The two publics - there is zero chance (ok maybe not zero) of meeting costs. Penn State and UW.
My belief is any flagship - whether a Wyoming or Arizona or wherever - can get you to the same place.
You might look up grad schools of interest. Often they post their student profiles and you can see where kids went. Or contact the school and ask them for the list.
You’ll find - even at schools like Harvard and Yale, the students in many disciplines come from a huge variety of schools, some prestigious and some not.
Do the homework now to see if these are safety options. Unless I’m missing something, the two you chose will not be remotely close financially.
OK - I’ll let others give you their guidance now - they’ll know a lot more than me.
Yes you are absolutely right . Public Universities generally don’t fit in the financial limit for international students. Thank you so much for your proactive help. Will definitely use your suggestions to work further on the applications.
This might make sense when the reach school is realistic. To determine this, you will need to look at prospective choices closely. For example, Amherst, I believe, admits international applicants from about the top 1% of students (by holistic review) within a given country.
Colorado College, with a 12% acceptance rate, represents a very difficult school at which to gain admission.
You quoted a response to a follow-up question and repeated a point that had been made previously. Nonetheless, even in the original post, the OP expressed an interest in liberal arts colleges in general:
Which could help the OP’s son, whose family plans to contribute substantially toward his education.
Hamilton remains a great potential choice for any student with a combined interest in computer science and mathematics, partly due to the availability of a data science major.
This student also may want to research Reed and Grinnell, which offer very strong biological sciences programs.
Thanks @merc81 . I think you are probably right. Amherst might be out of “Reach” so to say. Will definitely review the plan of Amherst. Do you believe Bowdoin is similarly out of reach? Also I was under the impression that Amherst accepts @5% of international applicants. May be I am mistaken. I think for my son SAT score may be bit below average. GPA may be average/above average and extra-curriculars and recommendations could be average for Amherst or Bowdoin. But then again may be I might be wrong.
If the financial aid is not sufficient then you can get out of the contract I believe? The cost calculator for US citizens (may be unreliable) indicates @25K USD as the family contributions.
@merc81 I 100% agree with you. Hamilton was a great suggestion. The program looks very interesting and has a major in Molecular Biology as well. We will look into Reed and Grinnell as well. Thanks for your helpful comments.
That’s probably correct. But best to know as much as you can prior to ED process so that 1) there are no surprises, and 2) you do not unnecessarily burn the ED “benefit” to the extent it exists.
Yes. Thanks to all the guidance on this group, we will be getting in touch with financial aid office and admissions office for curriculum clarification.
I think there is some confusion about the stats referenced. While, as reported on Amherst College’s website, there’s a 5% acceptance rate for international applicants, I believe @merc81 is saying that the accepted students are coming from the top 1% of graduates in their home countries, though I am not sure of the data source for that number.
Yes that probably makes sense. Top 1% of Indian graduates is of course a very large number! These are extremely difficult schools to get into without doubt.
My daughter is a senior at Bowdoin and double majoring in Bio/Visual Art with Japanese language minor. She applied applied ED1 but was deferred to ED2. She got in ED2. Later we learned that ED1 is mostly for athletes. Being a small school but still needing to fill many sports teams, it helps the coaches know which athletes are committing to their program. Assuming your son is not an athlete recruit, I would highly suggest applying to ED2 if ED1 is a deferral. However, I suggest you apply ED1 even though it’s unlikely they will accept a non-athlete international student in this pool. It still lets them know Bowdoin was your son’s top choice and willing to commit if accepted.
Bowdoin is particularly strong in environmental Bio. They have an entire separate small campus right on the coast for environmental science studies and research. There isn’t the same opportunity for molecular bio that you might find at a larger research University, however, this can be supplemented by summer research internships off campus. Bowdoin is excellent at helping and placing students in good programs in their desired fields of study.
I don’t know enough about Amherst to compare it to Bowdoin but my understanding is that they are similar type schools. Good luck to your son!
Thanks much for this reply. We eventually decided to apply ED1 to Grinnell, giving some consideration to ED1 being an athlete round in various Colleges. We were planning to do RD to Bowdoin. Do you think ED2 (if required) will be better suited? Also if possible let me know how is their Biochemistry and Molecular Biology stream. That is what my son is specifically interested in.
Switching schools to apply ED2 could be a slight issue. Bowdoin will wonder, why didn’t this student apply ED1? It doesn’t mean they’ll toss your son’s application in the reject pile but it doesn’t come across as strong as other students that chose Bowdoin ED1. You’re sending a message that Bowdoin wasn’t really the first choice.
It’s quite remarkable that a small LAC like Bowdoin is even on this impressive list of large research oriented universities, most of which have graduate PhD programs.
