Financial Aid for International Students

Hi, I’m an international student from a developing country in Central America and I study at a private school in my country. However, my family (single mom) makes less than 30,000 USD a year and I was wondering how will universities will look upon that. I know that many universities rely on international students paying at least the full cost of tuition or at least a significant portion of it. Also, my family can contribute with up to 20,000 USD a year but I don’t know if any university would be able to know that since they base that on the expected contribution which is based on the yearly income, which according to the internet, for families that make less than 35,000 USD is 0. Would this mean, that if they determine I’m not able to pay anything at all (which is not the case), they would straight reject me. It’s worth mentioning I have no siblings and I’m my mom’s only dependant.

There are two types of aid: financial aid and merit aid.

For financial aid, some colleges say that they “meet need”- that is through some combination of subsidized loans and grants they will help you cover the difference between what the college costs and what they think you can afford to pay.

Colleges that ‘meet need’ are either need-blind or need aware. Need aware colleges take into account how much financial aid you need when deciding whether to accept you.

There are small number of (very selective) colleges that are both need-blind and meet full need: that is, if you can get in, they will make up the difference based on their estimate of what you can afford to pay.

Colleges that don’t ‘meet need’ worry less about whether you can afford to come when deciding whether to accept you. As many students discover, you can get an offer from a college, but not enough aid to make it possible, which is crushing.

Merit aid is a gift from the school based on what you bring to the table - usually SAT / ACT scores and GPA. There are some colleges that post exactly what the requirements are for a given level of support (University of Alabama and University of South Carolina, for example). There are also some high profile scholarships for outstanding students (look at Vanderbilt or Duke for examples).

The “Expected Family Contribution” (EFC) varies by college- there is no one magic number.

Finally, the number of international students at US colleges typically ranges from 8-15%. Ignoring the current covid situation and associated travel issues, admissions is not easy for international students- even when they can pay their own way. When you want somebody else to pay for your education what you bring to the party matters a lot! And that brings us around to: how competitive a candidate are you?

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Hey, thank you for the breakdown of the types of aid. I knew about these to a certain level. I have a cumulative GPA of 3.8 unweighted (around 2-3 Bs and one C in music which in my country isn’t an elective but a requirement). No APs since my school doesn’t offer them and I won’t be able to sit down the SAT due to Covid restrictions. In terms of ECs, I have been a member of the student council since freshmen year, being class president, high school secretary and student body president accordingly. I’m also a member of the debate club and recently won third place at the National MUN competition. I have quite some hours of volunteering, which I expected to have more, not for the sake of applying to college but because I genuinely enjoy helping. How competitive would you say I am?

“I have a cumulative GPA of 3.8 unweighted”

How does this compare to other students in your school?

In some school systems (including where I went to high school) B’s and C’s are very common, and it is very rare or even unheard of for any student to have straight A’s. The very top students where I went to high school all had quite a few B’s, and possibly even some C’s. In some other school systems (including some in the US) there will be multiple students who have nothing but A’s.

Generally speaking admissions at universities in the US will know more than you might expect about the typical grading systems in your country or even your school. As such how your grades compare with others in your high school will be important.

Honestly, with Covid who knows how admissions will run this year! As @DadTwoGirls said, where you stand in your class will be relevant.

You should be able to afford Brigham Young.

Well that’s very true, at the end of the day they’re going to compare me not only in terms of their international applicant pool but also how I stood up among my high school. As I mentioned earlier, I go to a private school and high school classes aren’t that big, mine is about 70-75 people and I don’t know if my school ranks student but I would be like #9 which would put me on the top 15%, which I know that isn’t that much impressive considering that the class is substantially small in comparison to US high schools. Bs are common in my school for almost all students, however Cs are not. I do have a valid explanation for that, since for music class, it wasn’t music theory, it was to play the guitar. All of my other classmates could since they’ve been doing it since middle school (middle school and high school are all in the same building and program in my country). Although many people would consider that easy, I personally struggled. I’m not a musical person and I think that is valid for many people. Overall, I did put as much effort as I could but still couldn’t achieve that B. I know a B would have been better than a C but things happen. How would a C in a class like music look like?

Re: your C in guitar, some colleges rre-calculate GPA with just the core academic classes (science, math, social science, english/native language, foreign language).

I have sympathy for the required guitar class- collegekid1 had a required art class in the first year of secondary where the entire grade for the year was the drawing you did during the final exam. Tough on a kid whose strengths lay elsewhere! but…there is unfairness everywhere, and as an international student who is looking for somebody else to pay for a significant part of their education, you just have to keep your eye on the end goal.

You might get more useful replies if you say more about your priorities in getting a college education in the US. Besides the adventure of going to the US, what are you looking for? Do you have particular colleges / programs in mind? Do you have ideas about what you want to study, and what you want to do with your degree when you go home after 4 years?

Given that it looks as though Brigham Young is both affordable and that you would have a decent shot at admission, what else would you want from a college?

Not sure I understand the BYU rec, considering all but 1 or 2% of the student body is mormon…meaning there is a huge fit component there.

Are you a rising senior? Will you be able to take the SAT between now and Nov/Dec?

agree, @Mwfan1921…but OP wants to go to college in the US with a COA under $20K- BYU would be about that, and s/he would have a decent shot at admission. I don’t have any idea how colleges are going to vet international, finaid needing international students next year, esp given the testing situation.

IF OP is able to take the SAT or ACT AND the OP gets some strong scores, THEN we could give more helpful suggestions of places that s/he would have a shot. But, in the absence of any other info, I figured start with a known baseline, and go from there.

Thanks to everyone for the advice. I really appreciate it. I know things are uncertain as they are right now and only time will tell how this year’s admissions will be for international students. Thank you all for the help.

We can’t make good recs for this student right now because we don’t know enough about their rigor and HS rank.

I am not sure I agree that an international, non-latter day saint would have a ‘decent shot’ of admission at BYU, but without the aforementioned info I can’t evaluate that.

Last year’s international, non-latter day saint COA at BYU was $25K. So maybe could get close to the $20K price, but that doesn’t include travel to and from school, mandatory health insurance, and other extra living costs. https://enrollment.byu.edu/admissions/international

I also encourage OP to really try and get a good SAT score, if their HS instruction is not in English they also need to take the TOEFL.

Additional questions for OP so that posters can make better recs:

HS rank?
Number of honors classes?
Senior year classes?
How many classes in each core area (E, SS, Sci, Math, FL) will you graduate with?
Do you have a safety school option in your home country?

You will definitely need to have a safety option or three in your home country. As previous posters mentioned, no one really knows what to expect from this fall’s admissions season. Give it a shot, by all means, but don’t lay all your hopes for the future on it happening.

One thing is for certain, though, and that is the economy will continue to struggle, which is going to make financial aid even harder to come by. For this reason, I think it can only help you to sit for either the SAT or ACT. I don’t know whether anyone has made the TOEFL “optional” as of yet.