If I am a US citizen living outside of America, do I pay international fee or domestic fee?

Prep School Admissions
1

Title.

2

For most things, you would likely be considered domestic. For the application fee, you’d pay the International fee.

3

You have to check with individual school about their practice. You may still be considered an international student unless you have studied in English curriculum for more than three years. The problem is not only the tuition, you will be placed in the pool of international applicants which is more competitive than domestic pool.

4

While true that each school can set its own definition for what is an international applicant for purposes of admissions and/or financial aid, that is not what the OP asked.

5

There are several answers:

  • if by “fee” you mean “application fee” = if you’re not eligible for a waiver due to financial circumstances AND the college has different rates of application fees, the only way to know is by emailing he college.
  • if by “fee” you mean cost of attendance, you’d be under the “domestic, out of state” rate unless your parents have maintained residency in a state (paid taxes, vote, have car and house in that state.) In that case you’d be under the “domestic, resident” rate for that one state, and “domestic OOS” for the other states. Private universities typically don’t distinguish between domestic instate, domestic OOS, and international.
6

@MYOS1634 The OP is asking in terms of boarding schools.

7

Aargh, shoot! My phone doesn’t let me see the rubric and I hadn’t seen it was for prep schools! Sorry.

8

If you have a domestic address and use that in your application then you do not pay the fee, otherwise, it would be best to ask each individual school. I was out of the country during my app but I used a US address and did not pay the international fee for any school…

9

Thanks guys but I have already paid the application fees and submitted part 1’s (as I had my interviews last week and thought that it would be appropriate to pay the fee beforehand). I paid the international fee.

I put my international address while still having a domestic one, so if it is seemingly more competitive, is there anything I can do to change?

10

It won’t matter. There is no distinction in admissions decisions between US Citizen and US Citizen Living Abroad for almost every school (I would say every school, but someone might know the exception). Unless you are applying to a school that is an exception, I would not risk missing mailings by putting through a change-of-address.

11

Sorry if this information is accessible already, but do the following schools conform to this?:

  • Exeter
  • Groton
  • Lawrenceville

(also applying to Peddie but already confirmed that it will provide no disadvantage with interviewer)

12

It depends on the school - some that DD applied to were international and some were domestic - I had to call and ask each school what to mark unless they were the same for both. We live in Canada, but she is a citizen and has a SSN.