IIRC, these schools meet full financial need for all ACCEPTED international students. But their admissions are need aware which means that the level of financial need can be considered when admissions decisions are made.
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My parents can pay like $5-6k per year and yeah thats all that they can manage. I plan on working while studying but not sure how much that will add to the per year amount. I have evidences for 7-8 of my extra curricular activities which i have added in my profile in the add info section
Donāt count on earning enough money to attend college here as an international student. Your visa is a student visa and your numbers of hours of work will be significantly limited. You might be able to earn a few thousand dollars a year, really a drop in the bucket compared to costs,
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I agree with what @thumper1 is saying. You cannot legally work for the first nine months. I know a lot of students flout this rule but it is risky and wrong. But beyond being unethical, getting caught would lead to deportation and the inability to come back to the USA for ten years minimum. After year 1, you can work 20 hr per week with a permit during school year and 40 hr during summer. Realistically, one could make $5-$10K max this route.
Frankly, your best bet might for safety be state schools where out of state tuition waivers are given like TX or states where OOS tuition is low and some scholarships might make COA affordable. I think you will need to do a lot of research to find such schools. There is a thread here that has a list of cheap schools.
In any event, $5-6K is not a lot and it would be very difficult given your choice of major. Talk to your parents and see if $15K/year is doable. That might be a more realistic budget.
But that said, apply broadly and good luck!
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Your list will need to include 2 types of universities:
- apply to universities that offer merit aid āfull ridesā, ie., cover tuition, room, and board (board= food) for Engineering (NOT BME). These universities may not be very good overall but if the program is ABET certified then itās standard and recognized.
Some of the āfull rideā programs are not open to internationals so youāll need to look carefully under the heading of āscholarshipsā/freshmen scholarships/merit etc. Scholarships for NMSF are for American citizens only. These full rides typically require extremely high SAT or ACT scores.
If you need examples of these let us know. These would be mostly in the South, plus NM: Troy, UA-Huntsville, Florida A&M, FAMU, UNM, NMTech. - private universities that meet 100% need, including LACs. These may not offer Engineering so your best bet there is applying for Physics, use their Career services for internships that lead to an OPT job, then from that OPT a Masterās in Engineering. Since you may have not heard of LACs, these are highly selective smaller universities that many top students attend; most students then get into graduate schools - examples include Colby, Bates, Vassar, Hamilton, Whitman, Pomona, HarveyMudd, Denison, Franklin&Marshall, Lafayette, St Olaf, Macalester, Carletonā¦
Berea, a top college in KY, also offer full scholarships for ONE student from various countries, but their deadlines are strict.
When thinking of your application, you have to ask yourself not just what have I accomplished, but also: how is what I have achieved unique, different from anyone else in my country, and how is that useful to the college Iām applying to?
Since your EFC is likely zero (in US terms: your family makes less than 65K) your guidance counselor would have to check (tick) that you qualify for an application fee waiver on CommonApp and/or on Coalition App. Note that some universities are only on ONE of these two, not both.
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