I’m an (Asian) international student and I’m very new to the US college system so please help!
I graduated from a private high school in 2017(not in the US) and I didn’t get into any of the colleges that I wanted to go. I have an IB Diploma with a score of 32 and GPA of 5.6/7. I’m planning to retake the IB exams this coming May and I’m also planning to take the ACTs. I think I have good ECs: Varsity Basketball, Softball, and Soccer, President of a cultural club, Student ambassadors, Tri M Music honors society plus IB CAS service works.
I heard that US colleges don’t really care about IB scores because they put more weight on GPA and ACT/SAT scores. Does this mean even if I retake the IB exams and get a descent score, this won’t help much in terms of my admission chances (and scholarship chances)?
Also, I really need scholarship to go to schools in the US and I heard that most of the universities in Texas give out of state tuition waivers to international students if they receive at least $1000 of merit scholarship. Is it relative easy to receive this or is it very competitive (would IB score of 38+ and ACT over 32 be good enough) ?
I’m aiming for UT Austin and Texas A&M for architecture.
International IB applicants shouldn’t have a GPA. Just submit your IB predicted or actual IB score.
UT doesn’t offer the scholarship deal to internationals as far as I know. TAMU upped the amount required for the OOS waiver (to 4k I think).
Look at UTD (AES) etc.
Why Texas universities?
I don’t believe TAMU gives a waiver. It actually says on their website “Financial aid is generally not available to new international students, and financial assistance to continuing students is limited.”
They have a office of International Student Services that I would contact if I were you.
Also I don’t think retaking the IB will help in getting in, but again the ISS department could better answer that
Thank you guys for replying!
Im aiming for texas universities because they give out out of state tuition waivers to international students and that’s the only big scholarship i can get as an international student applying to a public uni i think.
I know that UT and TAMU both give OOS waivers but I was wondering if any international student actually got it previously and if so, with what stats?
I contacted the ISS department for UT Austin but they didnt really reply to my email. They just sent me this pre written message that they copy and paste and send to everyone so i felt like they didn’t really care about international students :’(
Any international students who got in wanna share some info?
UMN Morris has an automatic OOS tuition waiver. Truman State doesn’t but its price is quite reasonable. Both are very good colleges.
UMW has automatic merit for stats (there’s a grid where you can see your GPA and sat score and automatically know what you’re eligible for.)
UT DOES NOT have the tuition waiver.
I got accepted to UT as an international student last year with a 1310 SAT and my A-Level results were an A B C and I know people with much higher sats than me that got rejected. I would say focus hard on your essays and extracurriculars. Just remember that at the end of the day college addmisions is a crapshoot