<p>Hi, I am an international student who is planing to apply to US colleges this year. Well, actually, I am living in the State...
Before moving further, I have to admit that I am highly ambitious and excelled in my high school work; therefore, I am looking at top colleges.
At first, I did private college counseling to "choose" the best fit but found out that as an international student applying for FA, I am not in position of choosing.
Anyway, here is my original list:
Reach: Yale (EA), Williams, Dartmouth, Amherst
50:50: Middlebury, Wesleyan, Dickinson, Vassar
Safety: Conneticut (I am working on the safety school.)
However, I found out that most of safety schools are not so generous with International students. So I wonder if I should not apply to safety AT ALL and instead fill the spaces with top colleges that are generous toward Int'l students like Harvard and Princeton.</p>
<p>p.s. If you know good colleges are not pretty generous with int'l studnets' FA's, please post their names. Thank you.</p>
<p>My experience as an international applicant this year:
I applied to women's colleges that give financial aid to internationals - Wellesley, Smith, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, as well as to a few co-ed colleges - UPenn, Colby, Trinity, Hamilton. I almost didn't apply to Bryn Mawr because of the application fee and the fact that they only give fin aid to 10-15 internationals a year (with about 300 students applying for it) while the other colleges support up to 70. Needless to say, Bryn Mawr was the only one that admitted me with enough fin aid to attend; the only other place I was accepted at was Mount Holyoke but with crappy fin aid. Interestingly, Bryn Mawr currently enrolls no other German student (their website has a list of the origin of their international students).
A quick sketch of my stats: 34 ACT, 2 x 800 SAT II, valedictorian, placement in the National German Math Olympiad, otherwise average ECs.</p>
<p>For a true safety school, you could look into colleges that are generous with merit aid. You may not like to attend them, but better a college like that than no college at all (my safety would have been a German university).</p>
<p>If you are a very competitive student, try applying to a school that is not so famous, but offers some financial aid to internationals and show interest for them, so they really understand you want to attend. They will give that little amount of FA to the best students that apply, and if you are one of them, try your chance. Of course, if you are admitted in places like Yale, you won't have any problem, anyway, but it's a reach even for the best students from the world.</p>