Help me find suitable college

College Search & Selection
1

Hi everyone! I am an international student.

My ACT Score is 29 (Superscore): 35 Math, 31 English, 29 Science and 20 Reading.
ECs: Runner-up in the city’s Physics competition. (My city is counted as a province and it is the second largest city in my country).
Bronze medal and Silver medal in the Physics competition for Southern area of my country.
Bronze medal (top 4 teams in my country) in WRO.
Commissioner of the Youth Union.

My family can only contribute 25k/year

Can you please help me find some colleges for me to apply in RD? I’m learning Engineering and I prefer small colleges which are located near the cities.

2

Travel, insurance, room and board is going to consume most of your $25k per year. That means that you will need a full tuition scholarship. They are hard to find. If you had a single sitting 30 ACT, University of Alabama-Huntsville would have been an option.

3

It’s tough for international students to get significant financial aid or scholarships in the US unless their stats are very high. Your 29 ACT (even though your math score is very high) is going to make that tough (and you haven’t described your grades). Wanting an engineering program narrows the field of schools even more.

There are a few high-quality schools with a “sticker price” near $25K, but to find those you have to go to more rural areas of the US with a low cost of living and no “trendy” city that’s attractive to large numbers of college students.

For example, South Dakota Mines offers an excellent engineering education, with a total cost just over $25K/year and the possibility of small scholarships to bring it down a little more if you apply by January 15th. https://www.sdsmt.edu/Admissions/International-Students/Costs-and-Fees/ It really is a good school and an excellent value, but not “near the cities.” You might like the size of under 3000 students, though, and the natural beauty of the area might surprise you.

In the same region of the country, U of Wyoming starts at around $28K/year and offers international scholarships that could bring it into your price range. http://www.uwyo.edu/admissions/scholarships/international/ Again, a completely non-urban setting but a great value.

To get closer to a major city within your price range, you may want to check out Canadian U’s.

4

@aquapt Can you suggest some more competitive school? I thought I may be eligible for some higher-ranked school. For example, Syracuse University has the ACT 25th-75th ranging from 25 to 30 and I am above average for it.

5

You asked about schools that you can attend for $25K/year. The estimated cost of attendance for Syracuse is over 65K/year.

Also, while it’s a good school, it’s far more expensive than even higher ranked engineering programs at many public universities. FWIW, US News ranks Syracuse 80th among engineering programs. SD Mines is at 115, and U of Wyoming at 183. https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate?_mode=table

You can use the left sidebar to sort that list by price. Note that here, the tuition and fees total is used - this doesn’t include room & board, and other expenses, which can vary widely depending on the cost of living where the school is. For example, the City College of New York (ranked 104 in engineering) looks affordable at $17K/year tuition and fees, but living in New York City is breathtakingly expensive, so unless you have an affordable living option there, it’s probably a terrible idea. Overall, there are only three schools with tuition and fees under 20K/year that rank higher than SD Mines in engineering CUNY, previously mentioned, is one of them… and I think you may have to be a member of the LDS Church to get the tuition rate listed for Brigham Young… so that leaves only the U of South Florida in Tampa, which ranks a few spots higher than SD Mines at 104, but has an estimated total cost of attendance of $33K/year, at least $7K/year more than SD Mines and definitely not a small school, with over thirty thousand undergraduates - more than ten times the size of Mines.

There may be places where you can get merit aid to bring the total cost down, but there’s no way a school like Syracuse is going to give you a 40K/year merit scholarship. Unfortunately, higher education in the US is becoming less and less affordable. It’s easier, as an international student, to find a good value in Europe or in Canada.

Possibly the best value for a high-ranking engineering school is at Iowa State, which this list puts at #43 (considerably above Syracuse). The baseline full-pay cost there is around $34K/year. There are a few scholarship opportunities for international students, but it’s probably a long shot to get it down below $25K/year. https://www.admissions.iastate.edu/intl/finance.php

Another school to look at seriously is University of Alabama Huntsville. It’s an excellent engineering school (particularly known for aerospace) - but by excellent, I mean tied in the rankings with SD Mines - they really are both excellent schools. Huntsville is a small city that is known for having the highest concentration of PhD’s in the nation, as a result of the tech that’s based there. UAH offers automatic merit that’s available to international students - I can’t tell what you’re eligible for without information about your grades, but you can look at the chart: https://www.uah.edu/admissions/undergraduate/financial-aid/scholarships/merit-tuition-scholarships The baseline cost of attendance is 37K/year, but if you have a 4.0+ GPA, the 67% scholarship could get you to your price point… or, if you could get your ACT up by one more point, you’d only need a 3.5+ GPA to earn the full tuition scholarship that would definitely make UAH affordable for you. The 7000 student size seems like a fit for you also. But as with SD Mines, you’d need to recognize that an ABET-accredited engineering program ranked at 116 is indeed an excellent education.

6

@aquapt what about the need-based financial aid? I’ve heard that there are lots of schools which provide a huge amount of need-based money for international students, such as Trinity, Lafayette, Union, Bucknell.

7

Need-based aid is difficult for international students to get, but not impossible.

Are you female? If so, Smith offers an engineering degree and it’s in a very active small town. The town is the regional hub. They also give merit and need-based aid. https://www.smith.edu/engineering/

In the USA an ABET accredited program tends to be good even if the rankings aren’t as high as you desire.

University of Maine at Orono has tuition benefits for internationals and it offers an ABET-accredited program. Also it’s a lovely campus, near a small city in one of the US’s most attractive states. The coastal region near there is filled with arts and very attractive vacationing areas and there’s a national park directly south of Orono.
https://www.nps.gov/acad/index.htm
https://acadiamagic.com/

Orono has an international airport. https://flybangor.com/

Here are the engineering programs
https://engineering.umaine.edu/

Here are the scholarships – https://umaine.edu/international/scholarships/

8

Haverford and Bryn Mawr offer a special program with the University of Pennsylvania.

Haverford, Bryn Mawr and UPenn are all part of a consortium that includes also Swarthmore. Haverford, BMC and UPenn have a unique 4+1 program, in which you take your BA and the first of your engineering courses at either Haverford or Bryn Mawr (or both as you can freely cross reg at either school) and then you go for a fifth year at UPenn to get a masters in engineering.

https://www.brynmawr.edu/news/program-gives-bryn-mawr-students-opportunity-earn-engineering-degrees

https://www.haverford.edu/engineering/41-program-university-pennsylvania

FA in both schools is considered to be excellent, but I’m not sure if it will be within your budget.

9

@Dustyfeathers I’ve heard about the dual degree programs in several schools. They are very appealing. But do you know what is the cost when moving to the second school? Will I have to pay the full tuition?

10

You will need to ask the schools what their policies are. The difference between a 3+2, offered at most schools, and a 4+1 is that for 3+2 programs you miss graduating with your class at your original school. The 4+1 is unique because you can finish your degree at BMC or Haverford and also complete your degree at UPenn.

I think that Dartmouth also has a unique program – a 2+1+1+1, if I’m remembering correctly. So you start at your undergraduate LAC, then go to Dartmouth for one year, back to graduate with your undergrad LAC, then back to Dartmouth to graduate from there. Here is that program described – https://engineering.dartmouth.edu/academics/undergraduate/dual

Here are the participating LACs –

***Mount Holyoke -- excellent FA need-based and merit including internationals.
Pomona College -- excellent FA
Simon's Rock -- not so great FA -- undergraduate school for ages 16+
Skidmore -- excellent FA but unclear what it offers internationals
Spelman -- okay aid and unclear what it offers to internationals
St. Lawrence -- good FA but unclear what it offers internationals
Vassar -- excellent FA need-based only and unclear what it offers internationals
Wesleyan -- excellent FA need-based almost exclusively and unclear what it offers internationals
***Wheaton -- good FA but and does offer to internationals
Williams -- excellent FA but unclear what it offers internationals
Amherst -- excellent FA but unclear what it offers internationals
Bard -- good FA but unclear what it offers internationals
Bates -- excellent FA but unclear what it offers internationals
Bowdoin -- excellent FA but unclear what it offers internationals
Colby -- excellent FA but unclear what it offers internationals
Grinnell -- excellent FA but unclear what it offers internationals
Hamilton -- excellent FA but unclear what it offers internationals
**Hobart & William Smith -- excellent FA including merit but unclear what it offers internationals
Middlebury -- excellent FA but unclear what it offers internationals
Morehouse -- okay aid and unclear what it offers to internationals
11

@SLAHHH: Your ACT score is much stronger, in my opinion, then suggested by your composite school of 29 if the language of instruction in your home country is NOT English. In less than one academic year, your reading comprehension should rise substantially above the level suggested by an ACT subsection score of 20.

12

You’re correct to be concerned about the aid at the second school, for dual-degree programs. Even fully-aid-eligible US students don’t necessarily get full aid for the 5th year. It depends on the school and the program.

Absolutely, pursue the private institutions that offer need-based aid to internationals and see what you can get. But only a handful of schools (Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Stanford/MIT) admit internationals without regard to need and meet full need for internationals. The competition for the few spots they allot to international students is unbelievably steep. Otherwise, US schools are need-aware for internationals even if they’re need-blind for US students… so, you must be very highly qualified to be chosen to receive significant aid. You should consider schools where you are in the top quartile, not just above median. You haven’t given any GPA information and that’s an important piece. Between not knowing your academic record and not knowing how schools will interpret your ACT (will they pay more attention to the high math score and not so much the ones that were lower because of the language barrier?), it’s very hard to predict.

Basically, deciding to admit an international student with significant financial need is discretionary for US schools - you’ll have to consider everything a reach until proven otherwise. If you absolutely want to study in the US, then you should have at least one safety on your list, that you know you can get into and afford with automatic merit. (Hence my suggestions.) From there, build a list of reaches to shoot for.

You might want to think about trying the SAT if there’s still time, since it’s more evenly balanced between math and not-math, and doesn’t have the science section which wasn’t one of your stronger subscores (probably because the questions are confusing to a non-native English speaker, and not reflective of your science ability at all).

13

@Dustyfeathers Thank you very much for your super helpful list. But I afraid most of the colleges you suggested are out of reach with my ACT score…

14

@aquapt @Publisher I have to admit that the language barrier has prevented me a lot in getting the high score. Furthermore, about the science section, I believe that I have a very strong data interpretation ability and I usually got 32-33 when practicing at home. But when taking the real test, in the last 5 minutes the test room is super noisy for me to concentrate and it definitely affects my science score (In fact, I have to guess on the last 5 questions despite having over 7 minutes for them). But on documents, my Science score is still 29 so :stuck_out_tongue:

Unfortunately, I am a senior now and the next closest test date will be in March. Therefore, I have no chance to increase my standardized test score.

15

@aquapt About my GPA, my GPA is only 8.7/10. This is because the grading systems in my country are not the same among schools. It is super hard to score over 9/10 (an A) in my school, but it is super easy to get a nearly perfect score in other weaker schools. In fact, my school ranks in the top 1.7% in my country. I still don’t know how the admission office will interpret my GPA and if it will be the weak aspect of my application.