<p>can they accept a person and deny them financial aid? is it really worth asking for aid as an int'l or will it just decrease my chances?</p>
<p>it doesnt decrease ur chances. they have financial aid for everyone i believe...</p>
<p>even for int'ls?</p>
<p>no.. dont believe that bullsht...... if FA doesnt hurt, why do they ask for it on the app if you are applying for FA? they say so they can notice the FA office.. but thats also bs... the FA office just do their things by typing numbers in and getting a final number out.. i dont believe FA doesnt hurt... think about it.. someone as strong as u .. when they can only admit one of u two.. and one needs FA and one doesn't.. obvioulsy the one who doesnt will get in .</p>
<p>If a person gets accepted, Princeton does their fullest to make sure he or she can afford to go. Even for internationals.</p>
<p>But then why has the number of internationals stayed at 9% pre-and post-policy change? PW, i'm afraid, is right.</p>
<p>ask about financial aid once you're accepted</p>
<p>Callthecops,</p>
<p>Princeton is known for honoring the commitment to meet full need equally for its ED and RD applicants. With some other colleges, there is the fear that they will be less generous (adding more ooans than grants etc.) with the binding ED applicants.</p>
<p>Princeton is also known to make the awards close to what comes out of their online calculator that we can use to determine the rough aid ourselves. In our case, S was prepared to take personal bank loans, if the award fell short, which we think would have been about 5K/year at the very maximum, if it fell short at all. </p>
<p>Why would Princeton's intls stay at 9% ? Perhaps they want to keep the Intls at about 10 %. That decision need not have to do with money alone. Also, they can easily mint money from Intls if they really want to. It is afterall a very prestigious college, and there are lots of very rich people even in poor countries, not to talk of Europe, Arabian Gulf and other rich far-east countries, who can easily afford Princeton, and are perhaps applying.</p>
<p>either way the admissions office lied then.</p>
<p>"Perhaps they want to keep the Intls at about 10 %."</p>
<p>they said clearly that intl are evalulated and considered based on the same criteria.. they said there are no intl quotas.. and they claim that there are no discrimination against intl.</p>
<p>Like MIT, which has almost the same finaid policy as princeton (except re loans). They clearly specify that they limit intls to 8% of the incoming class...</p>
<p>EDIT: And for this reason, the acceptance rate for intls is ~5% compared to ~15% for US nationals.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Ask about financial aid once you're accepted
[/quote]
Exactly. This is the policy they (and any needblind) college should follow. First evaluate the application without any knowledge of the student's financial condition, offer admission to those eligible, and THEN ask them to apply for fin aid. I'm sure with a little planning, all of this can be done within the same timeframe as our RD rounds... There really is no need to notify ED accepted students about their finaid package at the same time because they have to attend anyway.</p>
<p>I think such a policy will add a degree of accountability to the process...</p>
<p>Princetonwannabe,</p>
<p>What is the percentage of Intl applicants in the total pool of applicants ? About 10 % ? So even without a quota system will it not be reasonable that the admitted percentage is the same as the applicant percentage ? Unless of course there is evidence that the Intl pool of applicants is somehow far more stronger than the domestic pool of applicants. BTW, my son also applied as an Intl.</p>
<p>Empirically, I think the int'l pool tends to be stronger - if only because only the very best intl's will even think of applying to Princeton (or abroad in general). Even then, according to their website (link below) intls made up 14% of applicants but 8% of admits (and 8% of incoming class). On the other hand, I think they are serious when they (and any other college) say they are need blind. When I applied last year, I told them I was taking a gap year and would fill in the financial forms next year, and the admissions officer said that simply wasn't a consideration. I never recieved an your-app-is-incomplete letter/email because I didn't fill in the forms from any of the need blind colleges, though I recieved one from Cornell. I don't know if I trust them, as I was rejected anyway, but all those who got in from our high school recieved aid. (On the other hand, the Davis foundation pays the fin aid for graduates from my high school.)</p>
<p>Here's the link:
<a href="http://www.princeton.edu/pr/facts/profile/04/08.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.princeton.edu/pr/facts/profile/04/08.htm</a></p>