<p>*Application plan: Early Decision 2 (rate ~50%)</p>
<p>*Scores:
GPA: 9.0/10.0 (really high in my country)
SAT: 2200 (710 CR, 780 M, 710 W)</p>
<p>*Honors: third and first prize in the Municipal Academic Competition, second prize in the National Academic Competition.</p>
<p>*Extracurricular activities: class representative for 3 years; organized many activities promoting interest in English; engaged in charity and environmental protection; volunteer for a local program to clean up streets, one cultural event; have had work experience as English tutor and vendor; a few talents such as guitar playing and craft making, etc.</p>
<p>*Essays: lots of cultural colors.</p>
<p>*Downside: I'm living with a single mother, father hasn't contacted the family for 3 years, which means no contribution. Therefore, I can only contribute as much as $6000/year I'm stressed out because of this, although Colgate states that they will meet full need.</p>
<p>International financial-aid seeking admission rates are generally much lower than domestic admission rates, so don’t be disappointed if that “50% ED admission rate” turns out not to work out for you…</p>
<p>I don’t have current data for Colgate, but all the data I have seen from other colleges suggest that international financiala aid-seeking admission rates at need-aware liberal arts colleges are generally below 10%. For example, a few years ago Berea published an international admission rate of 4% compared to an overall admission rate of 30%. (All applicants at Berea are financial aid-seeking due to the mission of the college.) Around the same time, Colby reported 900 international financial aid applicants, for a target enrollment of 10 international students on financial aid. Colgate may fund more international students than Colby (it looks to be around 30 per year) but they probably get at least as many applicants. (There aren’t too many selective colleges with need-based aid for international students; they probably have a lot of applicants in common.) </p>
<p>I don’t want to discourage you from applying; I just want you to be aware that your chances are much lower than the overall admission rates suggest.</p>
<p>That’s a good start. Now venture a guess how many of those 211 admitted students received financial aid, and how many of those 1616 applicants applied for financial aid. (My own guess would be that upwards of 1200 international students applied for aid, and at most 100 of the admitted students were offered aid, since Colgate enrolls an average of 30 international students on aid per year. That would make an international financial aid admission rate below 10%.)</p>
<p>Here’s what I do know about those colleges. A few years ago Grinnell and Colgate had among the highest number of international applicants of all liberal arts colleges with financial aid for internationals. In fact, when I was applying to college, I crossed them both off my list for that reason. I have heard (but cannot personally confirm) that a lot of the financial aid recipients at Trinity are athletes - if you are not an athlete, you might not be quite as high on their radar. </p>
<p>My best guess is that Frankling & Marshall has the highest “general” admission rate of international financial aid applicants of those 4 colleges.</p>
<p>Another thing to keep in mind for ED specifically is that some colleges defer most or all of their international financial aid applicants to the RD round. If you are applying ED in the hope of a “boost”, you should select a college for ED that actually takes international FA applicants in the ED round… Unfortunately, I don’t know the ED policies of those 4 colleges in particular.</p>