Expert: Ralph Salier - 8/1/2010

Question
Sir,
  I'm a student doing my final year Engineering in Information Technology in Chennai,India. I want to pursue my UG in archaeology in the US. I've always had this fascination for ancient Indian History, Egyptology and the Mayan civilization. Though India is a great place for archaeology, it does not have a concrete educational course in archaeology for aspiring students. Hence I thought US would be the best place to do my UG.Please furnish me about the UG courses in the US. Are GRE scores necessary for admissions into universities for archaeology courses? If so, what will be a good score.
Thank you.

Answer
Hi Mr. Kumaar,

If you have a high school diploma or a college degree then a US school is probably going to accept this as a starting point.  You may need to take the English Language test to ensure that you can handle the language.  However, your paragraph above indicates you have a good foundation in the language.  

Now, you need to define your area of interest.  Is it Maya, North American Natives (Indians), Egytology..... Why, primarily because different schools in the US tend to specialize in one or another cultural area, none are so large as to cover more then 3 or 4 and then they will be in related cultural areas (such as Asia or South America),  Then based on this, you can do the research on the schools in the US that specialize in that cultural area.

You will need to take the equivalent of the SAT and/or ACT for admissions unless you are able to get this waived but this will be up to the school's international student rules.

If I can be of further help, please let me know.
Ralph