Lehigh vs Lafayette. Which to choose?

Hi everybody! I need some advices on the school for my ED2. I am wondering between Lehigh and Lafayette. Here some of my stats:

International student from South East Asia

GPA: 8.9/10

SAT: 1460

Award: 5 Awards in Physics (one award in top 0.5%); top 6.25% in the robotic contest in a main city of my country

Financial aid: I need a lot since my EFC is only 20k/year (not included plane ticket,…)

Can you guys please help me on these basic informations? I don’t know Lafayette or Lehigh is more generous to international student like me.

Thanks

Both are very good schools and both in Lehigh valley. According to stats Lehigh is comparatively difficult to get into than Lafayette (only slightly difficult). Both give generally similar kind of aids. When choosing between them, it all comes down to what kind of campus environment do you want? Lehigh campus environment is much more lively and vibrant. And Lafayette will be a great choice if you want a really small campus community and are not much into the school spirit thing.
And what’s your major? You can look at this link for more refrence regarding the comparison of both colleges:
https://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/compare/rivalry/lehigh-university-vs-lafayette-college/
Hope it helps.

How about Bucknell? My son goes there and it has been phenomenal by comparison. These are all patriot league schools and excellent choices.

I suggest you contact the office of financial aid to inquire about each institution’s policies for international aid. Good luck!

Not sure about that. On another thread, Fiske Guide to Colleges, 2020 Edition rates Lafayette #10 for social life. You might want to check that out.

My D20 researched and visited Bucknell, Lehigh, and Lafayette. She is only applying to Lafayette. Greek life dominates the social scenes at Bucknell and Lehigh. If you are interested in Greek life then you’ll fit right in, but after talking to several students on campus she felt it would be difficult to have a social life outside of the Greek system. In addition, both schools are also quite low on diversity. If you do not care about a diverse student population then it won’t be an issue, but they both rank remarkably low on this scale–even among similar LACs.

100% this! D20 also visited all three and had the exact same reaction!

I believe Lafayette has more generous aid for international students than Lehigh. I would contact both for more info before you pick your ED2 school.

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@ProfSD This is what I felt looking at those colleges. I, in no matter am saying that Lafayette is not good. I myself was considering applying to Lafayette for RD. I just read many student reviews on the several sites and that’s the picture of the campuses I got. But hey, everyone has a different perspective.
By school spirit, I didn’t mean that Lafayette has a dull social life. Most of the students say that the campus environment is really friendly. Its just that I studied in a residential high-school and there everyone was extremely patriotic towards their school (we still are) but I didn’t see that spirit in Lafayette, at least not on the same level. I might be wrong but I felt that.
And Greek life is extensive in Lehigh and Bucknell. But I am not opposed to the party reputation of the school. Sorry if I have offended you. Everyone has their own best-fit for colleges.

@momofsenior1 Lehigh ensures demonstrated financial aid on ED. Hope that applies to ED2 too.
But otherwise Lafayette has really nice financial aid.

No worries. I wasn’t offended at all. Just adding my observations to give an alternate view.

Your biggest challenge is going to be getting accepted as an international student with need. I suggest you look fir international clubs, forums, contacts at both schools and get some idea of what the climate is for international applicants with need.

This is big enough of a stumbling block that it should be the main reason to choose one school over the other. The other differences are not as significant