Providing financial documents for the I-20
According to US law, schools must ensure that as an international student, you can cover the remaining costs of the school and support yourself in an emergency before they can issue your visa documents. This means that you must submit a bank statement to them. This can be a current account or a savings account. A bank statement must be provided for a school to be able to issue your I-20, this is the document you need to be able to apply for your visa.
This does not mean you have to pay any fees right now! You only need to submit a bank statement to the school!
Even if you are on a 100% scholarship, you may still be required to show a bank statement to show you can fund yourself while you are in the US. This still does not mean you will have to pay anything to the school.
You may have been asked to show more money in the statement than you agreed to pay when you agreed to your scholarship. Below will help to explain why that is.
- The figure given is the total “most expensive case scenario” cost to attend the school, this is given to all international students, regardless of if they are an athlete or not.
- A school will gather the most expensive options for items such as housing, meal plans, tuition, books, insurance etc. and then add a cost-of-living amount on top of this.
- If you are on a full scholarship, the $ amount of your scholarship may be less than this as it has been decided which meal plans, housing etc. you will receive, which likely will not be the most expensive the school offers.
- The same applies for anyone with a remaining cost as to the disparity between the amount you need to show in the statement and the amount you have agreed to pay.
- To be clear, if the amount is more than you agreed to pay, you will NOT PAY this figure. You will pay what you previously agreed. You just need to SHOW more.
- Often, you can deduct your scholarship award from the total and show that amount. This needs to be cleared with the school. Your consultant may have done this already, please contact them before reaching out to the school yourself! Any amounts for campus jobs coach may have mentioned cannot be deducted as this is not guaranteed.
- Please note, this larger amount will also show on your I-20 document. Again, this does not mean you will pay this amount. The left total amount and the right total amount on the I-20 must match, this will make sense when you receive the I-20.
It does not matter who the statement comes from. It does not have to be the people who will end up paying your fees. Whoever does provide the statement will be known as your sponsor. For many people this is their parents. Schools have different requirements for the bank statements, but generally they cannot be more than 3 months old. Some schools may also require it to be stamped and signed by the bank. It can be difficult to get this completed so it may be quicker to submit a downloaded online banking PDF statement first then try to get the bank to stamp and sign if the school comes back and asks for this. A good example of a stamped and signed statement is below.
Understandably, this can be a lot of money to have in an account at one time. Below are some ways you can get to the total:
- You can use as many bank accounts from the same person/people to get the total to where it needs to be. The money does not need to be in one account.
- If you do not have the total, ask family and friends to transfer money into your sponsor's account, get the statement showing the amount needed then transfer family and friends their money back.
Affidavits of support and scholarship documents
Many schools require a supporting document, known as an affidavit of support, to be uploaded along with the bank statement. You will likely find this on your application portal or on the international application page of your schools’ website, if your consultant hasn’t already sent you it.
This will require information filling out on you as the student and your sponsor. It’s also possible that the bank will need to stamp and/or sign this document too, so please read it before going into the bank! Some schools have this document as an online form.
When you have completed the affidavit of support and have the bank statement, upload it all along with your signed scholarship papers. We recommend also uploading any athletic and academic paperwork. Your operations consultant can check which scholarship paperwork needs uploading before you do it. The scholarship offer (likely the one you received in an email during initial conversations) does not need uploading.
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