The Foreign Service Journal, December 2018

104 DECEMBER 2018 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT college’s reputation is, but you should try not to get tangled in the ranking weeds. The way rankings are calibrated can be highly subjective. You may find the college ranked #79 is a better fit for you than the college ranked #15, and you may get just as good an education at #79. And if cost is a factor, remember that colleges that are just a little less selective may give you more financial or merit aid. That also goes for colleges that are in the middle of the country; for some reason, students tend to gravitate to the coasts. To research universities outside of the United States: First see if your school offers Unifrog software. This service provides a way to search and save colleges in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and other European countries. If not, try these sites for searching in Europe, Canada, and Australia: www.ucas.com — a must if you will be applying to U.K. universities www.universitystudy.ca — Canada http://ec.europa.eu/education/ study-in-europe_en —links to study pro- grams in Europe http://www.aaicu.org — Association of American International Colleges and Uni- versities: international institutions offering a U.S. curriculum http://australianuniversities.com.au/ colleges/list.php —Australia Did you finish your homework for Days 2-3? You should nowhave a list of potential colleges to investigate further. Days 4–7: Research individual colleges. Now that you have a list of possible colleges based on your research thus far, here is the fun part: researching each col- Depending on how much time you want to spend, you can probably research about three to five colleges a day.