I am an international applicant from Italy. While I have already defined my college list and of course working on the supplements/essays, I can’t decide whether or not to include four colleges (I can easily write their supplements in 2 days). I will be applying for a lot of financial aid. Intended major: Internatinal relations/Political science.
(The ones with an asterisk are the ones I can remove)
Amherst
Bates
Brown*
Colby
Colgate
Hamilton *
Harvard
Macalester *
Pomona
Stanford
Tufts
UPenn
Williams*
Yale
I know that most of them are reaches. However, I am not attracted to the LACs that are very generous with finaid to international students, for many reasons, including their location, the strength of their IR/PS programs and other factors.
Note that Bates, Colby, Colgate have free app fees. The total cost of applying (including app fees, SAT/TOEFL score reports) would be around USD 1200 (all colleges) and around USD 800 without those with the asterisk.
Should I remove all the colleges with the asterisk or just some of them? What do you think about my college list?
@mom2collegekids SAT 2290, SAT 2/TOEFL coming out in 2 days. GPA (Italian GPA converted) 4.1. Aid needed: currently, I can pay a maximum of $8-10k (so 45k+ in aid), but this depends A LOT on the next few months, because of some dynamics within my dad’s business. So by the time I will be sending the finaid documents (from mid-Feb to March 1, except for the ED2 college, due Jan1) I could be able to afford more than double the current figure.
Depends on the definition of low income, but I would say definitely yes, quite below the low income threshold.
@CaliCash As I will be on winter break, I will be free and will be able to spend entire days and nights working on those supplements.
Part of writing supplements is being able to write, get a pair of fresh eyes to look at it, giving yourself time away from it to brew new ideas and reviewing it again. Not just cramming it in. Rather than giving yourself two days to do everything, which is not as easy as it seems, you should spend a little bit of time each day. Some schools have 3-4 supplements. Don’t wait. Start today.
It is how your dad’s business did last year that will mostly matter in the FA picture. Also, colleges tend to take the assets of a small business into account, at least partially, in calculating your FA.
You already have ten schools you seem sure about. Keeping the schools you are not very interested in for one or more reasons, excepting those, if any, at which you would have a better chance of admission, will not strengthen your list – that is, as long as you are sure of your reasons.
With the respect to free applications, this can lead to an acceptance, which can lead to a four-year experience. These are pretty far-reaching implications for such an arbitrary beginning. I wouldn’t include any college over another on the basis of a free application. Though of course you hadn’t said that you had.
The schools I am 110% sure about and would immediately enroll are:
Amherst
Bates
Harvard
Pomona
Stanford
Tufts
UPenn
Yale
Brown
Williams
I am not removing those four colleges just because I don’t like them. Brown for example has a very strong IR program, and Williams’ Political Science/Global Studies is very good. I would totally enroll in any of the two. It is just that the cost of applying to the 10 colleges already on the list is quite an issue. So I am afraid that applying to more is not possible. And having to remove two, I’d pick Williams, Brown, Hamilton and Macalester.
Free apps: I am not applying there because they have free apps. They are all very generous towards international students, and they are strong in IR/Political Science. However, I am also applying/have already applied to schools here in Europe and Italy.
Let’s say that:
All colleges except Colby (free app) reject me
Colby accepts me and offers me very good finaid
Another school in Europe accepts me
At this point, I will weigh the different options and choose where to enroll. Of course, if I get into one of the colleges above (in this message) with adequate financial aid, I will attend regardless of where I get into in Europe.
“FA needed” does not mean anything. If you are accepted and the school meets need, your FA will be calculated by your family’s income and assets. What you think you can pay and what they think may not be aligned. So giving us an amount of FA you want to receive is meaningless.
You eliminated LACs because you don’t like their locations, but kept Colby and Williams (isolated LACs) because of the presumed strength of their IR/Poly Sci majors? They are both excellent schools but not obvious choices for these particular majors. The usual suspects would be the schools on lists like this:
I’m not saying these schools are the only ones for you majors - you can google lots of lists that select according to various criteria - but you’ll see the same names over an over give or take a few. So I’m curious how you came up with the names on your list.
All of your “110% sure” schools are reaches for you (because they’re a reach for anyone) . I don’t want to discourage you but the reality is you should not count on getting accepted into any of them. Even if you get accepted you may not get much or any merit aid. You should hope for the best, of course, but don’t count on it.
You need to have other easier options where you are more likely to get accepted. Otherwise you may spend all this time applying and not get into any school. A less prestigious school is more likely to give a student with good scores, like you, merit aid.
If application cost is an issue, I would recommend drop half of the schools on your “110%” sure list - keeping half as “dream schools” - and replace them with schools that have a higher acceptance rate and where you have a chance of getting in plus aid.
