The FINANCIAL — What do Mikheil Saakashvili, President of Georgia, Samson Pkhakadze, Chairman of Wissol Board of Directors, George Togonidze, Director of Tbilisi Marriott and Giorgi Gugunishvili, Director of Silknet LLC have in common? The answer is simple, they are successful figures in their fields having all graduated from universities in the US.
Saakashvili went to the US via the Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program and received an LLM from Columbia Law School in 1994 and took classes at The George Washington University Law School the following year.
Pkhakadze obtained his Master in Public Policy and Management (MPP) at Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government. George Togonidze graduated from Radford University, USA with a degree in the Bachelor of Science and later Master’s degree in Business Administration from the same university.
Obtaining education in the US can be through applying to CIE or Kvali, organizations which manage to provide study opportunities and are supported by the US Embassy, or the individual can apply directly.
The tuition fees for top American biz schools vary from 25,000 USD up to 52,000 USD per year. The annual payment for US number 1 ranked Harvard University is 46,150 USD, followed by Stanford University (51,321 USD), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (48,650 USD).
The US Embassy finances many programmes, such as the Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program for Master’s level students, UGRAD global undergraduate exchange program for undergrads, Hubert H. Humphrey fellowship program for mid-career professionals, and many other exchange programmes for studies.
Every year we are sending 20-30 Georgians to the US on our exchange programmes. This includes all sorts of programmes, some of which are short one study tours, some are two years. Moreover, for university education level about 50 people depart for US universities. According to official statistics we have approximately 450 Georgians currently studying in US universities,” said Cynthia Whittlesey, Public Affairs Officer at the US Embassy.
To be enrolled in bachelor studies one should pass Toefl and SAT exams, as well as ACT. For master studies Toefl and GMAT, or maybe GRE are necessary.
The fee for passing Toefl is 160 USD and it can be passed at the CIE centre, where the ACT exam is also passed. SAT is passed in American Councils, while GMAT at Delta learning. The price of passing GMAT is 200 USD.
The results for Toefl are known after 10 working days as for ACT the answer will be available in 3 weeks.
“We usually advise students to take a year’s preparation, choose the proper school and apply to several of them.
Normally, it’s good to choose 7-8 schools,” said Tamar Karchava, USA education adviser at CIE, Centre for International Education.
“After choosing the school they register for the test, after that they prepare their documents, transcripts, recommendation letter and statement of purpose. The deadline for receiving all the documents is the end of December. The final answers are received at the end of March after which comes the visa interview. The student leaves for the US in the middle of August,” Karchava explained.
As well as the tuition fees, the living costs vary for students, but on average it is 22,000 USD annually.
“While you are a foreign student you are often prohibited from working. We provide visas for very specific processes and students’ visa generally speaking does not allow working with several exceptions. The student has the chance to work maximum 20 hours per week and be employed in the university he attends, it might be the cafeteria, library or other,” Whittlesey said.
“Students who apply for hard sciences and technologies have the chance to get full financing, while for MBA programmes it’s difficult to obtain fully financial aid,” said Gvantsa Khvedeliani, educational adviser at Kvali.
Moreover, according to Khvedeliani an individual needs minimum two years of work experience to have the chance of being approved to attend MBA programmes.
“Engineering, information and hard sciences are becoming bigger priorities for financing,” added Karchava.
“I believe that education is always extremely important. One of the things that shows the sign of Muskie program’s success is how many graduates of this programme come to Georgia, work in the country and share their experience obtained while studying in the US. I believe for those students who study abroad their employment opportunities are very much enhanced,” Whittlesey said.
Discussion about this post