United States

• You do not have to choose your subject before you arrive - you can start in autumn 2027 and declare a major in 2029.
• A small group of very wealthy private universities and liberal arts colleges will meet 100% of your assessed financial need, including flights, no matter what your family earns.
• Good HL results often convert into real course credit, which can let you skip introductory courses or even finish early.
• Liberal arts colleges are small (1,500-2,500 students), taught by professors rather than teaching assistants, and several (Amherst, Bowdoin) are need-blind for internationals.
• Research, internships and campus jobs are built into the undergraduate experience.

• Sticker price. Harvard's published billed cost for 2026-27 is 91,634 USD for one year, and that is before health insurance and flights.
• Most universities are need-aware for internationals: asking for money reduces your chance of getting in. Only a very short list is need-blind for non-Americans.
• The testing landscape flipped back. Harvard and Yale both require the SAT or ACT again for autumn 2027 entry, and IB results do not substitute for the test at Yale.
• Deadlines are brutally early: early rounds close between 1 and 15 November 2026, Regular Decision between 1 and 15 January 2027, and the University of California closes 30 November 2026 - all long before you sit your IB exams.
• Immigration costs and admin are real: I-20, SEVIS fee, embassy interview, and post-study work depends on an OPT approval you cannot count on.

Accepted

Yes

Subjects and levels

There is no national minimum. Selective universities look at the whole transcript and at HL subject choice rather than at a points threshold. Higher Level subjects are what earn credit; Standard Level rarely does.

Score conversion

There is no national IB-to-GPA conversion. Each university reads your IB predicted grades and, later, your final July results directly. The University of California publishes a credit conversion: a full IB Diploma with 30+ points earns 6 quarter units, and each Higher Level exam graded 5, 6 or 7 earns 8 quarter units (5.3 semester units), usually 24 quarter units in total.

• Credit for HL 5+ is common but the rules differ at every single university - check the specific university's IB credit page, not a general guide.
• Yale states that IB results may be added to an application but cannot replace the required SAT or ACT score.
• Harvard will accept IB scores instead of the SAT/ACT only where testing is genuinely unavailable, not as a normal alternative.
• Your school sends predicted grades; final results arrive 6 July 2027, well after decisions. Offers are effectively made on predictions plus everything else in the file.

1. From spring 2026, build a list of 8-12 institutions in three groups: places that meet full need for internationals, places likely to give you merit money, and one or two you could genuinely afford at full price.

2. Work out which of the three application environments each one sits in. Twelve of the fourteen here are on the Common App; Berkeley is on the University of California application and closes a month earlier; MIT takes only its own.

3. Register for and sit the SAT or ACT in 2026 if any institution on your list requires it, and plan a retake date before November. Yale and MIT require it and do not accept the IB instead.

4. Create a Common App account when it opens on 31 July 2026, fill in your personal details once, and add your institutions.

5. Ask two teachers and your studievejleder for references in spring 2026, not in October. Your counsellor also uploads the school report and your predicted IB grades - Illinois wants those a week after the application itself.

6. Write the 650-word personal essay over the summer, then the supplemental essays. The University of California asks four 350-word personal insight questions instead and needs writing of its own.

7. File the University of California application between 1 October and 30 November 2026. It closes before every Regular Decision deadline, and there is no second round.

8. Submit early-round applications - 1 November for Early Action almost everywhere, between 1 and 15 November for Early Decision depending on the college - then the Regular Decision applications between 1 and 15 January 2027.

9. Submit financial aid forms by the same deadline as the application, not later. Macalester states that aid cannot be awarded after an offer of admission is made.

10. Decide by 1 May 2027, then wait for the I-20, pay the 350 USD SEVIS fee and book an embassy appointment in Copenhagen for the F-1 visa.

11. Arrange the compulsory student health insurance, or a waiver, before the July deadline. In Massachusetts it is required by state law.

Holistic review at most institutions: no published points threshold, no ranking table, no guaranteed entry. Committees read grades and the rigour of your subjects first, then essays, references, activities and context, and at many institutions also your ability to pay. Early Decision is binding - Amherst's wording is that you agree to withdraw your applications from other colleges and enrol - and it meaningfully raises your odds, but it removes your ability to compare financial aid offers. Early Action and Restrictive Early Action are not binding, though Stanford's and Yale's restrict where else you may apply early. The University of California does not run any early round at all, does not read letters of recommendation, and asks four short personal insight questions instead of an essay. Arizona State does not run a tournament at all: it admits against published criteria on a rolling basis. International admit rates at the most selective universities are in the low single digits; do not build a list out of them.

• 30 June 2026

  Sit the SAT or ACT, if any college on your list requires it

  Your own plan Via the Common App

  Details

  Not published by anyone — a date worth setting yourself.

  Not a published deadline — a date worth setting yourself, worked back from the round dates. Yale requires the SAT or ACT from every applicant and states that IB results may accompany it but not replace it; Harvard requires it too and accepts IB predicted grades only where testing is genuinely inaccessible, which Copenhagen is not. Sitting it by the summer leaves a retake before the November round. NYU, Michigan and Amherst are test-optional, so the requirement is per college and has to be checked per college.

• 31 July 2026

  Common App opens for the cycle

  Via the Common App

  Details

  The 2026-27 Common App season — the one that leads to entry in autumn 2027 — opened on 31 July 2026. Nothing is lost by starting later and a great deal is gained by starting now: the account, the college list, the essay prompts and the recommender invitations are all available from this date.

  Each college's rounds and dates are listed under the Common App route. The Common App opened its 2026-27 season on 31 July 2026; that is the season that leads to entry in autumn 2027.

  Source

• 1 August 2026

  UC application opens for fall 2027

  Via the University of California application

  Details

  You can start working on the application from 1 August 2026, two months before you may file it.

• 23 October 2026
  autumn 2027 intake

  SAT, registration closes for the 7 November 2026 sitting

  Applies to: applicants to colleges that require the SAT or ACT

  Hard deadline

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  The College Board's own dates page states that "These test dates and deadlines apply to all students—U.S. and international—taking the SAT", so a Copenhagen test centre runs the same calendar as an American one. This is the last sitting that can realistically reach a college which allows November scores into an early round; it is already after the 1 November early deadlines, so check each college's own policy on late-arriving scores before relying on it. Whether you need a test at all is a per-college question with no national answer: Yale, Harvard, Stanford and MIT require the SAT or ACT for autumn 2027 entry, and Yale states that IB results may accompany the test but not replace it; NYU, Michigan, Illinois and Amherst are test-optional. No ACT date is given here: on 23 September 2026 act.org still showed only 2024 test dates. If your colleges accept the ACT, take its dates from act.org directly and do not assume they match the SAT's.

  Source

• 1 November 2026

  Early Action, Restrictive Early Action and Single-Choice Early Action — not binding

  Priority Via the Common App

  Details

  Later applications are considered after these.

  1 November 2026 at every institution here that runs one: Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Illinois and Macalester. Not binding — you keep the offer and every other application, and you still reply on 1 May. The catch is exclusivity rather than commitment: Stanford's restrictive version forbids applying early to any other private college, and Yale's single-choice version does the same, so this is a decision about the whole autumn taken in October. Decisions arrive in mid-December. Missing it moves you to Regular Decision; it does not shut the door.

• 1 November 2026

  MIT Early Action closes

  Hard deadline Via MIT's own application portal

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  MIT publishes the day without a year, so 2026 is expected rather than confirmed. The application form and fee are due that day; only teachers' letters may arrive later. Early Action is not binding, but the deadline is firm.

• 20 November 2026
  autumn 2027 intake

  SAT, registration closes for the 5 December 2026 sitting — the last SAT that reaches a January deadline

  Applies to: applicants to colleges that require the SAT or ACT

  Hard deadline

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  5 December 2026 is the final SAT sitting of the 2026-27 calendar before Regular Decision closes; the next one is 6 March 2027, by which time every Regular Decision file in this cycle has been read. If a college on your list requires the test, this registration date is the real end of the line, not the December sitting itself. The remaining 2026-27 sittings after it — 6 March, 1 May and 5 June 2027 — are listed here only so that nobody mistakes them for a second chance at admission; they are of use for a gap year or a transfer, not for autumn 2027 entry.

  Source

• 30 November 2026

  SAT or ACT taken, for MIT's 1 November round

  Hard deadline Via MIT's own application portal

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  MIT requires the SAT or ACT and sets the last test date rather than the last reporting date: before 30 November for Early Action, before 31 December for Regular Action. There is no IB alternative.

• 30 November 2026

  MIT financial aid application, 1 November round

  Applies to: applicants asking MIT for need-based aid

  Hard deadline Via MIT's own application portal

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  Managed separately from the admissions application and due a month after it. Easy to walk past, and there is no second chance at it.

  Published on MIT's deadlines page as "November 30" with no calendar year, as every date on that page is, so 2026 is expected rather than confirmed. It falls a month after the 1 November Early Action application itself, so it is a date that is easy to miss precisely because the application is already in.

  Source

• 30 November 2026

  University of California application

  Hard deadline Via the University of California application

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  One filing window and nothing else. No Early Decision, no Early Action, no rolling consideration, no late round, no equivalent of Clearing. The application can be worked on from 1 August but is only accepted between 1 October and 30 November 2026, and decisions come back across March 2027. A student who treats 1 January as "the American deadline" has missed all nine University of California campuses by five weeks.

  UC's first-year page gives the fall filing period as "October 1–November 30"; its dates table lists the "Fall 2027 admission application filing period" across October and November. The application itself opens on 1 August for drafting. It closes before every Regular Decision deadline, and there is no second round and no early round — the University of California runs neither Early Action nor Early Decision, does not read letters of recommendation, and asks four 350-word personal insight questions instead of the Common App essay. The University of California's three later dates — the 1 May reply, the 1 July final transcript and the 15 July IB results deadline — each have their own entry below.

  Source 1 · Source 2

• 20 December 2026

  Early round decisions

  Via the Common App

  Details

  Mid-December at Harvard, Bowdoin and Amherst; 29 January at Illinois, which runs its Early Action decisions later than most. The date here is an indicative mid-December marker, not a published day.

• 4 January 2027

  MIT Regular Action closes

  Hard deadline Via MIT's own application portal

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  The fourth of January. Not the first.

• 15 February 2027

  MIT financial aid application, Regular Action

  Applies to: applicants asking MIT for need-based aid

  Hard deadline Via MIT's own application portal

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  Published on MIT's deadlines page as "February 15" with no calendar year, so 2027 is expected rather than confirmed. MIT's Regular Action application closes on 4 January, so the aid papers are due six weeks after the application — long enough to forget about.

  Source

• 1 March to 31 March 2027

  UC admission decisions for fall 2027

  Via the University of California application

  Details

  Notification runs through March 2027. Some campuses release earlier.

• 31 March 2027

  Regular Decision decisions

  Via the Common App

  Details

  Late March at Harvard and Amherst, early April at Stanford, 26 February at Illinois. An indicative end-of-March marker rather than a published day.

• 1 May 2027

  Reply deadline — the national candidates' reply date

  Hard deadline Via the Common App

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  The national candidates' reply date, confirmed on Amherst's page as 1 May 2027 and on Harvard's, Stanford's, MIT's and Illinois's as 1 May. Until then you may hold every offer you have and compare the aid figures; after it, the one you have not replied to is gone. An Early Decision admission is the exception — that choice was made in November.

  The one date in the American calendar that every institution shares, and the only national one on this page. Until 1 May 2027 you may hold every offer you have and compare the aid figures; after it, the offer you have not replied to is gone, and your place goes to somebody on a waiting list. The University of California states it with its year attached — "Deadline for all fall 2027 admitted first-year students to submit their SIR" — and calls it the Statement of Intent to Register; MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Illinois and the Common App colleges call it the reply date and publish it as a bare "May 1". An Early Decision admission is the exception: that choice was made in November and this date does not belong to you.

  Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3

• 1 May 2027

  MIT enrolment reply

  Hard deadline Via MIT's own application portal

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  The same national reply date as the Common App colleges and UC.

• 1 May 2027

  Statement of Intent to Register (SIR)

  Hard deadline Via the University of California application

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  How you accept a UC place, and it goes to one campus only. Same day as the national reply date used by the Common App colleges, so a student holding offers on both routes decides everything at once.

• 1 July 2027

  Final official transcript to the campus

  Applies to: applicants who have accepted a University of California offer

  Hard deadline Via the University of California application

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  For students intending to enrol in fall 2027. Postmarked or submitted electronically by this date.

  Published as "Final, official transcripts must be postmarked or electronically submitted". This is a condition of an offer you have already accepted, so missing it costs the place rather than the application. Your gymnasium sends it, not you, and a Danish school in the first week of July is a quieter place than it is in June — ask for it before the summer.

  Source

• 6 July 2027

  IB results released

  Via the Common App

  Details

  Every date above falls before this one, which is the whole shape of an American application: the offer is made on predicted grades, a school report and everything else in the file, and the real results arrive after the student has already chosen. What each college does if the actual results fall short of the predictions is set by that college and is not established here. Ask before you accept.

  Every American decision in this cycle is made before this date, on predicted grades, a school report and everything else in the file — which is the whole shape of an American application and the reason the calendar above stops in May. What each college does if your actual results fall short of the predictions is set by that college and is not established here; ask before you accept. The date is the IB's usual results day and is not yet confirmed by the IB for 2027. The IB result that does have a hard American consequence is not this one — it is the University of California's 15 July deadline nine days later, which is the entry below.

• 15 July 2027

  Official IB examination results to UC

  Applies to: IB candidates who have accepted a University of California offer

  Hard deadline Via the University of California application

  Details

  After this the door closes.

  This is UC's answer to the July problem. The IB publishes results on 6 July; UC wants the official results by 15 July. Nine days. Request the transmission from the IB as soon as you have accepted a place, not when the results appear.

  Published as "Deadline for official AP and IB examination results to be postmarked or electronically submitted". This is a deadline for IB results specifically, and a tight one: results are released on about 6 July 2027 and the University of California wants them, officially, nine days later. You request the transmission from the IB yourself, through candidate results services — it is not automatic and the university will not chase it.

  Source

• Date not published

  Early Decision I — binding, and each college sets its own date

  Priority Via the Common App

  Details

  Later applications are considered after these.

  Closes somewhere between 1 and 15 November 2026 depending on the college, and there is no common date: Macalester 1 November, Amherst 9 November, Bowdoin and Grinnell 15 November. Binding in the strongest sense — Amherst's wording is that you agree not to be an Early Decision candidate anywhere else and, if admitted, to withdraw your applications from other colleges and enrol. Missing it does not cost you the college; it costs you this round, and with it the higher admit rate that is the main reason to accept the binding terms. It also ends any possibility of comparing financial aid offers, which for a family paying from abroad is usually the more expensive loss.

• Date not published

  Early Decision II — binding, a second chance in early January

  Priority Via the Common App

  Details

  Later applications are considered after these.

  Early January 2027, set by each college — Macalester 1 January, Bowdoin and Grinnell 5 January. Same binding terms as Early Decision I, in the same window as Regular Decision, and it exists for students whose first binding choice refused them in December. It is little known, and for a student who has just been turned down by their Early Decision college it is very useful.

• Date not published

  Regular Decision — each college sets its own date

  Via the Common App

  Details

  There is no American Regular Decision date. Among five institutions here it is 1 January (Harvard), 2 January (Yale), 5 January (Stanford, Amherst, Illinois) and 15 January (Grinnell) — and Illinois wants the supporting documents a further week later, on 11 January. Each college's own date is final: after a college's Regular Decision date it is finished for the year, because there is no Clearing, no late round and no second intake. Put each college's own date in your own calendar; do not carry one college's date to another.

• Set by each institution
  autumn 2027 intake

  Applications close — and there is no American closing date, because no American body sets one

  Details

  A single American deadline does not exist. There is no ministry, no clearing house and no national closing day; every college sets its own, and four different rounds run on four different promises. The shape, from the colleges on this page: Early Action, Restrictive Early Action and Single-Choice Early Action all close 1 November 2026 (Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Illinois, Macalester) and are not binding. Early Decision I closes somewhere between 1 and 15 November 2026 — Macalester 1 November, Amherst 9 November, Bowdoin, Colby and Grinnell 15 November — and is binding; see the next entry. Early Decision II closes in early January 2027 — Macalester 1 January, Colby 4 January, Bowdoin and Grinnell 5 January — and is also binding. Regular Decision closes between 1 and 15 January 2027 — Harvard 1 January, Yale 2 January, MIT and Colby 4 January, Stanford, Amherst and Illinois 5 January, Grinnell and Macalester 15 January. The University of California closes on 30 November 2026 and has its own entry below. After a college's own Regular Decision date that college is finished for the year: there is no Clearing, no late round and no second intake. Write each college's own date into your own calendar and do not carry one college's date to another.

  Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3 · Source 4

• Set by each institution
  autumn 2027 intake

  Early Decision is binding — applying early is a commitment, not an early submission

  Applies to: anyone considering an Early Decision application

  Priority

  Details

  Later applications are considered after these.

  What you need to know about Early Decision is not when it closes but what signing it costs you. Early Decision I (1 to 15 November 2026) and Early Decision II (early January 2027) are binding in the strongest sense the American system has. Amherst's wording is that you agree not to be an Early Decision candidate anywhere else and, if admitted, to withdraw your applications from every other college and enrol. It is a signed agreement — student, parent and school counsellor — filed inside the Common App for one college only. Two consequences follow and neither is obvious from a calendar. First, an admitted Early Decision applicant does not get the 1 May reply date: that decision was made in November. Second, and for a family paying from abroad this is usually the more expensive loss, you can never compare financial aid offers, because you will only ever hold one. Early Action, Restrictive Early Action and Single-Choice Early Action are NOT binding — you keep every offer and still reply on 1 May — but Stanford's and Yale's restrict where else you may apply early, so they still decide your whole autumn in October. Missing an early round costs you that round's higher admit rate; signing an Early Decision agreement costs you the choice.

  Source 1 · Source 2

• Set by each institution
  autumn 2027 intake

  Financial aid forms are due with the application, not after it — and the FAFSA is not the form you file

  Applies to: applicants seeking need-based aid

  Details

  Each institution's aid deadline is its own, and at most of them it is the application deadline itself. Grinnell states that "All financial aid forms must be submitted by the same deadline as the Common Application". Macalester states that "financial aid cannot be awarded after an offer of admission has been made, nor at any time during their studies at Macalester" — that is a door that closes permanently, not a late penalty. Bowdoin's Regular Decision aid deadline is 1 February, a month after its application date. MIT's two aid dates, 30 November and 15 February, have entries of their own. A family that applies first and asks about money in the spring has forfeited the money. Which form: as an international applicant you file the CSS Profile, not the FAFSA. The FAFSA is the United States federal aid application and federal aid requires US citizenship or eligible-non-citizen status, which an F-1 student visa is not — so every FAFSA date you will meet on American admissions pages, including the 1 October opening and the 2 March deadline printed on the University of California's own dates page, is not yours. Grinnell asks for "the 2027-28 CSS Profile"; Macalester asks for the CSS Profile "OR the 2027-2028 International Student Application for Financial Assistance (ISAFA)" and points international applicants who cannot afford the CSS Profile fee at the free ISAFA instead, because neither college waives the CSS Profile fee for international applicants. The CSS Profile itself carries no national deadline — the colleges set them, typically 1 or 15 November for the early rounds and January to February for Regular Decision. The College Board had not published the 2027-28 opening date on 23 September 2026; the customary opening is 1 October of the preceding year. Open the CSS Profile in early October 2026 and check the date yourself.

  Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3 · Source 4 · Source 5

• Not yet announced for this intake
  autumn 2027 intake

  Rolling-admission priority date, Arizona State University

  Priority

  Details

  Later applications are considered after these.

  Unlike the other institutions on this page, Arizona State does not run a selection tournament: it publishes priority dates rather than closing dates and admits on a rolling basis against published criteria. On 23 September 2026 its international first-year page carried only fall 2026 (15 January 2026) and spring 2027 (1 November 2026), so do not assume a fall 2027 date from either. The most recent actual fall priority date is therefore 15 January 2026, given here as precedent, not as a prediction. Recheck from about December 2026.

  Source

English-taught bachelors

Everything. The question is not whether the degree is in English but whether you must prove your English.

Proving your English

Many universities waive TOEFL/IELTS for students who have been taught in English, which an IB Diploma from an English-medium programme normally demonstrates - but the waiver is not automatic and each university sets its own rule. Check the specific university; where no waiver applies, typical requirements are TOEFL iBT 100+ or IELTS 7.0+ at selective universities. Check each university's own threshold.

Local language needed?

Not for English-taught programmes

• Your IB English A Literature or Language and Literature result is the strongest evidence you can offer, but ask each admissions office in writing whether it replaces the test.
• Some universities also use the Duolingo English Test. Availability varies year to year.

Tuition, EU/EEA

Not applicable - the United States does not have an EU/EEA fee category. As an international applicant you pay the international or out-of-state rate everywhere. (2026/27)

Tuition, non-EU

Private universities: Harvard's published billed cost for 2026-27 is 91,634 USD (tuition 62,226, fees 6,216, housing 14,250, food 8,942), with total billed and unbilled costs of 95,134-100,134 USD plus 4,954 USD health insurance if you are not covered elsewhere. Public universities: UC Berkeley's 2026-27 tuition and fees for a new student are 18,214 USD, but new out-of-state students pay an additional Nonresident Supplemental Tuition of 39,270 USD, so an international first-year pays roughly 57,500 USD in tuition and fees and a total cost of attendance around 94,000 USD in a residence hall. Michigan's 2026-27 non-resident tuition and fees are 67,096 USD in the first two years of LSA (total budget 88,394 USD); Illinois quotes 42,248-53,078 USD in tuition and fees for international students (total 62,146-72,976 USD); Arizona State's international total for 2026-27 is 69,906 USD. (2026/27)

Application fee

Harvard 95 USD; Stanford 100 USD; MIT, Amherst and Michigan 75 USD; Arizona State 90 USD for international applicants; University of California 95 USD per campus for international applicants (80 USD for domestic); Grinnell nothing. Fee waivers exist but are usually aimed at low-income US students.

Living costs

Not published as a monthly figure. American universities publish an annual 'cost of attendance' that already includes housing, food, books, transport and personal expenses - see the tuition figures above. UC Berkeley's 2026-27 estimate for housing and utilities in an off-campus apartment is 14,386 USD for a nine-month academic year, about 1,609 USD a month. (2026/27)

• Always read the 'cost of attendance', never the tuition line alone. The COA is also the number financial aid is calculated against.
• Health insurance is compulsory and charged separately at most universities. Harvard's is 4,954 USD for 2026-27.
• Budget for flights home twice a year; Harvard's 2026-27 budget allows 0-5,000 USD for transportation, while Berkeley's standard budget covers only local transport (754-1,238 USD).
• The I-901 SEVIS fee is 350 USD for F-1 students, paid before your visa interview.
• Not confirmed on an official page: the nonimmigrant visa application (MRV) fee is widely reported as 185 USD, and a new 250 USD Visa Integrity Fee was introduced by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act with effect from 1 October 2025; whether it is being collected yet is not confirmed. Check current fees at travel.state.gov before you budget.

Funding you could actually get

• Need-based institutional aid. A short list of universities is need-blind for international applicants and meets 100% of assessed need. Harvard states plainly that international students are eligible for exactly the same aid as Americans, that admission is need-blind, and that families earning under 100,000 USD pay nothing, while families up to 200,000 USD have tuition covered. Yale, MIT, Amherst and Bowdoin state the same need-blind, full-need policy for international students on their own pages. Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, Notre Dame and Washington and Lee are widely reported to belong to the group but are not confirmed here - confirm on each university's own financial aid page before you apply.
• Need-aware full-need aid. Many strong liberal arts colleges consider your finances when deciding but then meet 100% of need if they admit you. Grinnell College is explicit about this: need-aware for internationals, then 100% of institutionally determined need met.
• Merit scholarships. Some universities award merit money regardless of need - Grinnell says outstanding international applicants are considered for merit aid whether or not they apply for need-based help. Merit awards are usually partial, 10,000-30,000 USD a year.
• Athletic scholarships (NCAA). Real but narrow. Division I and II programmes can offer athletic money; Division III, which includes most liberal arts colleges, cannot offer any athletic aid at all. You must register with the NCAA Eligibility Center and be recruited by a coach - you cannot apply for an athletic scholarship the way you apply for a grant. For an international IB student this is realistic only in sports where you already compete at national level, typically rowing, swimming, football, handball, golf or tennis.
• Danish SU can follow you here if you can claim it (Danish citizens, or EU/EEA citizens with equal status under EU rules) and meet the ties-to-Denmark requirement. A full degree outside the EU/EEA follows separate rules, with its own ties-to-Denmark form: check su.dk before budgeting. The application has its own deadlines. If you cannot claim SU, look first at your own country's student finance: several EU/EEA systems fund a full degree in another country.
• US federal student loans are not available to international students, and most private US loans require a US co-signer.

Residency

There is no EU-style free movement. After you accept an offer the university issues Form I-20, you pay the I-901 SEVIS fee of 350 USD, complete the DS-160 form, pay the visa fee and attend an interview at the US Embassy in Copenhagen for an F-1 student visa. Bring the SEVIS receipt to the interview - it is required. You may enter the US up to 30 days before your programme starts. Sources: https://www.ice.gov/sevis/i901 and https://studyinthestates.dhs.gov/students/prepare/paying-the-i-901-sevis-fee

Working

On an F-1 visa you may work on campus during your studies, subject to limits set by your university, and off-campus work generally requires prior authorisation. After your degree, Optional Practical Training (OPT) gives up to 12 months of work authorisation directly related to your major, and graduates of approved STEM degrees can apply for a further 24-month extension if the employer is enrolled in E-Verify. You cannot start OPT until USCIS approves Form I-765 and you receive the Employment Authorization Document. Source: https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/students-and-exchange-visitors/optional-practical-training-opt-for-f-1-students

Housing

Almost all universities house first-year students on campus and many require it. That is a genuine advantage over Europe: you do not hunt for a room, you get assigned one, and the cost is in the published cost of attendance. Harvard's 2026-27 housing and food come to 23,192 USD; Berkeley's residence hall housing and meal plan for 2026-27 are 16,640 USD and 7,000 USD. From year two, many students move off campus, which is where costs and hassle rise - Berkeley budgets 14,386 USD for nine months in an off-campus apartment.

Healthcare

Health insurance is compulsory and expensive, and the Danish yellow card and EHIC are worthless in the US. Universities charge their own student health plan unless you can prove equivalent cover - Harvard's is 4,954 USD and Berkeley's SHIP 5,066 USD for 2026-27 (about €4,360 and €4,460 at the ECB rate of 24 September 2026). Private Danish travel or study insurance sometimes qualifies for a waiver, but the university decides and the waiver deadline is usually 1 July. Assume you will pay for the university plan.