<p>I am a 15 years old junior, and my list is way too long, please help me cross out some schools, or recommend other ones that you think will meet my needs, thanks!</p>
<p>my stats:
Canadian in Shanghai, China
IB Diploma with good IB predicted grades 40+
GPA
class rank 3/25
selective private school with local gov. funding
SAT I
2190
V: 750
M: 740
W:700</p>
<p>SAT II : math IIc 780
lit 730
Chinese 800</p>
<p>Ecs: hip=hop, swimming, MUN, flower-arranging,school newspaper and magazine
Awards: English speech competitions, MUN National Conference Best Delegate
summer school: Harvard
LONG LIST:</p>
<p>Amherst
Williams
Swarthmore
Wake Forest
Carleton
Bowdoin
Smith
Wellesley
Grinnell
Colgate
Barnard
Dartmouth
Columbia
Yale</p>
<p>It's too expensive to visit colleges, so there's no chance for me to look at those schools.
I'm looking for small classes, ideally cool location(with snow), strong humanties, psychology programs where students have high acceptance rates at law school.
MOST importantly, fin. aid , my family income is 60,000 annually</p>
<p>Financial aid is a most important aspect of your search. For financial aid, I would add more midwestern schools besides Carleton and Grinnell (they are good choices! Carleton is an expensive Midwestern school. Many can be less money than their east or west coast equivalents) where they give good aid to internationals and recruit internationals: Macalester (Mn), Lawrence (Wi) and Wooster (Oh). I have seen Grinnell, Wooster, Lawrence give very good aid to internationals. Macalester has so many that they must! Study the websites on their acceptances and student population distribution. Write to the schools you have listed. Check out their class sizes. If you can get accepted to a school like Yale, Williams they will have wonderful financial aid packages, but you can't count on that. So broaden your list. Applying to an all girls' school is a good idea. If I had had a daughter I would have recommended that. Smith would be a great choice and others you have mentioned depending on the location you are interested in.</p>
<p>Jane, Id say you have a balance of positives and negatives. Your experience in China is certainly a plus, but your Canadian citizenship while not exactly a negative takes you out of the exotic origin category. Are you an ethnic Chinese or Caucasian? If Chinese, again, it can be a positive at some schools and negative at others. Check the individual demographics.</p>
<p>Your rank, scores, grades and life experience give you the potential to get into any of the colleges on your list; however, the reaches are reaches for everyone and that coupled your international status and need for aid makes your top-heavy list problematic. My advice would be to do some more research on the reaches and think about where you actually want to live for four years and the kind of education youd like. For example Columbia and Dartmouth are VERY different in ambience as are Williams and Smith. </p>
<p>I know its tough to do without visiting but you could certainly focus and pre-edit a little more. All of these schools can offer small classes, ideally cool location(with snow), strong humanties, psychology programs where students have high acceptance rates at law school In order to get a better idea of the points of differentiation you should think more about what YOU want urban/rural/suburban, coed/womens, EC opportunities.</p>
<p>As far as the money goes, an income of $60,000 (US$ right?) would most likely qualify for you for need based aid. You should ask your parents to experiment with an online calculator to determine how much to expect. Some of the colleges on your list also offer merit aid; some do not. Your international status is the wild card, so you really need to continue to do a lot more research.</p>
<p>Id certainly suggest that you add more schools in the lower selectivity range. Overseas has given you some good options.</p>
<p>my safeties are some Canadian schools, so I really am looking at reach-match US schools, by the way,I'm Chinese, and have been in Hong Kong and Shanghai since 5th grade.</p>
<p>Jane, since you are ethnic Chinese you might concentrate on colleges that don't have a large Asian demographic. I would put Williams in this category. There are others, but I don't want to guess.</p>
<p>It's good that you have the Canadian colleges as academic safeties. What you need for your US list are financial safeties. Again, it really depends on your needbased aid status. If you qualify for enough -- and you are interested in schools that are needblind (I know, I know questionable term) for internationals, then you may be all right. If you don't qualify or if your top choices don't have a history of awarding needbased aid to internationals, then you'll have to go for merit. The most selective colleges do not offer merit. </p>
<p>It is confusing, but as I said in my earlier post, your life experience will be of interest to many schools and your accomplishments are unquestionable. It's just going to take more work on your part to identify the right schools. We are also an international family living in Asia (although we are US citizens) and strongly believe that global exposure is a compelling hook. Good luck and let us know how you do.</p>
<p>part of the financial aid section of a schools common data set is devoted to internationals. there youll be able some pretty good information: whether need-based and merit aid is available to internationals as well as the total number receiving financial aid (no percentages, unfortunately) and the size of the average award. the financial aid forms internationals need to submit are also listed.</p>
<p>going through the links to common data sets on page seven of the devoted thread pinned to the top of the college selection forum would be well worth your time if finances are a concern.</p>
<p>You should know that while several colleges claim to offer need-based aid to internationals and are "need-blind" (which I highly doubt), this does not mean that internationals are necessarily part of the same applicant pool. NONE of these schools claim to be "geography blind". In virtually every case where I have seen data, the percentage of internationals accepted is well lower than the general acceptance rate. A good rule of thumb is to take the general non-legacy acceptance rate and divide by two. (At Williams in 2005 it was around 8%; it is unknown how many of them received need-based aid.) </p>
<p>The point is your list is WAY too top-heavy. I can easily imagine a scenario where you are rejected at all of them - not likely, but highly possible. You need safeties THAT YOU LOVE, and where you have a reasonable chance of receiving the aid you need.</p>
<p>Your list is not only top heavy, it is rather disparate. What kind of location do you prefer? Carleton's location is as different as can be from Columbia's. If you want cool climate, I would not suggest Wake Forest in Durham, NC. You have good stats. Focus on the issue of size and location to trim down your list. I am going by your comment that you have some good safeties in Canada and thus I am not urging you to add more colleges on your already long list.</p>
<p>Without considering finaid, I think you have a very good chance at smaller LACs that would like to diversify more. Bowdoin, Grinnell,Carleton fall in that category. Wellesly has a large contingent of Chinese students, thanks, perhaps, to Song Meiling (Mme Chiang Kaishek) or perhaps the closeness to Boston, so it would be more difficult to be admitted there, all other things being equal.</p>
<p>Frankly, I think that all the schools on your list are either academic or financial reaches. If I were you, I would focus on deciding which of the Canadian matches come closest to your specifications--I would suggest Queen's or Western. Once you have covered off your down side--which isn't really much of a downside considering the calibre of Queen's or Western--I would look at an American school that might be interested in a high need Chinese/Canadian with somewhat average SATs. Most of the schools on your list are not needs blind for Canadians. For those on your list that are--Williams, Columbia, Yale your SAT's are not particularly high, you have no particular hook and you would face ferocious competition within the Canadian pool.</p>
<p>The only less than stellar--but still excellent--score is for W. We do not know how the colleges will look at the Writing. Some are still discounting it. So, I make 1490 out of 1600. Not bad. Not average, either.</p>
<p>To my certain knowledge 1490 is somewhat average for the Canadian applicant pool from which she will be competing. There are dozens of Chinese with Canadian passports of convenience applying to Ivies and little Ivies. They generally are from moderately well to do to very well to do Hong Kong families with no particular academic or socio-economic hook. Given the finaid realities faced by Canadians at the colleges OP has on her list, all places are either academic or financial reaches. In her particular case it is not only a question of where to apply, but when to apply. Most places will not even allow her to apply ED which cuts the odds even farther.</p>