<p>I am a student from South Africa hoping to get into colleges for fall 2009. As I come from a single parent family I have a huge financial need - as in my mum can afford about $3000 a year!!! I am therefore hoping to apply to a few more places than usual as I think my need may be a huge downer on my applications. Unfortunately, applying to lots of colleges has increased the application costs! Does it look bad on my application if I ask for a fee waiver as well as that much financial help as a student? My mum can only just afford the application costs I'm expecting, but I'd prefer her not to "break the bank" . but I'm really hesitant to ask for fee waivers because I don't want to affect my college's decisions. So how deep should I dig into the wallet?</p>
<p>1) I don't think that fee waivers affect your admission. And if it does then I doubt that this school would have given you enough FA anyway
2) There are 8 (9?) need blind schools for intl students - Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Amherst, Williams, Dartmouth, Middlebury (Georgetown is need-blind but has limited FA)
3) There are plenty of excellent schools that are free to apply to and give need-based FA (many give free apps to internationals)</p>
<p>If you have any FA based questions then feel free to PM me. I'm an international needind full FA too and have done extensive amount of research.</p>
<p>What is need-blind with limited financial aid - you might be admitted but not get financial aid? That's what many colleges did 10 or 20 years ago... until they realized that it's cruel to be admitted to your dream school and then not be able to attend.</p>
<p>Georgetown indicates very clearly that intl students should find outside funding. I have an official list of schools that give FA (to some reasonalble extent) to internationals. Out of some 150 GT is somewhere in the middle with 283 international students and only giving aid to 23. The avarege aid is about 32000, but still. Only Tufts has worst statistics in this list. To me atleast those numbers said enough to keep me from applying.</p>
<p>I am still confused.... why did you consider Georgetown need-blind, given that they very clearly state that need is a factor?</p>
<p>because on their homepage they state that they are need-blind for everybody.
this got me confused too and the only possibility was to assume that they probably won't give me enough FA when admitted. (it was a very hard decision not to apply)</p>
<p>is Cornell need-blind to everybody?? they say they are on their admissions website, but the FA website looks questionable...</p>
<p>where did you get your FA list from flid? Thanks for the advice too:)</p>
<p>oh, and my SAT scores aren't fabulous so a lot of the need-blind places you mentioned are a bit of a reach for me- 700CR, 640M, and 600W. I wasn't entirely happy with them, but I figured a good admissions essay and fabulous SAT2 scores (coz I'm expecting to do qute well in the math and bio section) will make up for them??? what do you think:)</p>
<p>I got the list from the local educationUSA (International</a> Students – EducationUSA) advising center. it has been really helpful especially regarding the number of intl students admitted and given aid.
I can't say much about your SAT scores ad it all depends on which schools you are going to choose.
Cornell is not need-blind to internationals (some statistics too - Cornell has 1035 undergraduate intl students and it gives aid to 240, the average aid is 24 300)</p>