So, You Want To Get Your Masters?

So, like me, you've decided you would like to get your Masters degree from a university from outside the United States, good for you! If all you have right now is the desire to travel and a general idea of what you'd like to study, this post is for you.

While browsing my laptop in one of my favorite coffee shops from home, I came across mastersportal.com. This website was super important for me because it provided solid base information about schools, programs, tuition fees and the like. It was here that I was able to compile a list of prospective schools that had programs that peaked my interest in towns and cities that I couldn't say no to.

After applications were sent in and Skype interviews were scheduled, the next step was my looong battle with the Italian embassy. First, find the embassy that has jurisdiction over the state you went to high school, then do the same for your college (if they’re different, for me they were) and begin the monster that is “pre-enrollment.” You are to take your transcripts and diplomas from high school and college, get them notarized and signed by the dean/president, and then an appostille must be issued for the documents. This can only be done at the state capital of the school/university. Once those documents are all set, everything is sent to the embassy where they will eventually assign a “declaration of value.” Once that paper is given to you, you’re set to begin compiling the documents required for the visa application!

My biggest piece of advice is to make sure you leave yourself plenty of time for the documents to process; in some cases the minimum processing time for one piece of the puzzle is one month so having adequate time saves a lot of headaches! My whole process, which ended up being much more disorganized than I preferred and included many, many trips to the embassy, took about three and a half, almost four months.

If you have any questions about my process, feel free to shoot me a message and I‘ll help however I can!

Ciao!

A.T