While researching I noticed that only a handful of colleges are need-blind for both international and domestic students. How does this impact international admissions at schools like Penn, Williams, etc? (In terms of international student diversity, ease of admissions for high-income internationals)
i am also concernd
Need-blind for admission means that your financial aid application doesn’t get looked at when you apply. Whether you need aid or not, it won’t affect your chance of admission.
Need-award for admission means that your financial aid application gets looked at when you apply. If don’t need any financial aid and don’t apply for any aid, it will be the same as applying to a need-blind institution.
All that aside, it is important to remember that admissions is harder for international applicants than it is for domestic applicants, even when the international applicant is full-pay and doesn’t need any financial aid. If the place would be a match for a US applicant with grades and test scores like yours, it will be a reach for you because you are an international applicant.
@happymomof1 Would a match school for a domestic student be a reach for a full pay international applicant if their academic & extracurricular accomplishments are similar in all cases? I was under the impression that schools would like to “target” wealthy internationals for diversity and to finance the school’s expenditure (after all, they do need SOME guaranteed full pay students to be able to afford everything, right?)
Is there some factor I am missing that would make admissions for an international significantly harder (like a soft cap/unofficial quota of sorts)?
There are plenty of US full-pay students.
It is harder for international applicants everywhere except for the small number of institutions that guarantee automatic admission for any student who meets specific GPA and test score requirements.