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<p>This (emphasis on supreme stats) was actually my whole point, going back to the thread topic. Why is it that Caltech chooses students who end up not being Caltech material? Either Caltech is not providing a wholesome environment where students can always succeed (possible), or Caltech sometimes chooses students with high extremely high stats who actually aren’t prepared for Caltech. The SAT, as everyone knows, is not a strong predictor of success in college; so the fact that Caltech seems to place so much emphasis on it, especially when it has a “drinking-from-the-firehose” environment, is just baffling.</p>
<p>Of course, this is all guesswork. I can’t think another good explanation though. A Caltech student would say, “They have high SAT scores because it’s the hardest school to get into. They drop out at high rates because it’s the hardest top school.” I don’t buy it; I think the two points are related at least somewhat, though the latter point has the additional variable of general difficulty in STEM fields.</p>
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<p>Stanford has stated in the past that it’s waiting for its endowment to grow larger, which is BS. Financial aid is primarily drawn from the Stanford Fund and donations, and they wanted to expand aid policies to keep up with the Joneses (e.g. Harvard). So they chose to do that rather than make the school need-blind for internationals. If they spent just a little more money from the endowment, they could guarantee a need-blind policy. Let’s face it: the payout from the endowment dropped over $200million over one year, because of the recession, so clearly Stanford has been able to take a big hit and be fine. A very very small hit in endowment payout would’ve been enough to make Stanford need-blind for internationals.</p>
<p>Regardless, that’s just the policy. While Stanford is not officially need-blind for them, any international who gets in and has need will get financial aid, in the same amounts as domestic students. And a large portion of them are on financial aid:</p>
<p>[Stanford</a> University: Common Data Set 2010-2011](<a href=“http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2010.html]Stanford”>http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2010.html)</p>
<p>Nonresident aliens: 493 (B2)</p>
<h1>nonresident aliens on scholarship or grant aid: 314 (H6)</h1>
<p>314/493 = 64% nonresident aliens who are on financial aid.</p>
<p>But the average aid package is much lower on average: $31,411 (H6), as opposed to the average student financial aid package of $40,298 (H2). Since Stanford guarantees the same aid policies for all accepted students and since it meets 100% of student need, it appears that international students on financial aid are on average a little more wealthy than than domestic students on financial aid.</p>
<p>So Stanford’s close to becoming “de facto” need-blind for internationals, with or without the official policy, though that would make it more in line with Stanford’s general student population. But considering that Stanford’s endowment was $17billion when it said it wanted to wait for its endowment to grow larger before it became officially need-blind for internationals, it’ll probably be a few years from now that it actually does.</p>
<p>Takeaway point: it’s not unlikely that Caltech’s yield is at least somewhat harmed by international students choosing Stanford, possibly because Stanford’s aid is just better.</p>