<p>Are there any ways of getting a full scholarship for an international student?
With a high GPA and SAT scores and a long list of extracurricular activities, awards and publications... is it possible at all?</p>
<p>Apply to schools that are need-blind to internationals</p>
<p>In USA, probably not scholarships but financial aid. Apply to need-blind school international (very few). I believe that Cambridge and Oxford gives 3 full-scholarships to internations.</p>
<p>USC has scholarships too (merit aid) for internationals but it’s very competitive and not FULL scholarship (full tution, 1/2 tuition)</p>
<p>Colgate University is quite generous but the competition is tough.</p>
<p>The need-blind colleges aren’t always the only way to get financial aid. </p>
<p>Also, they are need-blind for admission but the awarding of aid is based on your family’s finances. That is to say, if you family is deemed to be able to pay, then you will not get financial aid.</p>
<p>Also, I don’t think the statement about Cambridge and Oxford is true.</p>
<p>UAlabama has some scholarships too but mostly partial.</p>
<p>You have two options: need-based aid and merit scholarships.</p>
<p>If you want to go the need-based route, you want to apply to colleges and universities that promise to meet the full demonstrated need of international students. They do not need to be need-blind though. In fact, your odds of getting into Mount Holyoke (need-sensitive) on financial aid are probably higher than your odds of getting into Harvard (need-blind) because Harvard receives many more applications from international students. Most of the need-based aid for internationals is awarded by the top 20 national universities and the top 50 liberal arts colleges (by US News ranking).</p>
<p>Merit-based aid comes in two big categories: for academics and for sports. If you are hoping for an athletic scholarship, you need to get in touch with Div I colleges coaches yourself (soon!) or work with an agency. Unfortunately, academic full-rides are getting increasingly rare. (There are still many full tuition scholarships out there, if you could make that work.) Off the top of my head, Villanova and the University of New Orleans used to award merit-based full rides the last time I checked, just to get you started.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I am not aware of a systematic way of searching for universities with merit-based aid for internationals. When I applied to college a few years ago, I used Collegeboard’s college search engine to get a list of all colleges with my major and offering some sort of aid to international students. I got a list of 400 universities, which I checked for financial aid and scholarship opportunities by hand. Most of them were flukes, but I did find the college I ended up attending this way.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for your replies, it clears some things up for me…
b@r!um, thanks for the College Board search engine advice, I’ll try it!</p>
<p>You should check out merit scholarships as opposed to need based scholarships in lieu of the recession.
Check out the university of Richmond’s scholars program :)</p>
<p>Princeton, MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Dartmouth offer need blind FA to international students.</p>
<p>^ No, admission is need-blind but FA is need-based.</p>
<p>^ That’s what i meant, ty for the correction.</p>
<p>Yes, it is possible. But it is like a lottery ticket. If you have financial need, you need to look at schools that do give financial aid to international students. If they don’t , you have zero chance at those school of getting financial aid. For those schools that do give aid to international students, you have the same issues as US students,though your options may be more limited because schools may have quotas on international students and because you won’t be eligible for government aid that is often also in aid packages. But even schools that are not need blind do give financial aid to those they accept. It’s just that they will deny you rather than accept you and not offer you adequate aid. In fact, you may have a better chance of getting a decent aid package at those schools IF accepted, since they don’t want to bother with truly inadequate aid acceptances.</p>
<p>If you have no need, merit awards are the only way to go , and if you have truly amazing stats/profile, that may be the way to go even if you have need. Again, you need to check if internationals are eligible for the awards at given schools.</p>