<p>Hello, I'm an international student from India that has gotten rejected from the engineering program of quite a lot of universities such as UCLA, UCB , GA Tech, Cal tech and Lafayette universities which i was hoping to get into as i have an SAT score of 2310 and a good academic record.
I've got a mail from all of them individually saying my application was very competitive and would be re reviewed if i withdraw my financial aid ( i asked for about 70% aid)</p>
<p>Is it that tough for internationals to get aid at good US universities?</p>
<p>Yes. Some schools do not provide any need-based aid for international students, and expect you to come in with all the money you’ll need to pay tuition and living expenses. On top of that, many U.S. universities are not need-blind for international applicants. In other words, if you ask for financial aid, you decrease your chances at admission.</p>
<p>In addition, you applied to three public universities (Georgia Tech, Berkeley, and UCLA). Those schools are supported by the taxpayers in the respective states in which they are located, and their first priority is to providing an education to the students within their own states. Given this, they don’t offer much aid to U.S. students from other states, much less international students applying from outside the country.</p>
<p>Caltech is an extremely competitive school and you are likely an average applicant there, so not much merit-based aid would originate from that source. Caltech doesn’t have need-blind admissions for international students. They say that they give need-based awards for international freshman applicants, but perhaps you asked for too much.</p>
<p>Then apart from Harvard, Princeton, Yale and MIT ( which i guess are need blind to internationals ), is there any other hope for us internationals who want admission into a good engineering programme with financial aid?</p>
<p>Karan, you may want to explore private universities that aren’t as well known, but which may be able to offer you scholarship funds. I am thinking of schools like Northeastern University in Boston, University of Notre Dame in Illinois or University of Denver in Colorado.</p>
<p>It’s hard for US citizens to receive aid, my son received only 2,000 in aid from UPenn and will not be able to attend. So don’t be shocked, it’s much worse for international students. It’s very sad that so many bright kids will be denied a chance to attend a top university because they can’t afford it.</p>
Notre Dame (which, as the above poster said, is in Indiana) is quite unlike the other two you listed and very unlikely to give you merit-based scholarships, as they only give 20 a year.</p>
<p>^^^ yes, I do mean Indiana, my bad. And I was clearly not helpful suggesting it in the first place - I did because an international student I know got a good scholarship there in engineering. Obviously that was an unusual situation, so I thank you for your corrections.
Cheers.</p>