So I’m now offered admission to UMich, UCLA, UCSD, UIUC, Purdue and a hell lot more. Now you intl students might notice that none of the schools above is willing to offer fin aid, or not need-blind. Without the aid, my family will have a really tough time sending me to the States for college. And I believe I’m not the only one who has encountered such problem.
What did you guys do? How did you manage to solve this problem?
I was thinking if I could take my admission (e.g. UCLA) and show it to UMich, showing that there’s other prominent schools that desperately want me, maybe UMich would give me some aid for my value. What do you guys think? What other ways can you think of?
I think most people solve that problem by applying to schools that give aid to international students. A lot of those will be privates, not publics.
No UCLA will not give you more aid.They do not care about your other offers. They just don’t have it to give, by policy and budget. If Michigan is affordable I would go there it is just as excellent.
Your mistake is that you applied to PUBLIC schools, ones that are funded largely by state taxpayers - and ones that save their scholarship/FA money for state residents.
All international students who need financial aid should focus on those few public schools that give some FA to internationals – or private schools which can give money to whoever they want.
This is something we stress over and over on CC: it’s not enough to get admitted to a school. You must be among those few who are also awarded FA. And for an international student, that’s not easy.
You should have done better researches on merit scholarships based on scores/GPA or ranking.
If you can, take a gap year and re-apply to other schools that give merit scholarship. Like,
Fordham
U of Richmond-Bonner scholarship
U of Alabama(doesn’t feel like it because it’s in south? It’s top 5% public school)
Howard U
LSU full ride scholarship
Kenyon
Mount Holyoke(if you are a female)
Macalester
I think you’re confused about how and why schools might review financial aid packages. When posters on cc talk about asking a school to reconsider their FA package based on another school’s offer, they mean show School A the financial aid package they’ve been offered by School B, not the acceptance letter. I think that sometimes works between 2 private schools if they’re on the same tier, but I don’t know if it’s possible to get additional aid from a public school. They usually don’t have a lot to give to begin with. If UCLA offered you enough aid to make it affordable and UMich didn’t, you’re probably better off attending UCLA.
Wow thanks a lot for those comments. To set the record straight, I did apply to private schools that would offer FA like Harvard Yale and a bunch of elite schools, it’s just that the results ain’t out yet.
Did you apply to any schools you would consider “safety” schools? Because Harvard, Yale and “a bunch of elite schools” are a reach for everyone, especially if you need FA.
They are need blind. But the competition is ENORMOUS. Unless you’ve cured cancer, the odds are against you at all these schools. It’s like playing the lottery. And even if you’re admitted, they may not give you enough FA when it comes time to decide these things.
I know they are extremely difficult to get in, but I’m not just a dreamer day dreaming about getting into Ivy League. I got decent score and conducted a hell lot of EAs. I thought I had a shot tho…
Dartmouth actually promises to 100% meet all admitted students’ financial need. So there’s that.
PS Ironically, I cured a painful genetic disease when I was 15.
Yeah I do need tons of luck
And of course I can always study in my own country if things go wrong as a backup plan. So no worries.
No offense but I think my attitude is fine. If I have to spend every last dime from my parents’ pocket and study at a school in a foreign country, it’d better be a good one, or I should stay here for another four years.
I am a recovering patient from Rheumatoid Arthritis, a rare disease.
It’s perfectly fine to apply only to the tippy top universities in the US, if one would rather attend a university in another country than a non-elite US university.
I’m less convinced that it’s a good idea to spend the family fortune on a UCLA or Michigan education, but that too is a personal choice that your family is entitled to make.
When you decide if a US education is worth the money you’d have to pay to attend the public universities, please be aware that it’s extremely difficult to get a work visa to stay in the US after college. (Right now employers can only submit work visa applications one week of the year, and then there’s a lottery held to decide which applications will get processed at all…) That is to say, only spend a lot of money on a US college education if you’d be happy to return back to your home country with the degree.
Yeah I think UCLA or UMuch wouldn’t be my choices. My say is Berkeley bottom line. I never thought of the things I’d do after college. I always thought if I work hard enough, I probably could do an internship at some huge companies like Microsoft or Google for junior or sophomore summer. And that will boost my chance to get into those companies, which provide work visas generously, after graduation.