<p>Ok, so this might be a little confusing but...</p>
<p>I'm a Canadian Citizen (thus I hold a Canadian passport) but I also have US permanent residence. I have spent all of my high school years in the US. One of my teachers suggested that I applied as an international student. So my questions are:
1. Does applying as an international student have any benefits?
2. Is there more opportunities for financial aid as an international student?
3. Can I even say that I am an international student?</p>
<p>My choice colleges are the Ivies.</p>
<p>You wont get any federal aid if you are an international student. There are schools that will not even give their own form of financial aid to international student’s. I think it would only be detrimental to your application if you applied as an international student, unless you were an URM, which I don’t think Canadian qualifies for.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine why your teacher would suggest applying as an International student. There is no benefit that I am aware of. There is less opportunity for financial aid. Many schools do not even offer financial aid to Internationals. </p>
<p>And the main thing is, if you have permanent residency status you are *not *an international student. International students have all sorts of extra hoops they have to jump through such as applying for student visas (which you obviously do not need), providing proof of finances etc, so a school will soon realize you have misrepresented your status. Really not a good idea on so many levels.</p>
<p>I am trying to figure that one out, why a teacher would suggest applying as an international. As a resident alien, you have essentially the same rights with regards to school as any US citizen. Moreover, since you have been attending high school in the US, you qualify for in-state tuition at your state schools. I wonder, though, if you would be better off going to school in Canada. Are public schools there free, as in many European countries?</p>
<p>I don’t know about tuition at all Canadian schools, but I do know that McGill is $7.5k for Canadians and $15-27K for Americans.</p>
<p>zma, my son is a PR with Alien number and I can assure you there is no benefit whatsoever to applying as an international student. In fact, it would be insane!</p>
<p>If you did, for example, at a school like University of Michigan, your tuition would go up by $30,000 a year and your chance of admission would reduce to less than 6% ;)</p>
<p>So, your teacher is wildly inaccurate – you really need to disregard any other misinformation provided by him or her.</p>
<p>However, the sole advantage to being a Canadian who has PR status in the US is that you ALSO have some awesome and economically viable choices in Canada. Canadian schools will treat you as a Canadian citizen for the purpose of tuition, and in Ontario, for example, you will be eligible for OSAP loans as soon as you move to attend a Cdn school.</p>
<p>OSAP loans are much better IMHO than US Fed/Stafford loan because: a) up to 50% of the loan is forgiven if you complete the degree and b) last time I looked the interest was barely 3% of them (compared to a limit of freshman stafford loans in the US of $5500 and only partial interest subsidy depending on income and 6.8% interest.)</p>
<p>By the same token, Cdn universities do not “discount by merit awards” nearly as much as U.S. schools. In the end, my son received a generous scholarship from a top US school and chose that route. But it was nice to have a few Cdn schools as financial safeties lined up, and it’s a great place to do fully funded grad work!</p>
<p>Best wishes in your search!</p>