i am international student so , i need financial or merit aid too (preferably both)
i know some of the top schools such as stanford,university of southern california,caltech could you recommend other universities/colleges too?
general reputation , dont care much about specific majors.
California probably has more top ranked universities than any other state, and more than most countries.
Stanford, Cal Tech, USC, UCLA, UC Berkeley. If my recollection is correct then the University of California Davis has the top ranked veterinary school in the world, so I would guess that it might be good for related undergraduate subjects. Some of the other Universities of California are quite good also, such as Irvine and Santa Cruz. There are a bunch of very highly ranked small liberal arts colleges in southern California, such as Scripps and Claremont McKenna.
If you need financial aid, then all of these might be a stretch. Actually, they might even be a stretch if you have an A+ average and don’t need financial aid. Have a plan B. If you are an international student and cost is an issue, then you probably want to have a plan B that is not in the USA (just because of the cost of university in the USA).
need financial or merit aid too (preferably both) .
[/QUOTE]
Why do you need both?
Take all of the UCs off, they don’t give aid to int’ls.
I don’t think USC will work either.
Stanford is need aware for int’ls and doesn’t give merit.
What are your stats and how much can your parents pay each year?
The University of California system has at least six universities that are as good or better than the flagship universtities of nearly all other states. UCBerkeley, UCLA, UCSanDiego, UCSanta Barbara, UCIrvine and UCDavis are all ranked in the top 50 national universities in the country. Cal Poly and UC Santa Cruz are also very good. But you are not going to get financial aid from any of them. It will be reserved for California residents.
For private schools, the top choices are Stanford, CalTech, Pomona and the other Claremont Colleges, USC and Occidental. They might provide good financial aid - if you can get accepted.
Good schools with a religious affiliation include Santa Clara, Pepperdine, University of San Diego, Loyola Marymount and University of San Francisco. For an international applicants, don’t expect much financial aid.
Financial aid is very difficult for international applicants. Only extremely outstanding applicants are likely to get it, and only from very wealthy schools.
By standardized scoring of entering students:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-50-smartest-colleges-in-america-2016-10
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-610-smartest-colleges-in-america-2015-9
If you have reason to think you can submit a strong application, some of these colleges that meet full financial need may be possible for you:
But be aware that standardized scoring is a poor metric to judge the UC schools like Berkeley and UCLA, because they deliberately de-emphasize standardized test scores and over-emphasize grades and class rank, so that they serve the entire state.
Depending on your academic interests, Soka would be worth a look:
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2001/07/25/us/new-west-coast-college-born-of-the-far-east.html
@dadtwogirls - FWIW
There are 7 top 40 universities in the state of California.
Stanford, Cal Tech, UCB, USC, UCLA, UCSB, UC Irvine
California has 5 top 40 Liberal Arts Colleges:
Pomona, CMC, Mudd, Scripps, Pitzer
Massachusetts has 7 top 40 universities within a circle of 5 mile radius.
Harvard, MIT, Tufts, BC, Brandeis, Boston College and Northeastern.
Massachusetts has 6 top 40 Liberal Arts Colleges:
Williams, Amherst, Wellesley (in the Boston Suburbs), Smith, Holy Cross, and Mt Holyoke
Massachusetts also has Olin College of Engineering and Babson College (both in the same area as Wellesley).
Pretty darn close, but I think Massachusetts wins on the tie breaker- even if you don’t factor in the relative sizes of the two states 
Even the best California private schools lag considerably behind their East Coast peers in terms of students receiving financial aid. Be open to looking outside the state too.
Just some comparative data that illustrates this:
Stanford: Enrolled 640 international students, of whom 169 received need based aid. Total amount of institutional funding for international students: 9.4 million dollars
Princeton: Enrolled 625 international students, of whom 427 received need based aid. Total amount of institutional funding for international students: 21 millions dollars
Dartmouth: Enrolled 358 international students, of whom 271 received need based aid. Total amount of institutional funding: 15.5 million dollars
Pomona: Enrolled 180, 64 received aid, total funding 3 million dollars
Amherst: Enrolled 174, 156 received aid, total 9 million dollars
Smith: Enrolled 358, 155 received aid, total 8 million dollars
“Pretty darn close, but I think Massachusetts wins on the tie breaker- even if you don’t factor in the relative sizes of the two states”
OK. I agree.
@Mastadon, I don’t think @DadTwoGirls meant to spark a state competition, but I’ll play. 
“Top rank” can mean different things to different people. If you simply change the cutoff to the top 25 schools instead of your top 40, CA has 5 (Stanford, Cal Tech, UCB, USC, UCLA) while MA has 2 (Harvard, MIT).
For liberal arts colleges in the top 25, each have 4. (Williams, Amherst, Wellesley and Smith vs. Pomona, Claremont, Mudd and Scripps)
For regional schools, MA has 2 of the top 10 in the north (Bentley, Emerson) and 5 in the top 25 (Simmons, Mass. Maritime, Assumption) while California has 6 in the top 10 in the west (Santa Clara, Loyola, Mills, Chapman, Cal Poly SLO, St. Mary’s) and 10 in the top 25 (Redlands, Cal Lutheran, Point Loma, Mount St. Mary’s)
For top national public universities, California has 6 of the top 10 (UCB, UCLA, UCSB, UCI, UCD and UCSD) while MA has zero in the top 25.
For top public regional colleges in the west, California has 6 of the top 10 and 12 of the top 25 while MA has zero in the top 25 in the north.
That said, if you take the Northeast as a whole with a combined population similar to the population of CA, I’m pretty sure the Northeast has CA beat.
None of this helps the OP much, though. I think she said she can pay up to $40K, As an international needing FA, the UCs are out. Privates are going to be the best bet to make up the difference.
Can’t leave out Olin and Babson both tops in their field - they just happen to be categorized as “specialty schools”.
California has about 16 times the area of Massachusetts - at least until the next earthquake - after which this debate will be irrelevant.
@Mastadon, I’d like to point out that more people died in the past few days from the weather on the East Coast than have died in California earthquakes in decades. In fact, East Coast winters are incredibly deadly. Why on earth would anyone want to live there? So dangerous! 
OP, know it’s VERY DIFFICULT for an international student to receive significant financial aid. There is simply enormous competition for a limited amount of money.
@Mastadon you were the one who wanted to compare ranked schools in the two states. Now you’re making excuses about land mass, trying to include unranked specialty schools, and bringing up earthquakes. I could be wrong, but I don’t believe potential future earthquakes or fear of them are factors considered in college rankings.
Just a little ribbing all in good fun. In fact, I’m such a decent guy that I’m not even going to bring up that Nor’easter MA is digging out from. Nope, won’t even mention it. 
@nostalgicwisdom If you don’t mind me asking, where did you get that data about international student financial aid from? I wanted to check the statistics for some colleges that are need-aware for internationals, and even after searching a lot I couldn’t find any data about number of international students receiving financial aid.
Poster titled his thread and capitalized CALIFORNIA - it seems that is the info he is looking for. We don’t consider the east coast not only because of weather but also attitudes, and I’m sure others don’t consider CA for their reasons. Regardless, he asked about California.
Very few colleges are both need-blind and claim to meet full need for international students.
Five of them are in the Northeast (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT and Amherst).
Many other colleges that claim to meet 100% of need (but which are need-aware for internationals) are concentrated in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic. So if you want to maximize chances for good need-based aid from selective colleges, you may want to consider other regions in addition to California. Or else look for merit scholarship opportunities at less selective schools. Few colleges are very generous with both need-based and merit aid; if you get both, the merit money probably will offset the amount of need-based aid you otherwise would have received.
If you do want to focus on California, you can’t count on much (if any) financial aid from most of its public universities. Berkeley does not grant aid to international students (according to its CDS). UCLA does offer some. For the best need-based aid to internationals in California, you may want to focus on Stanford, Caltech, the Claremont colleges, or USC (which are all very selective … presumably all the more so for internationals). Pepperdine and the University of San Diego are two other private “national” universities in the US News top 100.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need-blind_admission
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
@MSYP100 Look at the Common Data Set. Section B details number of international students (termed "non-resident aliens), and section H6 details the number of non-resident aliens receiving aid, average aid awarded, and the total amount of aid awarded to all non-resident aliens
As far as I know they are the ONLY ones that meet full need and are need blind for all applicants including international ones.
An international student needing FA might also look at schools that are not need blind for all if s/he is near the top of the applicant pool.