“Her family needs to pay about $20k in average for her education. However, the problem is that her family is in financial hardship, and won’t be able to pay for college. She wants to study one more year by herself at home to get higher SAT/AP scores while working to earn money to pay for college. She wants to receive a full tuition scholarship, e.g. University of Chicago, and she thinks one more year of college prep would get her into such college.”
Lots of Americans can’t pay for college either. But this young woman is unrealistic if she thinks she is going to get a full tuition scholarship from a very top college. The streets of America are not paved with gold, and frankly I think it’s entitled on the part of all these internationals to just act as though they are. Your advice is spot-on - she needs to find schools her family can afford or that will guarantee a scholarship with certain stats.