<p>I've goggled and I've searched the forums but there way too many posts and some of them are outdated so I'm looking for some up-to-date info. </p>
<p>I'm looking for schools to apply to that will give full to near full financial aid to international students. Sounds simple enough right? Wrong. You see, I only have a 2070 SAT score and 3.7 GPA and these are not scores that will get me into ivies or near ivies. So I'm desperately looking for schools that will accept me with these scores and give me the aforementioned aid.</p>
<p>“Does Hamilton offer financial aid to international students?
Yes. For those international students admitted into the Class of 2014, Hamilton offered approximately $1.5 million in scholarship aid. The average Hamilton College scholarship for this year’s incoming class is $41,912. While this may seem like a substantial amount, the pool of international students applying for this aid is extremely competitive. Financial aid packages typically include Hamilton College Scholarship and campus employment. Hamilton meets the full demonstrated financial need of every admitted international student for all four years. Students/families are required to apply for financial aid annually.”</p>
<p>I agree with katliamom, I’m not too sure my stats are up there for Hamilton. I know of on international student who got into Hamilton with scores similar to mine but he was from a country that may not be represented at Hamilton. </p>
<p>I was thinking of applying to Kenyon ED or Reed. What do you think about those schools?</p>
<p>Check out this website to see which colleges offer FA to international students, and how much. For example, it shows Kenyon’s FA as being fairly limited: of the 96 international students attending, only 13 had FA. </p>
<p>You can find the most up-to-date numbers in a college’s Common Data Set or in the International Students section of the college’s profile on collegeboard.org. For example, Kenyon’s Common Data Set reports that they gave 56 international students an average aid package of $37K in fall 2011. </p>
<p>I’d suggest that you focus on less selective LACs. Your SAT scores are below-average for Reed and Reed is actually quite popular among international students. (In 2008, they had over 1,000 applications from international students, most of them probably seeking financial aid. I’d love to give you a reference for those statistics but unfortunately they are no longer online.) Your chances might be better at colleges like Skidmore or St Lawrence University, where your SAT scores are above the 75th percentile. </p>
<p>Don’t scratch a school off your list quite yet just because it doesn’t give aid to a large number of students. I almost didn’t apply to Bryn Mawr because it “only” funded ~60 international students at that time at an average of $33K/year (about the cost of tuition). Some other liberal arts colleges were funding 150-300 international students at averages exceeding $40K/year and that seemed statistically like a much better bet. Turned out that Bryn Mawr was actually one of the few colleges that accepted me and also gave me the single most generous financial aid offer (far exceeding $33K).</p>
<p>That’s how I learned that the number of international students funded is not inversely proportional to the competition for those funds. If a college is unpopular among international students for some reason (e.g. because it’s not prestigious and doesn’t award huge amounts of aid), they might only get a fraction of the applicants of Williams or Reed or Bates. A smaller number of people competing for a smaller number of funds can sometimes translate into better chances.</p>
<p>One last thing: if you think you could raise your SAT scores, you would benefit tremendously from doing so. If you are struggling with the verbal or writing sections in particular, take a look at the ACT. I found the ACT to be much friendlier to non-native speakers than the SAT. (I thought the SAT was too heavy on vocab. ACT English focuses on grammar instead, which most non-native speakers have studied extensively.)</p>
<p>It’s not stated anywhere, but I assume that most of their students are non-US citizens. Their admission policy is need-blind for students of all nationalities. </p>
<p>Before you apply, think about whether you’d like to live in Abu Dhabi and whether you’d like to attend a college with fewer than 200 new students per year. The course offerings are quite limited in some majors.</p>