if you study at an international college and transfer your last semester before graduating to a US university?

Above answers are good.

to add, Ivy league schools take very few transfer students. Last year Harvard didn't take any.

The previous person who talked about the US education system's structure of general liberal arts was correct. In addition, she makes an excellent point about the "final 30" rule where most universities require that the last 30 hours (approximately, it may vary from degree to degree even within the same university) of the program be done "in residence." This is true for domestic as well as international transfer students.

However, it's also important to note that schools that are named "American University of XYZ" are often (though not always) regionally accredited here in the US by one of the six regional accrediting bodies. As such, courses taken in a degree program at American University of XYZ have a much higher chance of being transferred directly into a US degree program so that most of the courses will count directly towards the degree, just as if the student had taken the courses at another US college or university. Again, however, the final 30 rule will still apply, but the situation is not as complicated (and the time frame not nearly as long) if your studies were taken at an international university that has US regional accreditation.

To find out if your international university has US regional accreditation, you can check out the US Council for Higher Education Accreditation website which links directly to each of the six regional accrediting bodies: http://www.chea.org/Directories/regional.asp

I hope that helps!

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Well there is a catch to your fabulous plan. In America, our educational system is different than any other country's. We have two years of general education requirements, no one else has that. If you transfer here you will automatically have to take those two years worth of courses. Then, you will have to take extra classes on top of that. To transfer, every class that you have taken has to have an exact equivalent at the school that you are transferring to. It also has to fit into the new school's program, so even if it transfers it may not fit into the program. There is no possible way to transfer for one semester, there is also a rule against that. In America, one of the graduation qualifications is that you have to have obtained the last 30-60 credits (1-2 years worth of coursework) at their school. So if you transfer here you will graduate with a degree from here, but not in one semester!