<p>A friend's D is an international student, interested in LACs (primarily history/sociology). I don't have her scores or her GPA. I do know that she was considered a top ranking student at her school which is considered an "international" school. She's interested in LACs that might offer financial assistance and/or merit aid. In my experience, this is very hard to come by. If you have any experience (even if anecdotal) of financial/merit aid for international students at LACs, I'd appreciate pointers. She's looking at Wooster, Colgate, Occidental, Oberlin, Hampshire, Kalamazoo, Dickinson and Earlham.</p>
<p>[Hesitated to post this. Hopefully, this will not end up as a debate on international students and financing their education].</p>
<p>As an international student who applied for financial aid a couple of years ago, I would say that admission under these conditions is a crapshot. I was admitted to 2 out of the 9 colleges I applied to, and waitlisted at 2 other ones. I am still trying to make sense of my admission outcome. For example, Mount Holyoke accepted me with a merit scholarship in addition to financial aid, but I was rejected from Smith. (They are two equally-selective women’s colleges less than 10 miles away from each other.) I was waitlisted at the University of Pennsylvania (17% acceptance rate) but rejected from Grinnell (43% acceptance rate). </p>
<p>Less selective colleges might get fewer applications, but they also have less funds available for foreign students. Her best bet is to apply to many many many colleges.</p>
<p>Not all schools on your list are equally generous with financial aid. Colgate has a strong track record of providing financial aid for international students, but Occidental has barely any funds available (in 2008-09, they funded a total of 13 international students - across all classes - with $16,000 per student on average). </p>
<p>There is a list out there with international financial aid statistics for several dozen colleges. It lists the number of students funded as well as their average financial aid award. Someone in the international student forum can probably provide you with a link to that list.</p>
<p>LACs I’ve seen be generous to internationals include Colgate, Bates, Grinnell, Smith, Holyoke–and 2, Amherst and Williams, are need blind for internationals.</p>
<p>The major factor is whether or not your friend’s family would qualify for *need *based financial aid. They can get an idea by using an on line calculator. This is not foolproof, but as a general statement need based aid will be available if a student is admitted and if his/her family qualifies.</p>
<p>Merit based aid is rare at the more selective schools, even for US citizens, and especially for internationals. Some of the more remotely located rural schools or those in the Midwest, however, use internationals to increase their diversity percentages. So depending on the applicants ethnic, racial or religious profile merit aid may materialize.</p>
<p>My neighbor’s nephew from an Asian country is at Carleton College and received merit aid there. I think he is Muslim (may have influenced his accpetance in order to increase diversity as momrath points out).</p>
<p>If she’s a top student, I’d expect her to get $15K of merit aid at Kalamazoo. Their website says, “Financial aid awards covering the entire cost of attendance are extremely rare and very competitive.” But Kalamazoo loves internationals, so if she’s well qualified, she might be the lucky one that gets the big bucks.</p>