<p>I live in PA. I am an Asian with decent/mediocre stats (SAT 2100, class rank 9 out of 444, etc.).</p>
<p>Now my problem is that I am a Canadian citizen, so where ever I apply I will be considered as an international student except the ivies.</p>
<p>I am applying to two ivies but they are really long shots. I need some major help in finding colleges close to Philadelphia (due to some family situation, I need to stay near Philadelphia) that offer a lot of merit aid or financial aid regardless of citizenship. Any suggested colleges are welcome. They can be outside of Philadelphia but should be max. 1 to 2 hours outside Philly.</p>
<p>And another criteria of mine is that it should be a relatively good reputable school (right now I am considering pre med, so maybe a school with a good science program), so I can get into a top grad. school.</p>
<p>Right now I feel like this is a practically a "get lucky or get completely screwed" college situation. Because even if I go to Penn State, I will probably have about 96,000 dollars in debt.</p>
<p>So please any help would be appreciated. Thank you.</p>
<p>Unless you have a citizen or permanent resident who will cosign those loans, you aren’t going to graduate with that kind of debt because you aren’t going to be able to get those loans in the first place.</p>
<p>Many medical schools do not admit international applicants at all. Of those that do, many require the four years of med-school tuition and fees up-front. If you are serious about medicine, go to college and med school in Canada. Yes I know it isn’t close to Philly, but if you are in a big city, you can fly back in an emergency to deal with your family issues.</p>
<p>If you need to stay near Philly, then run a search for places within X miles of your home, and check out each of the ones that turn up. There are scads of colleges and universities in the Philly area, so it might take a bit of effort to work your way through them, but that really is the best way for you to find out about your options.</p>
<p>I think in order to get better aid, you are going to have to open up the search area beyond Philly. Ohio Wesleyan has an 80% accept rate to med school and offers FA to international students (depending on your stats, you may earn their Schubert or other scholarships to attend). You might also look at Rhodes. You might also look at Ohio U --if your scores are high enough you may be eligible for instate-tuition rates (Gateway -need a 3.0 and 2100 +SAT).</p>
<p>Many schools consider Canadians on the same footing as US citizens for institutional aid. Check with all the schools you’re considering before you write them off.</p>
<p>Agreed with Chedva. If you go to a U.S. high school and especially if your parents file U.S. tax returns, many schools will have no problem considering you for aid.</p>
<p>Check out Haverford and Swarthmore. In case you are considered an international student (which I doubt), selective LACs tend to award very high average aid packages to internationals. At Swarthmore, the average amount is about $46K. At Haverford, it is about $42K. These two schools also have generous need-based aid for American students. Unfortunately, average test scores of Asian students at some schools like these tend to be much higher than 2100. However, the percentage of Asian students at Haverford is much lower than it is at many other elite schools; this might work to your advantage.</p>
<p>Wow - that 2-hour radius is likely to be really expensive. Tuition, room and board at Penn State is around $37K. At Queen’s (under 400 miles away) or U. of Toronto or McGill (under 500 miles), it’d probably run $12-15K, and they’re all outstanding schools.</p>
<p>Go to a Canadian U, such as McGill [ which has a fabulous reputation] save your $$ for Med school, and forget this idea that you need to go to a US college within 2 hrs of Penn. The idea of trying to justify Thousands and THOUSANDS of dollars of debt to go to college in the US, instead of spending much, much less money at a fine U in Canada, plus a few thousand dollars more for air fares over 4 years to and from Canada to Phil, is just nuts.</p>