<p>Hey guys!</p>
<p>I've written to a few colleges that offer full need based financial aid to international students, and I was wondering if people on CC know any more. I'll be a applying probably to all the schools so i have a better chance of getting accepted.
I've written to: Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Hamilton, Vassar, Vanderbilt, Middlebury, Amherst, Grinnel, Colby, Pomona and I think that's it.</p>
<p>Are there any more anyone knows about? </p>
<p>Grazie!</p>
<p>Many colleges offer only one or two full scholarships to international students. In some cases, there is only one available at any given time and can’t be awarded to anyone else until the person who holds it graduates. If you run the search engines like the ones at <a href=“http://www.collegeboard.com%5B/url%5D”>www.collegeboard.com</a> you will identify more colleges that offer aid to international students.</p>
<p>If you haven’t already done so, make an appointment with the counselors at the EducationUSA office in Bucharest, and get their help with this. They will be able to tell you where students from Romania have been admitted recently, and whether or not they received the kind of financial aid that you would need: [EducationUSA</a> - Center Profile - Fulbright Educational Advsing Center](<a href=“http://www.educationusa.info/Fulbright-Romania]EducationUSA”>http://www.educationusa.info/Fulbright-Romania)</p>
<p>If you don’t limit yourself to the “top” colleges, there are gems that have amazing programs.</p>
<p>[International</a> Students | Admissions - Berea College](<a href=“http://www.berea.edu/admissions/international/default.asp]International”>http://www.berea.edu/admissions/international/default.asp)</p>
<p>[International</a> Students | Financial Aid - Berea College](<a href=“http://www.berea.edu/admissions/international/costs-and-financial-aid.asp]International”>http://www.berea.edu/admissions/international/costs-and-financial-aid.asp)</p>
<p>Thank you! I don’t limit myself to the top schools, no, but generally those are the ones I knew offered full aid for internationals! Thanks for the link again! Will certainly look into it</p>
<p>alisyn, keep in mind that while the schools on your list meet full need for ADMITTED international students, not all of them are need blind for admissions. This means that your ability to pay will be considered when your application for admissions is considered.</p>
<p>Yes, I am aware of that. I know that only Harvard I think is need blind as well.</p>
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<p>Which of the schools on his list meets full need for admitted students but are not need blind for admissions? I always thought meet full need for admitted students automatically implied need blind in admissions, but apparently I was wrong. :(</p>
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<p>The catch with this is that the student has to be poor enough to be admitted. There are some students who need financial aid but are too rich to attend Berea College.</p>
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<p>Princeton and Amherst College are need blind as well. :)</p>
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<p>Need blind - This means a school does NOT consider your financial need when they are considering your ADMISSIONS application. It has nothing to do with your eventual financial aid award.</p>
<p>Guarantees to Meet Full Need- This is a school that guarantees to meet full financial need (as the school computes that need to be) for all admitted students. It is a financial aid thing and has nothing to do with admissions.</p>
<p>I believe there are 6 or so schools that are BOTH need blind AND meet full need for international students. Many schools that meet full need are NEED AWARE (meaning they DO consider financial need when looking at admissions) for international students.</p>
<p>Also there are schools that are need blind for admissions but do NOT award financial aid at all to international students.</p>
<p>Exactly 
So I’m just looking for the very few that DO offer full demonstrated need, be the school need blind or need aware. Mostly why I’m going to apply to so many is that they are need aware, so I’m going to try to get into at least one.
I have a good application, but <$15k a year makes it impossible for me to pay, so full ride would be awesome</p>
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<p>You do need to know a couple of things. First, your need based financial aid will be determined largely by your parents’ income in US dollars and their assets. Most of the schools on your list give need based aid only. The SCHOOLS will compute your financial need…not your family. I would strongly suggest you run your family numbers through an online EFC calculator using the institutional methodology. OR look on some of the school websites…some of them have financial aid calculators for the specific school. This will give you an estimate of what your family contribution will be.</p>
<p>Second…full rides based on merit are not all that common for college students. They are few and far between and are typically awarded to the students at the tippy top of the applicant pool for a school that awards merit aid.</p>
<p>Yeah, I know that too. To get full ride or even close to a full ride, you have to be incredibly lucky. And also, I did use an EFC calculator, and every time, the EFC was 0, having reported everything in USD</p>
<p>What are some examples of some schools that meet full need, but are not need blind in admissions?</p>
<p>Columbia, Pomona, MIT, I think Colgate, and some more. This is for internationals, for US citizens the number is way higher I think</p>
<p>This is for internationals, for US citizens the number is way higher I think.</p>
<p>Can you elaborate what you mean by this?</p>
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<p>They mean that there are MORE schools that are NOT need blind that meet full need for students from the U.S…that for international students.</p>
<p>The reality is that international students in the U.S. receive less need based financial aid than U.S. students who apply for need based aid. There are tons of schools that give ONLY federally funded need based aid. International students are not eligible for that kind of aid at all.</p>
<p>But let’s be clear here…there are less than 50 (I believe that is about the number) of schools that guarantee to meet full need…period.</p>
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<p>Don’t you mean “than”? If you mean “than,” then I understand what you say. I believe you are trying to say that out of all schools that meet full 100% financial demonstrated need that are not need blind in admissions, the said “meet full need” schools meet full need more for USA students than meet full need for international students. Am I correct?</p>
<p>I typed one word wrong. There are MORE schools that meet need for U.S. citizens THAN for international students…period.</p>
<p>bottom line is, if you’re an international student, you either have to be very good and lucky to get financial aid, OR be incredibly rich to afford to pay for college in the USA.
Taking that into consideration, only a bunch of schools have huge endowments that allow them to give out a couple million in aid for internationals. Most schools don’t. And from those that do, a small number can afford to give internationals a full ride, in very lucky cases.</p>
<p>Getting a full ride as an international is exceptionally hard, I dare say much harder than as U.S. students, but it’s not impossible. Below are some of the schools I know give out full rides to international students:
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Dartmouth, U Penn, Duke, University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Brown, Cornell (Cornell generally doesn’t give that much aid. However if you get admitted to any of the Ivies or MIT, Stanford, and Duke, it will match the other schools’ aid offers), Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Middlebury, Wellesley, Vassar, Wesleyan, Smith, Washington and Lee, Hamilton, Harvey Mudd, Bates, Colgate, Mount Holyoke, Occidental, University of Richmond, St. John’s College in Maryland, SOKA University.</p>
<p>If your parents can pay about 10k - 15k, then the you have more options. Most LACs do give generous aid to int’. The same can’t be said for national universities, except for the top-ranked. I suggest you check each school’s website. Their financial aid policy for international is spelled out quite prominently if you know how to search.</p>
<p>Ah, thank you so much! I’m gonna start mailing the rest of the colleges in your list that I haven’t gotten in contact with yet Thanks a bunch!</p>
<p>I had no idea Cornell matches the aid from the iveys. Huh, good to know, because I wasn’t considering them at all because I thought they didn’t offer that much aid. And no, we can’t afford 10-15k. I think 1k is about it :/</p>