filling out fin aid

International students who have filled out financial aid docs, please help here.

  1. So, about an emergency fund, how much money should it be? And if you don’t have it, will it badly hurt your admission( or doesn’t matter since he applies anyway to fin aid?)?
  2. Should you really list every college you applied to?
  3. Another thing is that we have a relative who will provide a support, we indicated the amount but should we send any approving letter or smth like that?( in IFSAA, it is written to give supporting docs for family income and nothing about relatives who will provide help)

Applying to almost full tuition&room(we can cover room and board with my relative’s help), our family income is ridiculously low for the US but average in my country.
Anyone, who is currently studying in the US and had experienced it, can you share your experience with fin aid?

Your emergency fund should be enough that you can afford a plane ticket home, at a minimum. More is better. Unexpected expenses will come up every so often. (For example, I broke a tooth in college. My options were getting it pulled for $200, or a root canal + crown for $1,500. No treatment at all may have turned into a life-threatening infection. Another time my computer broke. I could have managed without if absolutely necessary, but I was glad that I had enough money to replace it.)

Some colleges will force all of their international students to have an emergency fund by requiring a deposit with the school, to be redeemed in the form of a plane ticket home or refunded after graduation/dis-enrollment. Please understand that there are situations where US immigration law requires foreigners to depart the country immediately. If they don’t, they start to accrue “unlawful presence” and make themselves ineligible for future visas.

Applicants leave it blank all of the time and it seems to be okay.

If you have (or can get) documentation, send it. It’s less important for your initial financial aid application and more important for your visa documents later. Colleges are required by law to verify that you have the resources to afford the cost of attendance before they issue your student visa documents. That involves verifying the availability of third-party support.

@b@r!um thanks a lot!
I suppose for an emergency fund we should indicate a source as parent’s income?
For visa, after getting admission there will be an account with that amount of money, so I suppose it is ok to put relatives support for now without documents and then provide documentation for VISA.