<p>Well there are other programs that are lesser known and less prestigious. The one I am familiar with is Berea College. I visited Berea back in the dark ages when <em>I</em> was considering college.</p>
<p>[International</a> Students | Admissions - Berea College](<a href=“http://www.berea.edu/admissions/international/default.asp]International”>http://www.berea.edu/admissions/international/default.asp)</p>
<p>It is a far cry from the “Ivy League.” It fills a very different niche in the academic world - it was created primarily “to provide an educational opportunity primarily for students from Appalachia, black and white, who have great promise and limited economic resources.” </p>
<p>It is “the only school in the United States that provides 100% funding to 100% of enrolled international students for the first year of enrollment. This combination of financial aid and scholarships offsets the costs of tuition, room, board, and fees.” </p>
<p>This is not the same thing as meeting 100% of “need.” Need is defined by the institution and might not be what the student believes his need to be.</p>
<p>In Berea’s case, they fully FUND their students through scholarship and a work program.</p>
<p>The OP is in need of full financial aid - which might not be met with “full need”. Admissions to elite programs are difficult. He should consider Berea, and other programs such as those, instead of singularly focusing on the Ivy League.</p>
<p>OP I think your biggest job will be carefully researching which schools to apply to. I would be hesitant to say that top 20 schools will be matches as you are an international applicant who (I assume) needs financial aid. Don’t just apply to a list based on the rankings. I agree with happymomof1 who recommended a group for you to contact in South Africa. You really need some idea of where kids with similar stats were admitted and what aid they received. </p>
<p>There are many schools outside of the top 20 that will give you a great education!!</p>
<p>Hi SA1133</p>
<p>While your stats are great, there are many people I know who were denied at Ivies, and , at the same time i do know many who got in with stats which weren’t that stellar. </p>
<p>Coming to the financial aid : you must apply to all the need blind colleges - theres just a handful for internationals - amherst, harvard, yale , princeton, dartmouth.</p>
<p>then are the colleges that are need aware, but offer aid to internationals… these include other ivies like brown, cornell, penn, columbia and almost all top 20 univs. (emory, vanderbilt, notre dame, NU, etc.)
getting into these colleges is very difficult because they can be horribly need aware. </p>
<p>Then come the colleges which dont offer need based aid to internationals but offer merit based scholarships…
these are generally ranked lower than other top univs, but you could consider them nonetheless.
Eg: BU, Bentley, American university, … its a long list</p>
<p>Hope this helped. </p>
<p>PS- I just finished with the application process and got some offers, so I could help.You could always pm me if you have any questions!</p>
<p>All of this has helped me tremendously! Thank you so much everyone!
Out of interest - What does OP stand for?
The links you guys have provided and the names of uni’s have been most helpful, and are certainly making a huge difference to my research pattern.
I’m also just interested to get opinions on how my CV is currently looking and what I need to compliment it with to get into a private uni in the States…
So anyone with an opinion? Please let me know!
And once again, thank you all so much.</p>
<p>I think that for a certain caliber of international applicant, at the most selective schools, financial need is not the detriment people make it out to be. For example, there’s a student at my school who got into Stanford, which is not need-blind for internationals, but was waitlisted at MIT and Yale, which are both need-blind. In other words, the one strike against him, his financial need, did not preclude him from getting into one of the most selective schools in the US, while some other random factor did preclude him from gaining admission to two need-blind schools of comparable selectivity.</p>
<p>What I’m trying to say is that if you’re an exceptional candidate, your financial situation won’t sink your application to the very best schools, regardless of their admission policy for internationals. (And therein lies the paradox of international admissions–schools with lesser endowments do care about financial need quite a lot, and may choose to reject even their most impressive international applicants for financial reasons.)</p>
<p>OP = Original Poster</p>
<p>We use that when we can’t recall the username of the person who started the thread, or we are afraid we can’t spell it correctly.</p>