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It’s May 1, the date when incoming international students submit the first round of paperwork to kick off the process to obtain a U.S. visa to study at Fletcher. Most will work closely with Carol Murphy, our International Student Advisor. But in the Admissions Office, we’re also fortunate that Christine came to Fletcher from a position where she was the visa expert. So, for all our international students, here’s Christine’s explanation of the steps of this complicated process.
You’ve been admitted and you have decided to enroll! You are excited about starting your studies in the United States. You are already starting looking at housing and talking with students on the Admitted Student Facebook page. But wait! There is one more big step that you, the international student, need to take: applying for a visa.
Some of you may be familiar with the process already and know terms like I-20, SEVIS, liquid and available funds, and I-94 card. But for those of you who are new to all of this, I am here to help!
THE VISA PROCESS
- Certification of Funds: Your first step is to complete the Certification of Funds form. It is extremely important that you follow the directions exactly and provide all the needed materials so it does not delay the visa process. As you already know, the form is due today, but please note that you cannot apply for a visa more than 120 days from the start of the school term.
- The I-20: Once your Certification of Funds has been approved, the International Student Advisor will issue the I-20. This document will contain your SEVIS number, available funds, and school information. You must have this with you when you attend your visa interview, when you enter the United States, and when you arrive at Fletcher.
- Pay the SEVIS fee: The SEVIS fee can be paid online via credit card for most countries. There are a few restrictions, though, so if you have questions, check first with the U.S. embassy or consulate nearest you. If you are traveling with dependents (spouse or children), you will NOT need to pay a SEVIS fee for them. The fee is only for the student.
- Complete the DS-160 with photograph: You will complete the form online, pay the DS-160 fee, upload a passport-sized (two inches by two inches) photograph and print the form to bring for your interview. If you are traveling with dependents, a form and fee will needed for EACH of them. I recommend you complete the DS-160 at least two days before your interview.
- Schedule an Interview: Once you have received your I-20, paid the SEVIS fee, completed the DS-160, and obtained photographs, you can schedule your interview with the U.S. Consulate or Embassy. Most interviews can be scheduled online, however please check with your specific consulate or embassy. Many of the consulates have a website to answer questions about how they approach the process, such as this one from the U.S. Consulate in Mumbai.
- Prepare for the Interview: The interview is one of the most important parts of the visa process. The consular officer will approve or deny your visa based on your answers and preparedness during the interview. Make sure that you are prepared to answer questions like: Why do you want to study in the United States? Why can you not study in your home country? What do you plan on doing after you have completed your studies? Do you have any relatives in the United States? Where do they live? It is important that you are honest with the officer, but you do not need to share more information than what is directly asked of you.
- Make sure you bring to the interview: your passport, I-20, DS-160, photographs, Certification of Funds and supporting documents, test scores, acceptance letter, and any other pertinent information.
- Obtaining Your Visa: Once your application has been approved, the visa officer will take your passport from you so that they can put in the visa stamp. The process varies by consulate or embassy, so make sure you ask how long it will take and how you will get your passport back. The Department of State offers information about visa wait times by country on its website.
- Travel to the United States: You are finally on board and about to touch down on U.S. soil! On the airplane, you will fill out an I-94 card. Don’t be fooled by its small size: this is THE most important document to have with you. If you lose this, it is extremely costly to replace, takes a lot of time, and can jeopardize your visa standing. Once off the plane, you will go through immigration and customs. An immigration officer will check your documents (make sure you pack everything listed above in the interview section in your carry-on), stamp your passport and I-94, and let you through. Welcome!
The visa process is complicated, so make sure that you ask questions to the International Student Advisor, Carol Murphy, or the consulate/embassy. Become familiar with the Student Visas website and your consulate/embassy website.
Safe travels and we look forward to meeting you!
Today is the last day of classes for the spring 2013 semester, and it’s also the last day of Fletcher classes for (Dear) Ariel. There are many second-year students I will wish to thank in person or in the blog for their contributions to the community, and Ariel will be the first.
Ariel started work as an Admissions Intern in September 2011 and she is the quiet super-charged engine of the student staff. There’s no task that she doesn’t complete efficiently, and that includes writing a Dear Ariel column. A typical week had me sauntering over to her on a Tuesday at noon and asking if, based on questions turning up by email, she had any ideas for a blog post. By 12:30, a perfect piece of writing was in my inbox.
Ariel’s final column today returns to the basics of advising prospective applicants. Next year I’ll face the challenge of finding another writer who may come close to Ariel’s efficiency and skill. For now: Thanks, Dear Ariel!
Dear Ariel: Is my GPA competitive for Fletcher?
Every student admitted by Fletcher’s Committee on Admissions must be able to succeed in Fletcher classes, and the applicant’s academic profile is the most important aspect of an application. But academic potential (which is indicated primarily by GPA, test scores, and recommendations) is still only one part of the application. We seek students who, by virtue of their background, achievement, and experience, can contribute to the education of their peers and to the scholarship and practice of international relations. Even a strong GPA, in the absence of international and professional experience, does not guarantee admission. Since Fletcher students come from a broad range of educational backgrounds that utilize different grading scales, calculating an average GPA for all admitted students is impossible. Among admitted students who attended colleges or universities using a 4.0 scale, the middle fifty percent of GPAs has fallen in the range of 3.4 to 3.8 in recent years.
Some readers (specifically, those who have decided to accept a spot on the waitlist) may be wondering about the current state of the enrollment process, and I’m here to report. Most of our admitted applicants were required to make their decisions on enrolling by April 20, this past Saturday. A few have until May 1, but the class is starting to take shape. In the coming week, we’ll be doing some clean-up work and counting enrolling students.
Does this represent new information for those on the waitlist? Not really, but I know that the correspondence vacuum can be hard to deal with. And there is something that you can do. First, if you plan to remain on the waitlist, please be sure that you have indicated that decision to us. Your deadline is technically May 1, but why wait? Second, if you or your pal have accepted a place on the waitlist but no longer want to wait, it would be great if you would communicate that decision to us, too.
Please contact us if you have questions. I’ll be back with more information whenever there is some, most likely not until May.
Going to be in town this summer, and thinking of getting a jump on your Fletcher studies? You may be interested in our summer school. Open to those who have completed their undergraduate education, as well as rising seniors, here are the details:
And if you’re in town today, stop by the Information Session that will be taking place in the Hall of Flags from noon to 1:30.
I’m going to kick off the week with a new Five-Year Update. Jason is a thoroughly memorable member of the Fletcher community, and particularly of the Admissions student staff. He both worked in the office and also served a year on the Admissions Committee. Here’s his update.
I was still in the Peace Corps when I first visited the Fletcher website. On it was a short account of one student’s Fletcher summer. I remember reading with a mix of envy and awe. The student had done seemingly everything — traveling to several Asian countries doing development work, thesis research, and some other adventures on the side. She seemed to embody everything I hoped to be: a restless mind in the thick of it, who was using grad study to actively and deliberately lay the groundwork for a future career. From that point on, Fletcher became my first choice in graduate schools. I wanted to be surrounded by students like that person. Heck, I wanted to be that person. Every Fletcher interaction that followed confirmed that Fletcher was where I wanted to be. My communication with the Admissions Office. My first visit to the Hall of Flags. I was so sure about Fletcher that it ended up being the only school I applied to. If graduate school isn’t Fletcher, I thought, then I don’t want graduate school.
Not long after, I was in the thick of my own Fletcher summer. I did project work in the bush of Uganda, followed by refugee thesis research in Central America. I finished with a leadership conference in France. I’d visited three continents in three months and got to focus on everything from activity design, to policy formation, to the dynamics of international negotiation. I’m not rich. All of this was mostly funded by Fletcher-related sources. That summer was a microcosm of the Fletcher experience itself. It’s as diverse as you want it to be. There are no limits. Fletcher gave me the freedom to mold my degree as I went along; my degree, rather than feeling like an exercise in path dependence, felt like it was in a constant, enthralling state of becoming. The rigor of study exposed my weaknesses, and the support of the School and community gave me the confidence to address them. I left Fletcher with a clear vision of the impact I wanted to make and the confidence that I had the skills to be successful.
Following Fletcher, I became a Presidential Management Fellow and worked at USAID on humanitarian food assistance programs. During my first years I worked on the Haiti earthquake response and Madagascar during a coup, and I covered Sudan during the referendum that created South Sudan, the world’s newest nation. Two years ago I converted to the USAID foreign service and am the deputy chief of the food assistance office in Ethiopia — the largest of its kind in the world. It’s a tough job but I love it. I think back often to what I learned at Fletcher and I know that the School’s equal emphasis on skill building and community were the perfect preparation for my work. My days are a jumble of activity management, policy advocacy, and negotiation — all the things that made that summer so interesting. I feel like the work I do is important and that my personal role in unfolding events matters. I took a few Peace Corps volunteers out to dinner the other night. I listened to them talk about their projects and admired their enthusiasm. Some were thinking about careers in this field. For me, Fletcher was the bridge between being a relative beginner and being a professional. I know I wasn’t the first to cross that bridge and I certainly won’t be the last.
This has been a very strange and sad week in the Boston area, but I was determined to close out the week on a positive note. Tomorrow is the deadline for making enrollment decisions for most of our admitted students, which means that we’ll soon welcome a new class to Fletcher (YAY!), but also say goodbye to many applicants who have made the decision to pursue another opportunity. (We wish you all the best in your future studies!)
But even as we try to answer the last minute questions of applicants making their final decision, our work is interrupted by the events of the week. Tufts University is closed today while law enforcement officials pursue suspects in Monday’s crime. Admissions staffers will try to keep up with your questions by email.
I want to revisit the terrific positive spirit that usually surrounds the Boston Marathon. Our two-year Admissions intern and friend, Hillary, took pictures from the post where she and other Boston-area Returned Peace Corps Volunteers distribute water at each year’s event. Here’s a photo that another RPCV took of Hillary.
And then there’s the spirit that accompanied the unexpected events of the day. This article features Brennan Mullaney, MALD student. Maybe Brennan was your interviewer if you visited last fall!
In such a strange week, I’m grateful for my long connection to Fletcher and all the fantastic students, such as Brennan and Hillary, who make every day interesting. As Dean Bosworth wrote to the community earlier this week:
Yesterday’s events remind us, in an all too poignant and tragic fashion, of the important work that lies ahead for all of you (and us) in advancing Fletcher’s mission of understanding and mutual respect, and making our interdependent world more safe and secure.
We look forward to resuming Fletcher’s mission on Monday.
Continuing the internship theme that Roxanne kicked off for us yesterday, today we’ll consider the question of internships during the academic year. We’re often asked about the opportunity to pursue an internship alongside classes, and it’s slightly tricky to answer. On the one hand, YES, you certainly may pursue an internship! Absolutely! And many students do. On the other hand, it’s not the culture at Fletcher to push students out the door to those internships (except during the summer, of course). Like so many choices students make (Should I pursue a dual degree? Exchange semester? Language study? Cross-registration?), the decision on an internship depends completely on the individual student’s academic and professional objectives. There’s plenty going on at Fletcher and elsewhere on the Tufts campus — you won’t be bored if you commit yourself to two years of doing everything there is to do here. On the other hand, if you tell us you have an internship, we’ll tell you that we’re glad to hear you’re taking advantage of that opportunity!
All of that said, I asked current students about their academic-year internships, and here’s what I found out:
Bob, first-year MALD: I work as an intern with the Tufts Office of Sustainability, which is located just a short walk from the Fletcher School in Tufts’ Miller Hall. I spend around 10-15 hours here per week, and some of my work can be completed at home.
Nathan, second-year MALD: I have done work for two outside organizations while at Fletcher. The first, in my first year, was at a small governance and peacebuilding organization in Cambridge, about a 30-minute walk from campus. I worked 16-20 hours during the fall, and scaled back to 8-10 during the spring. It was enriching to combine the academic environment with a more applied one, but I had to work during normal business hours, which was inconvenient for scheduling study groups and meant missing other opportunities at Fletcher. This type of work comes down to balancing the experience (and need for extra income!) with the opportunities and community available on campus. I decided not to continue this during my second year. My second internship, which I’m doing currently, is a long-distance, on-my-own-time consultancy. This, of course, means more flexibility but less direct engagement with the organization and the material. It still involves sacrifice, but it’s less a cause of stress in my life, and I do appreciate having at least one toe in the real world while at an academic institution.
Justin, second-year MIB: I worked at Converse in Latin America strategy 18-20 hours per week this year. I was able to do my capstone on Converse’s three-year strategy for Brazil.
Marie, second-year MALD: I worked at Conflict Dynamics International for about 9 hours a week last fall and this spring.
Katie, first-year MALD: I have had an internship for both the fall and spring semesters of this year. It is at WorldTeach, an international education nonprofit in Cambridge (it was formerly affiliated with Harvard). The internship is 10 hours per week, or 40 hours per month.
John, first-year MIB: I intern with the U.S. Commercial Service (a division of the Department of Commerce). I intern at the downtown Boston office, 10-15 hours a week. My responsibilities include market research and creating market entry strategies for Massachusetts companies to export and expand operations overseas.
Michael, first-year MIB: I have been working at State Street this semester. I am in the enterprise risk management division, in the probability of default group. My group worked on calculating the counter-party risk of broker-dealers for regulatory purposes. It is very quantitative. I work approximately 15 hours a week, all on-site in downtown Boston. The internship is paid on an hourly basis, and I found it through a posting from Fletcher OCS.
Leila, second-year MALD: Last spring I did an internship at Mercy Corps’ Cambridge office. I worked 10-12 hours a week with the Director of Governance and Partnerships. My main tasks were to help with logistics for their Partnerships summit in Bangkok, and to conduct research for an internal paper on private-sector partnerships. I found out about the internship through an OCS email.
Albert, second-year MALD: I’ve been interning on the Governance and Peacebuilding team at Conflict Dynamics International both this past summer and during the year. The internship is focused almost entirely on research in the areas of governance and peacebuilding, particularly in Sudan, South Sudan, and Somalia. I worked 16 hours a week last semester and am working 12 hours a week this semester, paid on an hourly basis.
Cherrica, first-year MALD, and Chris, first-year MALD both intern at CargoMetrics, downtown Boston, 10-15 hours each week, paid, and say: It’s a technology-enabled hedge fund founded by Fletcher alums. They prefer you to work in the office but on occasion they are flexible and allow you to work from home. Great office with several Fletcher grads and students.
I’m writing at about 10:30, the time when Fletcher starts to buzz each day. There were students in Mugar Café when I grabbed my coffee at 10, and I’ve already met with a visitor. In other words, Fletcher is back to normal. But it’s hard for me to have the blog ignore what happened yesterday and carry on as usual. I think I’ll hold off one more day before returning to more admissions-ish topics.
For now, I’ll acknowledge that yesterday was a sad day indeed. Patriots’ Day, with the annual running of the Boston Marathon, is generally a happy day. Whether we know someone running the race or not, we celebrate this long-lived event and its annual demonstration of athleticism, perseverance, and strength of will.
Today, while we keep those wounded by the attack in mind, for most of us it’s a sunny day like many others, at least at the surface. Our lovely Boston, and its surrounding cities such as Somerville and Medford, is the home of a million people and the temporary home of thousands and thousands of students. Yesterday we experienced a temporary discontinuity in our easy love of this beautiful city. Today, we’re back to express our affection for our interesting, historical, international, diverse, intellectual, technological, fun home. Those of you who live nearby know that Boston is already moving forward. Those of you who are farther away should know that this is a strong place that will not be defined by a single event, however sad.
Finally, a word about the University’s response. With a large number of runners in the Tufts Marathon Team, there was an intense effort to ensure the well-being of all students and members of the community. Two students, not from Fletcher, were injured but are reported to be recovering. The University arranged transportation from Boston to the Medford campus, and notified us of its availability through the excellent emergency notification system that has been in place for several years. Fletcher students, many having experienced emergencies in other locations, quickly established a mechanism to account for each other. An interfaith gathering took place on campus last night, and students and staff have learned of the availability of counseling. All in all, a quick and thorough response to the events, which makes us proud to be part of Tufts.
Arial view of the Medford/Somerville campus and Boston skyline, with Fletcher near the bottom right corner, taken by photographer Steve Eliopoulos for Tufts University.
