<p>I'm an international student, and due to this fact, I was practically told that I have basically no chance of financial aid. I'm planning to pay the full price for all four years if I were accepted. I was just wondering if this is an advantage or not. Of course, the financial burden is painful, but as of right now, I feel a bit on edge since I believe I'm part of the last wave. Just a question I came up with while worrying about acceptances. :)</p>
<p>In addition, are internationals applicants put in a different pile from applicants who are not international applicants?</p>
<p>I absolutely have no idea if not needing financial aid is a plus. I imagine at some level it is easier to admit someone that that the admission committee knows that will (a)want SC and (b)won't be hindered by the finances.</p>
<p>Yeah I don't need financial aid either, and I think the only real advantage is not having the added stress of filling out additional paperwork...at a school with an endowment like USC's, I couldn't imagine it being much of an issue.</p>
<p>I guess so. How did you guys let the admissions committee know that you really want to get into USC? I was reluctant to write an essay hinting such an idea.</p>
<p>I think the amount of polish on your application's essays, short answers, and to some degree the "quick takes," can be used as an indicator. Someone who has a great desire to attend USC is more likely to have writing that reflects a lot of time and effort having been put into it, whereas the writing of someone applying to USC as a safety or merely as an afterthought presumably won't.</p>
<p>Ultimately I think it'd be pretty hard to tell, but having seen so many applications, the admissions counselors have probably gotten pretty good at it.</p>
<p>I think you made a good call on holding off on the letter idea, I can't see that doing any good, especially at a school with so many applicants.</p>
<p>Ah! I didn't think of it that way. I've put a lot of time into my application, so I guess that I did tell them that I really want to get admitted in an indirect manner. I was thinking that some people wrote application essays specifically about their desire to be at USC. I didn't mention explicitly my desire to be in USC in my quick takes or essays. o_o</p>
<p>Does anyone know the answer to my second question? A few of my schools have told me that they do evaluate international students in a different group from their other applicants.</p>
<p>Trust me, the ad coms know if someone really wants SC, and they also know when they are being used as a backup. I know that ad coms can and are fired if they don't produce. (You accept X amount and only half show up).</p>
<p>I think applying for January 10 also helps because that definitely shows you don`t need the scholarship money and are applying because you truly want to go to the school.</p>
<p>I applied by December 10th even though I knew i wouldn't get any money because i thought i would get a decisions earlier .... well i guess that didn't work out!</p>
<p>My college counsellors told us to apply for the priority deadline (Dec 10th) because by turning in our app early shows that we really want to go to that particular school, whether or not we want a scholarship.</p>
<p>^ No, admissions and financial aid are two separate entities I believe. </p>
<p>If you look on OASIS, you can see if any financial docs are missing. If you don't send them, they will likely get in touch with you by email. Since you don't want to/or need to apply for finaid after all, it might be an idea to just let them know.
But your finaid status should have no bearing on the admission decision.</p>
<p>While I agree you in principal universities are a business. And in this economy a business doesn't want to have students leave in a year or two because they can't pay tuition. I suspect at some level, with some decisions, the school has to look long and hard at finances. While I don't think that this is done with the majority of applicants it has to happen at some level.</p>
<p>It is completely, and unfortunately true that universities are a buisness. Even with large endowments and over-the-top funding (like at USC) students who CAN pay full tuition without any financial aid always have an advantage, whether or not the college will clearly say so (and colleges say that socio-economic status doesn't matter, but ultimately, COLLEGES ARE A BUISNESS, AND NEED MONEY) </p>
<p>Colleges won't admit a student that can pay full tuition if their stats are significantly lower than that of another's, but, if the student who can pay their way through college has margnially lower stats than someone who cannot pay, the student with lower stats and can pay will most likely be accepted.</p>
<p>Think about it this way:
Would they rather admit a student with slightly higher stats who needs financial aid, where the college would lose tens of thousands of dollars?
Or admit a student who has slightly lower stats who can pay their way through, in which case the college will be earning a couple hundred thousand dollars and potentially using this money to help fund another student's financial aid?</p>
<p>Eh, I'm not buying it. "Tens of thousands of dollars" is chump change to a school whose endowment is in the billions. This endowment comes primarily from private donations, many of whom are successful alumni. Tuition is largely irrelevant when you look at the bigger picture.</p>
<p>the problem is...they all claim they are "need blind" which means they don't know how much money you qualify for during the process or how much your "need" is. </p>
<p>unfortunately, regardless, their "blindness" is compromised (in all schools) by the simple application question (Will you be applying for financial aid - yes or no). by selecting no, they undersatnd that you don't need financial aid --- and this DOES get sent to the admissions office with the application -- its practically under your name.</p>
<p>Name
Address
Applying for financial aid?</p>
<p>so there's no difference once you say you're applying - because for all they know you're not going to get anything. but if you mark 'No' in your application, they KNOW you're not getting anything.</p>
<p>unfortunately, the application asks this question for a reason. otherwise you would be visiting the office of financial aid to apply for everything.</p>
<p>If they are in fact need-blind, there's a very good chance that the admissions counselors actually don't see that information.</p>
<p>The UC's, for example, are "race-blind," meaning they don't practice any form of affirmative action. Thus, when the admissions counselors receive the applications, the "race" or "ethnicity" portion of the application is removed. </p>
<p>Obviously financial circumstances, like race, could be revealed in other ways, like an essay describing the difficulty of growing up poor, etc., but for the most part it could very well be hidden from them.</p>
<p>Do counselors "see" the information? I can't answer that. But they see: your address, the school you attended, (Andover for example...), the activities that you participated in (horse shows vs. ....?), the places that you have travelled to...(yearly trips to Hawaii, cruises, Europe), and yes...the high school that you attended (especially if it is private) how generous you were at giving time. </p>
<p>We know many kids, applying to schools from Ivys to USC who got in with lower stats because of money. It isn't always fair...but welcom to the world.</p>