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Could you elaborate how it is relevant whether the OP is a native speaker or a citizen of the UK (rather than another European country)?</p>
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MIT too is need-blind for international students; but I don’t see how a college with a 4% international admission rate that can hand-pick the top students from each country qualifies as a safety for anyone.</p>
<p>Which country are you living now?</p>
<p>Berium - I agree with much of what you said, but I do disagree with one of your points, at least as it relates to London students going to uni. in the USA. I do think that British kids (excluding kids that go to American schools in the UK) are disproportionately found at the top 30-ish ranked schools on the East Coast. I did an informal, unscientific study of the top 8 London private schools for the last 3 to 5 years (depending on the data that I could find) and the vast majority of these kids go to well-known private unis in the Boston-Washington corridor plus a few other great schools such as Chicago, Stanford, UVA and Duke (all of which have fairly easy access to international airports) plus a smaller number going to top LACs such as Amherst and Wiliams. These kids are unlikely to get much financial aid, as their parents have already been able to send them to private secondary schools. </p>
<p>Therefore, my point made earlier is that schools such as Georgetown and NYU for some reasons seem to be way more popular than other great schools with broadly similar ratings, such as Vanderbilt, Wash U, Notre Dame, Oberlin, etc. The only reasons for this are 1) easier transportation links for the East Coast schools from London and 2) better name recognition of these schools among the London “Chattering Classes” dinner-party circuit. </p>
<p>Therefore my original advice to the OP still stands (which is what he asked in the first place) if financial aid is not an issue: look at schools outside of the Boston-Washington Amtrak corridor and you might get into a higher quality school than you would have by just looking at East Coast unis.</p>
<p>I am a lady haha.
I live in Ireland (relevance?).
I like a lot of schools in the Midwest and have a lot from Texas and California on my list. I won’t be able to entirely cover my costs, as my govt. won’t give me anything to study over there, but should have enough to be competitive.</p>
<p>I strongly recommend you to apply to CalTech because you are a female and CalTech wants female students desperately due to low percentage of female student body (40% female to 60% male). One of my friends who are also an international female got in to CalTech with only SAT I 1860 (CR610/MATH630/WR620), SAT II MATH620/PHY630/CHEM670. Also, to take advantage of diversity program, Ireland passport will help you more than UK passport because there are more UK students in US than Ireland students.</p>
<p>That’s pretty decent advice, thanks! And well done to your friend : )</p>
<p>Don’t forget Wellesley, the best female-only college with huge financial aid for internationals near Boston. Also, you will have chance to take classes at Harvard & MIT as a Wellesley’s student.</p>
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That may be true for the upper-class London crowd but not for international students in general. Georgetown enrolls 6% international students as does Vanderbilt. Wash U is 7% international. Three years ago NYU was only 6% international as well. (I am cautious of using current numbers for NYU because the new Abu Dhabi branch might skew the international numbers quite a bit.) </p>
<p>Notre Dame might be a bit less popular among international students because of their strong religious character. </p>
<p>I am not saying that geographic location does not matter at all, but it seems to be a LOT less important than a whole range of other factors for the international pool in total. And to the extent that it matters, I cannot imagine that it’s the proximity to a major international airport that’s the main concern for most students. I have international friends who wanted to be in or near a big city for social or career reasons, or who wanted to be on one of the two coasts for cultural reasons (scared of conservative bible belt America). I had never actually encountered the airport argument before you brought it up.</p>
<p>I should add that most of the international students I socialize with are on financial aid of some sort (e.g. college-administered or a government scholarship from their home country). This group of students probably has very different priorities from London private school students. Then again, I wonder how relevant the preferences of your London kids are to the OP.</p>
<p>@b@r!um preferences of the London kids: very relevant!</p>
<p>Preferences of London kids who are insensitive to price?</p>
<p>Since you mentioned financial safeties earlier, I was assuming that financial aid is a factor - but I might reading more into your words than what you intended to say. Can you please clarify whether or not you are seeking financial aid?</p>
<p>In my own experience, full-paying international applicants go about their college search very differently from aid-seeking applicants. International applicants seeking aid will go where ever the aid is and flock to any decent college offering aid; that’s why I have been insisting that you won’t find any good colleges which are both semi-generous with aid and not very popular among international students.</p>
<p>If you can pay a $50,000/year price tag, we’re talking about an entirely different ballgame altogether.</p>
<p>Berium, fair points. Just to add another point. A lot of Europeans I know (not just students) really do not flying domestically in the USA. The combination of extreme security checks, different baggage rules than international flights, late arrivals and more propeller planes really turns some people off.</p>
<p>stayposi - can I just throw out a couple more ideas?</p>
<p>1) Somebody already mentioned Wellesley, but have you checked out other women’s colleges such as Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Scripps and maybe something a bit lower down the list such as Trinity U (DC)? These schools have generally higher acceptance rates than coed schools with similar academics reputations. A Russian friend of mine’s daughter graduated from Smith and absolutely loved it (ditto for her sister who went to Williams)
; and</p>
<p>2) Have you checked out Carnegie Mellon? It is rated #23 by US News and Pittsburgh is a great city. You can’t fly direct from Dublin, but there are easy connections through NY or Philly. The American School in London sent one kid there this year but I don’t know of anybody else that has gone there from London, although it looks like the school is 15% international, although I presume that is primarily engineering snd science majors.</p>
<p>@b@r!um As I stated earlier, I won’t be able to pay FULL price but enough to be competitive; I have read on admissions pages that the ability to meet a certain amount per year can give students an edge, in the need-aware schools.
@londondad I am applying to Trinity U and was considering Mt. Holyoke. 15%, that’s great. Thank you!</p>
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I am kind of amused to hear you say this, in a thread titled “Good colleges that don’t have a lot of Int’l students?”</p>
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Carnegie Mellon doesn’t offer any financial aid to international students at all.</p>
<p>Are you talking about the same Trinity? Trinity in DC might be quite a culture shock for a European middle class student (it’s ~ 90% black and Hispanic, and the average student contributes less than $2,000 to her education). </p>
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Did you ever run your numbers through an [EFC</a> calculator](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>Expected Family Contribution (EFC) – BigFuture) to get an estimate how much financial aid you might qualify for? Somehow, middle class families always seem to be asked for way more money than what they think they can afford. I recall that being a concern for a few European friends who were applying to college with me. They all had to take out extra loans (in addition to the loans in their financial aid package) to cover their EFC. A year into college, several decided that the cost simply wasn’t worth it and transferred to a cheaper university (either in the US or back to Europe).</p>
<p>"Carnegie Mellon doesn’t offer any financial aid to international students at all. "</p>
<p>Berium, I am curious, how does CMU get 15% international students without financial aid? Is it full-pay students or are they getting grants from their home governments? Thanks.</p>
<p>I doubt whether it’s possible to ascertain which international students at CMU are full-pay or receive some sort of grants from their home countries. My bet would be they are full-pay, or close to it.</p>
<p>Katliamom - You are probably right. It just seems like a larger percentage than I would have thought. I guess part of it is that it is a big science and engineering college. Yet, Caltech has 11% international students and MIT 9% and I think that MIT provides some aid to internationals.</p>