Help with safeties

College Search & Selection
1

Hi guys! I would really appreciate it if you could recommend me some safe choices/good fits. Here are my stats:

UW GPA: 3.9
SAT: 1460 (ER&W 720, Math 740)
TOEFL ibt: 117

Extra-curriculars, jobs etc:

  • MUN, awarded ‘Best Delegate’ two times
  • Student Council President and Class Representative
  • Volleyball, local and school team
  • English Teacher for about 3 years, I give classes to kids at a local NGO and a couple of kindergartens
  • Choir (performed at the parliament and various local celebrations)
  • Used to play the piano, have 3 national awards, self taught guitar player now
  • Editor of school’s newspaper and yearbook
  • College Competitive Club member. It’s a club organized by EducationUSA all over the world, only the top 10% of students can join.
  • Over the summer, I had an internship/volunteering experience (somewhere in between) at my old school where I worked both in the admission’s office and with the school’s counselor. I also took a college-level intensive writing class for a couple of weeks.

I’m taking these classes:
English HL
Econ HL
Global Politics HL
Math SL
Spanish ab initio
ESS
I got awards for being the best in all of my IB classes except for Math.

I have great recommendations and a very creative essay.

For the past two years, I’ve been studying at an international school in the Czech Republic, and I’m on a scholarship.

I’m also looking for very generous financial aid (I’m an international student as you might have guessed - I’m from Montenegro).

I’m applying ED to Lehigh and RD to these colleges: U of Richmond, Brandies, Franklin & Marshall, DePauw Skidmore, Bates.

Sorry for the long post! Any help will be greatly appreciated :slight_smile:

2

Oh BTW, I want to major in Business/Econ.

3

To be a true safety, you need to be able to both get admitted and afford tuition. What is the maximum you can afford from yourself/parents? Do you know your EFC? This is the amount that colleges expect you to pay. It may be higher or lower than what you can actually pay. The safety answer is much different if you can pay $80k or $20k per year. Also, if your EFC is $50k but your family will only pay $30k, that also gives a different answer. The question revolves around if you need merit aid or not. If you do, then your safeties are only the schools that give merit aid to your academic profile to international students in the amount you need. If you can afford $80k a year, then your safeties are any school that you have a very high chance of admission.

4

Are you a UWC student? Sounds like it. We are very familiar with them. If so, a great place to start is the list of Davis Scholarship schools. These schools have a formal relationship with the Davis scholarship program. You will have an advantage at these schools in terms of admission and aid.

http://www.davisuwcscholars.org/partners

As an FYI, Lehigh is a science and engineering school. It looks like you are a little more of a humanities student, but maybe not. You don’t have to be a science/engineering student at Lehigh, but that’s the main thing there.

I like Richmond, Bates, and Brandeis a lot, Franklin and Marshall too. All excellent schools. I know less about DePauw and Skidmore, though they have good reputations. They are different. Richmond (the city) has really turned around in recent years and is considered a very desirable place to live, with some very good nightlife. The school is pretty southern and preppy, not sure if that is a plus or minus for you. Bates and Brandeis, in contrast, are in New England and would have more of a liberal vibe. Bates is small town; Brandeis is in a suburban town pretty far out from Boston, though you can make it into Boston on weekends.

Others I might recommend on the Davis list: Kenyon, probably a match, great for English/lit, beautiful campus in a very small town in Ohio; Denison, probably a safety-ish school, beautiful small-town campus, near Columbus, OH, a medium-size city with some large companies; Macalester College, probably a match, one of the most urban, quality liberal arts colleges, very international; Middlebury, very competitive a reach school for almost everyone, I know a UWC student from your region who had a great experience at Middlebury; Wellesley College, women’s college, maybe a high match/low reach, in nice suburban town outside Boston, very stunning campus, some access to Harvard/MIT programs; Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), probably a match. I’d recommend WPI if you really love Lehigh and want to do science and engineering, but not if otherwise. Very hands-on, project-oriented approach, about the most of any US college/university, if that appeals to you. Freshmen do team projects: Water for the World, Feeding the World, Housing the World, etc. We love the campus vibe, and the students seemed great. Student body is more heavily male than most schools–probably 65% or so male. Most schools are majority female, but science and engineering schools generally have more males, still.

I’d maybe add University of Rochester too: medium-sized research university, nice riverfront campus just outside downtown Rochester.

FYI, All the New England (Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine) schools, Rochester, and Macalester will be extremely cold in winter. Lehigh and Franklin and Marshall will be very cold too, but less extreme, and for shorter duration. Richmond has nice weather. If you wanted to think about a bigger school the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has a great campus right adjacent to one of the best college districts (restaurants, bars, coffee shops, etc.) in the country. Weather is beautiful. It is very competitive for OOS/internationals, so would be a reach. You’d be competitive, though, I’d think. Good luck!

5

Sorry, I forgot the title of your post was looking for safeties. Safeties on that Davis list that are also quality schools might be: Denison, Clark, Westminster College, Kalamazoo College, Lewis & Clark, Wheaton College (Massachusetts, not the one in Illinois). And the University of Oklahoma if you would like a larger school.

6

While Lehigh is especially known for science & engineering, it has reputable departments in other fields.

7

@Eeyore123 thank you for your reply! Honestly, I need as big of a scholarship as I can get. So, I’m looking for very generous financial aid/merit scholarships… I know this limits my options but it’s the reality.

@TTG Hi! Wow- thank you for your two great responses! They’re really helpful and I appreciate it a lot. As for your question - no, I’m not a UWC student, but I do study at an international IB school which awarded me a scholarship so I can attend. Even though I won’t qualify for the Davis scholarship, I’ll check out the schools you’ve mentioned and see if any of them offer scholarships for international students.

I know that Lehigh is great for engineering, but from the research I’ve done, its business program is great! I might end up studying Econ, so I would definitely say that I am more of a humanities-oriented student. I had an interview with them and was really impressed with some details the admissions counselor was able to give me about their business department! So - fingers crossed :slight_smile:

8

Yes, Lehigh is a terrific school and great in many areas. It’s an excellent choice.

Richmond is also a very good choice for business. Good luck!

9

Here’s a great little table that shows the merit aid range that you might expect to receive at Miami of Ohio (not University of Miami in Florida). It’s a quality school, also with a nice campus. I think it would be a safety for you. It has a good business school.

Note that the school super-scores SAT for admissions and merit aid. You are just below the top line–half to full tuition scholarship.

http://miamioh.edu/admission/merit-grid/

10

@TTG, my WPI alumni journal indicates female population of this year’s freshman class is over 40% for the first time. My understanding is that they are giving significant merit award to top female applicants. A friend if ours (female) in this freshman class received a merit award in excess of $40k/year.

11

@TTG Hi! That’s great news - one of my teachers actually attended the school and loved it! I’ll definitely check it out. Even though it’s a public institution, the amount of merit scholarships is really encouraging.

@jmk518 Hi! Wow, it should be a good option. Do you know anything about their business program?

12

For international students who need a lot of aid, there are no safeties other than the very, very small number of places that guarantee merit-based aid to students with specific grades and GPAs. Here is a thread that includes what the people here at CC know right now about that kind of automatic scholarship. You need to check each one that is listed to find out if it still exists, and if it is open to international applicants: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/2006094-2017-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-p1.html

13

@Lana426 I’m not aware of any business program at WPI. You might be able to take classes through the consortium at Assumption or Clark, but would probably need to be enrolled at one of those schools for a business degree (maybe a WPI mba is possible).

14

@happymomof1 Hi! Thanks for the link. I know that being an international student who needs a lot of aid puts me in a very bad position, but I’ll do my best to find a place that’ll fund me. Some of my friends with the same situation have had great experiences in the US, so fingers crossed :slight_smile:

@jmk518 Ohhh ok. I might want to focus more on schools that offer a lot of options for business/econ. WPI sounds like a great place but it doesn’t really match my interests :confused:

15

WPI has a very well established business school. Please look at https://www.wpi.edu/academics/business for a rundown.

IF your interests are centered around math and science, WPI, MIT, RPI, Lehigh and CMU among many other universities with polytechnic histories are well endowed with highly developed business programs. Make sure that your second, third and fourth choices for majors are also strong.

:bz

16

@retiredfarmer, think expecting a high school senior to also know their 3rd and 4th major choices could be a challenge - if they have the 1st figured out, they are ahead of most :-c

17

How much will your parents contribute each year? $5k? $10k? $20k? What?

There are no safeties for int’ls whose parents will not pay much.

18

DePauw is an excellent school, give generous aid packages and has a Management Fellows program for people interested in business. There are a lot of well-connected people that have attended this school and Management Fellows are found internships. Also, during “J” term, you can attend a joint business program at the Kelly Business School at IU. We investigated every school in the country, and even live in a college town with a top university in it, if you want a small, liberal arts school where you can do everything from having a radio show to playing a sport, this place is for you.

19

@retiredfarmer Hi! I checked it out. Honestly, I don’t think that I’m that centered around Math and Science. I’m thinking of having a second major in Psychology or Politics, so maybe those schools aren’t the best options for me. WPI still sounds interesting, though, so I’ll do a bit more research on it - thank you!

@Chembiodad Hahahah, I agree! I’m glad I have at least something figured out :slight_smile:

20

@mom2collegekids To be completely honest, it will be around $5k. I know it’s a ridiculously small amount of money, but I come from a country where your average middle-class family earns around 5-6k a year.

@jen2016 Hi! Thank you so much for your response! Honestly, I love DePauw and I’ve already contacted my admissions counselor a couple of times. It sounds like a great place, but I don’t know if I should consider DePauw a safety. Do you think I’d get in with my stats?