<p>Many schools that are need blind and meet full need for American students do NOT for international students. You have to check with each school to find out the policies for international students. They differ from school to school. If you need financial aid, merit money, make sure the school even gives it to international students. Otherwise you can be fishing in a pond with no fish.</p>
<p>Whether you get accepted on your need aware status and whether a school will meet your need is up to chance. You do have those additional risk factors. But when you are looking at highly selective schools, it’s very difficult to get accepted anyways, You should also see what the schools think you should be paying by running the NPCs. If it turns out that most schools don’t think you have need by their formulas or their definition does jive with yours, again you could be wasting your time. Even if you get accepted, you won’t get the money. </p>
<p>If you need financial aid, why would you apply to schools without applying for it? You wouldn’t be able to go if you got accepted. The schools aren’t going to turn around and give you the money afterwards. You either can come up with the money somehow or you cannot. In the case of international students, you will have to show US immigration that you can pay for the year at a college when applying for a student visa and they will want verification of where you are getting those funds as well as having to pay the school. So I’m curious why you would even consider applying to a school you know you can’t afford without some financial or merit money, and not applying for aid. Yes, it would up your chances of getting accepted when you don’t need money from the school, but then you won’t get the money from the school and you can’t go. If you are thinking of trying to get around the system by browbeating the school, or begging for the money after getting accepted, just be aware, the schools are aware of international students doing this. Happens all of the time.</p>