<p>Tons of questions like this probably have been asked already but..</p>
<p>I'm thinking about applying to Stanford, Columbia, Penn, Johns Hopkins(and other international aware schools) and deciding whether I should apply for financial aid or not. My parents can pay and are willing to pay for the tuition if they need to, but of course, it is a lot and I don't want to put a huge burden on them.</p>
<p>Does anybody know how much it helps NOT to apply for financial aid to Stanford etc? And if I do apply with financial aid, does it make any difference to say that I can pay at least $10,000 or something like that?</p>
<p>On the other hand, if your family is technically able to finance your education, you probably won't get much if any financial aid at all. Usually colleges determine that you have to pay more than what you think you are able to pay and most of the time they don't care at all about what you say you are able to pay.</p>
<p>b@rium, actually, I don't think that will be a case for me, but I need someone to confirm if this is true. Even though we are permanent residents in Canada, my dad works in Korea(although he used to work here) and we don't report that income here in Canada, so technically our income is close to zero. And most of our assets are in Korea which aren't reported here. Even though we have some assets here, we still have very low income. So technically, I'd actually get a lot of financial aid. Is that true?</p>
<p>No, SparklingJuice, you are supposed to report your income from and your assets in Korea. The financial aid applications ask for the mailing address, the income and the assets of each of your parents, and of course your own income and assets.</p>
<p>I am a permanent resident in the US but my parents live in Europe - that does not mean that I am getting a full ride :)</p>
<p>Ohhhh, okay. Thanks for clarifying things up. But I'm pretty sure my dad's income will be pretty low, too, because he doesn't really have a steady job.</p>
<p>No, I believe Columbia and Upenn arent need-blind for internationals.</p>
<p>It should matter less and less whether you apply for FA or not as each application cycle passes until there comes such a time in the indeterminate future that Stanford becomes need-blind for internationals.</p>
<p>yea. applying to FA will really hurt your chances @ top schools that aren't need-blind like Stanford/Columbia/etc.</p>
<p>The only schools where that doesn't matter is HYP, Middlebury, William, MIT. </p>
<p>International acceptance is already super low @ these schools, like 5% less than their regular pool. Applying for FA would cut another 2-3% from the already low chances. </p>
<p>This is coming from my experience as a Internat/FA applicant. Completely screwed me over for top schools. sigh....</p>
<p>lulupony add Dartmouth and Amherst to the list of need blinds. So there are 8 schools in U.S which are need blind for EVERYONE in this world: Harvard,Yale, Princeton, MIT, Williams, Middlebury, Dartmouth and Amherst.
YES, it will do you a ton of good to apply at the need aware schools without asking for aid. I know people who were good, but not great, getting into Stanford paying full. It does help! so if you can , you should. However, applying for $10000 in aid every year shouldn't hurt you much either. But its best if you aren't in that "international-asking-for-aid" pool which is the most competitive.</p>