Visa Categories for International Students

Now more number of US colleges and universities have started accepting IELTS scores as a major admission requirement but still, a good IELTS doesn’t guarantee your visa. In case you are planning to do any master’s program in the USA, you need to apply for any one of the following student visas from the USA embassy or consulate in your country.

• F Student Visas are given to the students who want to study at an accredited USA college or university or at an English language institute. This is the most common kind of visa applied by international students.
• J Exchange Visas are mostly granted to the students who want to participate in a short-term exchange program, including high school and university studies.
• M Student Visas are granted to those students who enrol in the non-academic or vocational study or training programs in the US.

Before applying for a student visa to study in the USA, the international students must have received either an I-20 or a DS-2019 form from the college or university where they have been admitted, and obtain documented funding for your first year of study. Once the students have obtained I-20 or DS-2019, they can apply for your student visa.

Why do an Increasing Number of International Students Apply for the IELTS Test while Applying for an MS in the USA?

• The mode of the exam is offline. Unlike other tests, there is no need to complete IELTS online and paper-based evaluations are preferred by many candidates.
• The candidates will get a quiet testing environment that will help in improving their efficiency in the test.
• Face-to-face tests help many candidates to demonstrate their communication skills more productively and impressively.
• The IELTS test includes a combination of everyday and academic English which in turn will empower candidates’ language skills and systems which can be used in a variety of environments.

IELTS exam is mostly mandatory in the majority of the universities as it showcases the candidate’s ability to understand everyday lectures or handle the workplace scenario. Trying hard to score a 6 band score or above is, therefore, a need. So check the IELTS requirement while applying at the top US universities for MS programs.