Congrats, You have received an Admission to Purdue! I will now recommend what steps you, as an International Student, needs to take in order to secure your offer. Also you will get emails to attend online Purdue Admitted International Student Sessions, I would encourage you to attend them.
Step 1- Set up a Career Account/ Activate Your Student Account
To accept an offer of admission, you must first activate your online student Career Account. All students receive a base Purdue Career Account that allows access to services at Purdue including the Student Portal. If you have not already done so, activate your online career account via the account activation website. All you need is your Purdue University ID (PUID) number and your career account setup password (PIN), both of which were provided in your admission offer letter. This activation will provide you with your Purdue Career Account username and allow you to set up a password of your choice. Your Purdue Career Account will be used to access most online tools while at Purdue like your @purdue email services, the myPurdue web pages, ITaP computer labs, and more. You get 5 gigabytes of storage with your Career Account as long as you are affiliated with Purdue. Its pretty straighforward to set up but if you need help, detailed instructions can be found here. If you are an undergraduate and do not have your acceptance packet, you will need to contact the Admissions office to retrieve this information. They can be reached by phone at (765)494-1776 or by email at admissions@purdue.edu.
Step 2- Setup your Purdue.edu Email Address
You will need to follow “New to Purdue?” instructions to gain access to your Purdue University email address. During the account activation process, you’ll also set up your @purdue.edu email account which is provided to all new students. You’ll be receiving important information to this address and you are expected to check your Purdue AND personal email accounts regularly for important updates. All Purdue email accounts are protected by Microsoft Multi-Factor Authentication. Once your email account has been created, you will be required to set up MFA using either a phone number or the Microsoft Authenticator App. Don’t worry-setting up MFA will be part of the email activation process so you cant miss doing this! Further details/ help can be found here
Step 3- Accept Your Offer
If you have activated your career account, you may access your myPurdue online portal to accept your admission offer. Students admitted by April 10 for Fall semester must generally accept their offer by mid-May. Students admitted after April 10 have three weeks to accept. These dates were what we had in 2023 but please follow the dates on your email offer/ portal. Due to delays with FAFSA aid decisions, Purdue has extended the deadline to accept the offer for 2024-25 to June 1st. However note that the housing priority deadline for Learning Communities and mutually selected room mates has only been extended to May 20 and it takes 2-3 days for the housing portal to be accessible to a student after they accept the admission offer. Thus if you want to join a LC and/or select a room mate, you need to accept your admission offer by May 17th in order to ensure that the housing contract is available to you by May 20th.
If you had applied for admission to the Honors College at the time of completing your Common App application, and if you have been admitted, you now need to also accept the Honors College admission. This is a seperate step from accepting the University offer, so do both if you are a Honors College admitee.
In case you were admitted based on predicted grades, Purdue (like all other US universities) will not rescind your admission decision if you final grade does not match your predicted grade. So your offer is Unconditional.
Step 4- Pay your Admission Deposit
With your offer you will have received a link to pay the non-refundable admission deposit ($500 when we did it in 2023). The deposit will be applied toward first-semester fees. The non-refundable deposit may be paid by e-check or with MasterCard, American Express, Discover or Visa credit cards. Be sure to select the term you were admitted to when paying your deposit.
Incoming International Students are not eligible for any State or Federal Funding. Purdue offers only merit-based scholarships to domestic students only as it is a Public University, so you dont need to fill a FAFSA or submit a CSS profile. Ensure you have all the required funding as suggested by the Purdue tuition calculator which is fairly accurate.
Step 5- Fill in the NOI form
The International Students and Scholars office will send you an email within a week to your Purdue University email address to confirm access and instructions for the MyISS Notification of Intent (NOI) online forms, which serve to confirm your intention to attend Purdue University and your international status. When completing the NOI, you must attach scanned images of your official financial support documents, and your passport (and dependents, if applicable) showing the legal spelling of your name before an immigration document will be prepared and mailed.
Make sure you attach adequate proof/ evidence of your ability to pay for Purdue fees. If the University feels you do not have enough funds, you may end up losing valuable time in the back and forth of emails, and delay receiving your i-20!
Step 6- Await your i-20 form
ISS will review the information you provide on the NOI form in addition to your source(s) of funding, and any other required documents as listed on the form. If everything is complete, a Form I-20 is issued.
Step 7- Pay the SEVIS fee
Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) is a government fee that is required (and separate from) the US F-1 Visa fee. The SEVIS fee should be paid online at www.fmjfee.com
You will need your SEVIS number from your Form I-20 or Form DS-2019. The SEVIS number is located on the upper right corner of the Form DS-2019 and upper left corner of the Form I-20. If you have a credit card you may pay the SEVIS fee online. If you were born in or are a citizen of Cameroon, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, or Nigeria you must pay by money order or via Western Union.
Once you pay it online, it is important to print out the SEVIS receipt. The I-20 along with a valid passport, financial documentation and receipt for payment of the SEVIS fee (if required), are needed to apply for a student visa at a US embassy or consulate. Please have your SEVIS payment receipt ready upon entry and reentry to the U.S.
Step 8- Apply for your US Visa
through your local US Embassy. See Applying for a US F-1 Visa
Please note that the Visa will require you to disclose your social media accounts like FB, insta and Reddit. Your application may face issues if you have any anti-US or anti-social (drugs etc) posts or pics. Before you proceed, you may want to do some “house-cleaning”!
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