I am an International applicant - applied to various schools in US - Fall 2014 term - for M.Arch / M.I.A programs. I have been working as an Interior Designer in India / Dubai for last 12 odd years / graduated some 14 yrs back and am totally outdated in terms of the current education scene. Besides in India, we normally had a 3d guy,someone to make the models, the drafting guy - etc on our teams). ( even in school we used to outsource all these stuff ! ). Well - you get the drift. I do know that the culture is a bit different in US and at-least in schools- am guessing one needs to do everything by themselves - so looking for advice on 

1. what I should be prepared for ?

2. what software do I need to learn ?  ( I only know autocad / indesign / photoshop - absolutely no idea about 3d max or any 3d softwares - always had a guy on my team to do that! )

3. How do architecture studios work?

4. Do I have do lots of models ? or is everything done in 3D ? 

Appreciate all the advice.

PS.