<p>I'd applied ED to Swarthmore. I was rejected. Then I'd applied RD to 10 other schools. Now that I've received most of the decisions, I'm shocked and don't know what to do.
I was rejected from all the colleges that I'd considered my matches - namely, Dickinson, Lafayette, Reed and Oberlin.
That led me to believe that there must have been a serious flaw in my application.
Then I received 3 straight waitlists from the colleges I'd considered my reaches - colleges which fellow posters on CC thought were my matches - namely, Grinnell, Amherst and Colby. These were colleges which I really wanted to attend. I'd fallen in love with each of these colleges.</p>
<p>I've only got 3 more decisions to go - Williams, Carleton and Macalester and I'm pretty sure that I'll be rejected from Carleton. There was an error in my CommonApp account and hence the admin there submitted all my apps. I didn't get a chance to edit many typos present in my Carleton supplements.</p>
<p>Background information:
International. Requiring a huge amount of aid.</p>
<p>Stats:
SAT 2300
SAT IIs: Phy/Chem/Maths: 800/800/800
TOEFL: 677/677.
GPA- 3.5
Top 5% of graduating class.</p>
<p>My essays were very quirky but almost everyone who read them liked them.</p>
<p>I can't understand why I've had such decisions. I'm pretty sure that the rest of my decisions will follow the same pattern.:(
A gap year is highly undesirable. I've already taken one gap year.</p>
<p>I really want to attend a college in the U.S. for my undergrad education.</p>
<p>I have no clue as to what is going on and have no idea about what to do next.</p>
<p>Once the dust settles, there are always schools that have spots. They may not be of the caliber you're looking for, but they will get you in the US. Also, being waitlisted at Amherst is phenomenal. Colleges are waitlisting a lot this year because the class is the biggest ever and they want to manage their yield. Wait and see. There's more to come.</p>
<p>skunk,
Try not to panic. You will have the other 3 decisions soon. Perhaps the fact that you are international and need lots of aid contributed to some of your rejections. Some of the schools you are waiting to hear from or were waitlisted at, generally have larger endowments and more $$ available for international students in need of aid. Please let us know about your other decisions when they happen. Fingers crossed for you.</p>
<p>like veryhappy said you can always go to another college just to get into the us and transfer to one of the schools that waitlisted/rejected you</p>
<p>If it's any consolation, it's a lot harder for internationals to get into Lafayette than for US kids. Not sure about the other colleges.</p>
<p>Don't panic until you get the other 3 decisions (I know, easy for someone else to say!) Also, the waitlists are longer than normal this year - colleges seem to be admitting fewer kids outright, and waitlisting more, so there may be more chance to get in off the waitlist. Although honestly, needing a huge amount of financial aid is not going to help your cause when you're on the wait list.</p>
<p>Good luck, let us know how the other 3 decision go?</p>
<p>As I'm sure you already know, some of the schools in your list (Lafayette and Carleton for sure) are not need-blind in admission decisions for international students, so your need for significant aid may influence your admissions decision there.</p>
<p>If you find you are not successful once you've heard from the rest of your schools, around May 1 the National Association of College Admission Counseling (NACAC) posts a list of US colleges which still have openings and are accepting first-year or transfer applications. While there may not be a lot of "top names" there, and while many of them will not have significant financial aid available, you may find a school there which still has openings and can offer you a spot you can afford. Visit: NACAC</a> - Home page and the link to the list will be prominently available after May 1.</p>
<p>Even though most of the schools in my list are not need-blind, they do provide a number of international students with significant aid. Even when I consider that as a factor, I am still utterly confounded by this string of decisions. I have emailed Amherst, Grinnell and Colby accepting a spot in their wait lists even though I know that my chances of moving off the waitlists are very slim indeed. Do I have any other option?</p>
<p>There IS a huge flaw in your application, unfortunately; here it is:
[quote]
Background information:
International. Requiring a huge amount of aid
[/quote]
I am sorry, but as an international you do not qualify for federal aid programs like Pell grants, work study, or Stafford loans. So essentially every single application you sent in was a request for money. Your test scores are amazing, but your GPA isn't particularly impressive -- that's probably because you attend an incredibly difficult high school, but the point is, your "match" schools are need aware schools and you essentially asked them whether they felt like giving $40K a year to a B+ student to attend their school.... and they decided to pass on that. </p>
<p>It has nothing to do with your qualifications -- and everything to do with your status as an international who is unable to pay your own way. I think that if you want to attend school in the US you really would have to recognize that you have to "sell" yourself to a school where you would really stand out in their applicant pool. </p>
<p>I notice that you referred to "reaches" and "matches".... but I don't see the word "safety" anywhere. Even well-financed US students are advised over and over on these boards to apply to at least 2 safeties.</p>
<p>calmom, I think you are not giving the OP enough credit.</p>
<p>For one you call him a "B+ student". While that is not necessarily incorrect, notice that his B+ average placed him in the top 5% of his class - he is not a weak student! It is not an unusual GPA for a foreign student. At my high school the average GPA was a C- with the most frequent grades being Ds. Nowhere in the world but in the US would a B+ student find himself in the bottom half of his class... I am confident that colleges are aware of different international grading standards.</p>
<p>Secondly, you blame the OP for not having a safety. While it is true that applicants should have a safety, there typically are no (financial) safeties for international students with high financial need. Students have to be able to cover at least room and board out of their own pocket and I doubt that the OP can (there are a few colleges with guaranteed full-tuition scholarships but it ends there). And unfortunately getting an educational loan is not everywhere as easy as it is in the US.</p>
<p>To the OP: The American college system is just not set up to support international students... But I hope the admission game will end well for you. Good luck with the three outstanding decisions!!!</p>
<p>I understand that, and I am not trying to be mean, but the point is that top 5% is not the same as top 2%, and these colleges have only very limited aid to offer to international students. I'll bet the few internationals they do take with aid either need a lot less aid, or else have even better credentials. </p>
<p>When my daughter was applying to colleges and she was one of the top 3 students in her class.... I was looking at the kid who applied to some of the same colleges who was the presumptive valedictorian, one or 2 slots above her in GPA, and who was applying to one of the same reach colleges. Fortunately they both got accepted, but I fully expected all along that he would be chosen over her if only 1 got in. (I guess the irony of it all is that they both also turned down that college). </p>
<p>The point is, the only way the OP is going to get the funding he needs for a US college is if he stands out above all the competition for the limited slots wherever he applies. In that context, the colleges he listed were never "matches". </p>
<p>By the way, at a need-blind school, a waitlist placement is often a way of fishing for financial information. It is very typical for the waitlist spots to go to full-pay students.</p>
<p>Macalester is more than set up to "help" international students, sometimes more so than domestic students. You can thank Kofi Annan and the most recent philanthropist who donated 13.5 million solely to fund international students.</p>
<p>Are you an "international" applicant who was schooled in the US? If you currently live in the US, you should check with your in-state public university if they still accept applicantions. In our state, our state flagship U might consider you a resident for tuition purposes if you graduated from a US school and lived in the state for at least 3 years, no green card or citizenship needed. Tuition automatically drops from ca. 20K to 7.5K.</p>
While Grinnell, Amherst, and Williams are rich colleges, I'm not sure that this changes anything. The no. of waitlisted students who eventually get accepted is extremely discouraging.</p>
<p>
While I could go to another college even at this stage of the admissions game, I believe it is extremely difficult for any international student to apply as a transfer student. To add to that complication, most schools do not seem to provide financial aid to transfer application from international students.
[quote=ngmm]
Off all your schools, I think only Williams is need-blind for internationals. Don't give up hope yet.
While Williams is need-blind, it is very difficult to get into. After such a disastrous series of events, I don't believe I can get into Williams. :(
The main reason I applied to Lafayette was that Skip Staats, the International Admissions Director at Lafayette, in his visit to my country, assured us Lafayette was a "rich" college and could afford to admit internationals needing large amount of financial aid and that anyone with >1450 in SAT (Math+CR) had a very good chance of getting admitted. I'd never thought that I would be rejected outright.
While I'm planning to send in an additional essay as well as a reco from my GC so that I might move off the waitlists, I do not have reason to believe that I will be accepted, the reason being the reason you mentioned.</p>
<p>
calmom, as b@r!um mentioned, I don't think that there are any financial safeties for international students. Many of my friends who applied to, what they believed were, surefire safeties have received nowhere enough aid. However, I do admit that I made a mistake in applying to only colleges that I considered reaches and matches. I should have applied to some colleges which provide "Presidential" and other scholarships to well-qualified international students. Typically, these college provide tution as well as room and board to a single international student.
calmom, it does seem that the colleges I applied to were never matches. Again, this illustrates the point that there are only reaches for international students.:(</p>
<p>
I hope you are right. After all, Macalester is the only college remaining that I can realistically hope to get into.</p>
<p>
Unfortunately, I've not had that opportunity. I'm an "international" international applicant.</p>
<p>
[quote=thisoldman]
If you have not noticed, the US is getting poorer not richer. A lot of material wealth mostly paid by borrowing.
How could I not notice that?:) These changes in the U.S. are having negative effects even in far-flung country such as mine. Inflation here is, probably, at an all time high right now, mainly due to the rising oil prices, which, again, are fuelled by the "credit-crunches" in the US.
However, do these changes neccessarily have an effect on the financial aid on offer? I'm quite sure that these changes have not affected college holdings as yet. I might be quite wrong though. I do not even have an elementary grasp of economics.</p>
<p>
I'm really hoping that I won't have to take that option.</p>
<p>If you are an international student living outside of the USA, get in touch with your EducationUSA overseas advising center. You can go to the site <a href="http://www.EducationUSA.state.gov%5B/url%5D">www.EducationUSA.state.gov</a> and find the nearest advising center. The advisers at these centers are professionals that have the necessary training and resources to help international students. Most of the services are free, but it does vary from country to country. For example, at the center where I work there are fees for test preparation, which is quite labor intensive and we have to recoup some of those costs.<br>
International students face specific challenges and these centers specialize in assisting with these challenges. EducationUSA centers also work with country specific programs - often there are funds available for certain countries, ethnic groups, or regions. An adviser in your country will know about opportunities that you may not be aware of. He or she can also look at data on how many students from your country are currently hosted by an institution. It is often strategic to apply at a school where you would bring a unique experience to the table. The advisers have worked with students from your country over and over again, each year. Look at it this way: You only have to get admitted once, but we have to "get admitted" year after year.</p>
<p>"I'd applied ED to Swarthmore. I was rejected. I was rejected from all the colleges that I'd considered my matches - namely, Dickinson, Lafayette, Reed and Oberlin. "</p>
<p>Sadly, none of those have need-blind admissions for international students.
They openly say that if are an international and you ask for financial aid, your chances of entry go down.</p>
<p>Remember, the set of colleges that are need-blind-for-admissions-for-US-students IS NOT EQUAL TO the set of colleges that are need-blind-for-admissions-for-International-students.</p>
<p>I am right, Macalester provides a large sum of money to International students. I went there and my d currently attends. The donation of 13.5 million, solely to be used for international financial aid, was just made recently. If you would like to check go to the Macalester web site, it is on the home page. I do not know what country you are from, it will help if it is not one from which Mac receives a ton of applicants. It would also help if you have dual citizenship, Mac loves that. The last two years have been incredibly competitive at Mac. 41% of the admitted class for 2012 was valdictorian or salutorian of his or her class (of those with a class rank). The worst part is the waiting.</p>
<p>elz, I will definitely go the the EducationUSA advising centre if I do not get receive any acceptance by tomorrow. I am hoping for the best right now. Thank you for the advice.</p>
<p>bearpooh, even though my chances of entry were pretty low at the outset, I am still shocked by the decisions I have received. While I know that college admissions is capricious, I'd not expected it to be this random.:(</p>
<p>banditmag, I am from Nepal. The big problem is that the no. of applicants from Nepal to colleges in the U.S. is increasing every year. So my chances are pretty low.</p>