admissions', but sometimes it is called 'prospective students' or 'future students' or 'apply here'. So right from the beginning, you will have to be flexible about the information you are looking for.

Most university websites divide the admission information between undergraduate and graduate. If you are looking for admission to an undergraduate course, then you look for information in that section. Similarly, if you are a prospective master's or a doctoral student, you look at the relevant section.

From here onwards, you need information specifically for international students. If the website has a specific page for international applicants, that should be the first place to look for information.

Whatever information you find on this page, read it carefully and start making notes. One information you should pay special attention to is the application requirements. The list of documents required for submission, how to submit them, test score requirements, any other specific admission requirements for international student etc. all this needs to be noted.

It is important to pay attention to this information about requirements because you don't want your application to be rejected just because it was incomplete. If you don't carefully follow the instructions or miss a requirement or even a document, you might get rejected.

For example, financial documents. International students have to submit financial documents to the country's embassy or consulate to get a student visa. Some universities require financial documents before they look at your profile for evaluation. Other universities require them after your application has been accepted. Unfortunately, many applicants often miss this requirement and they get rejected.

Along with all that, you will find information on deadlines, the application evaluation process, and class profile. The last section talks about the students accepted to last year's class, their demographic information, test scores, average GPA etc.

All university websites will have a section titled 'academics', 'schools', 'majors' etc. This page will include information about the courses taught at that college. Here you will find information about the course of your choice. If you still haven't decided your specialization or course, explore multiple courses to make sure that you have all the information you need to make a comparison.

Look at the curriculum or syllabus for your chosen course. When you are looking at these classes, think of a few factors. How strict or flexible is the course structure? Do the offered classes sound interesting? Are the classes offered relevant or not? The question about flexibility is the most important as you can choose to enroll for classes relevant to your course and leave out the rest. You can do that only with a flexible curriculum.

Apart from academics, look for information on learning opportunities outside of the classroom. For example, internships. Usually, internship replaces one of the classes that you would take. For international students, internships are undertaken through a cooperative or a co-op education program. In a co-op, you will usually get paid, and while undertaking a co-op, you don't have to take any other classes. In a way, you work full time during an academic session.

Explore information on clubs, societies, and activities that are relevant to your studies. This will give you a good idea about the options available to you outside of the classroom.
The academics will be the biggest part of your university experience, no doubt. So it is important for you to research everything you can about this experience.

 Complete Series: How to Apply to Universities Abroad