Need-awareness in Stanford

<p>Hi! </p>

<p>I have a question concerning Stanford's international students' admission. As I understand, Stanford is need-based but NOT need-blind for international student- that is, it will NOT admit international students only based on their academic and personal application but also on their ability to pay for the tuition and living expanses (financial application). </p>

<p>As I see it, international students who are in need for high financial aid (>$20,000) have much lower chances for admission than those who only need a minimal amount of aid. In fact, there is a direct relationship between the ability of an international student to pay for college and his chances to get admitted- the less financial aid an international student needs the better chances he (or she) has. </p>

<p>So my question is simply- is that really the case in Stanford?</p>

<p>You’re mostly right, but this isn’t quite accurate:</p>

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<p>It will - and often does - admit international students based only on their application. Those are usually star students. I know of several low-income international students, who attend Stanford on full scholarships. They didn’t have dual citizenship, either - they were just star students.</p>

<p>In fact according to the Common Data Set, 64% are on some sort of need-based aid. The average financial aid package is smaller - $31,000 vs. $41,000 - which indicates not that it doesn’t cover their need (it covers 100%), but rather that it intentionally admits students who on average have less need than the rest of the student body. That’s a reflection of the need-aware policy, in that international students are on average a little more wealthy and also that ‘need-aware’ means it isn’t necessarily a factor in admitting every student, as there are many international students who are exclusively or largely on Stanford’s need-based aid.</p>

<p><a href=“http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2010.html#financial[/url]”>http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2010.html#financial&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>See H6.</p>

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<p>Mostly because it enhanced financial aid significantly for domestic students: free tuition if you make under $100k and reduced tuition if you make up to $200k. Stanford said that it would become need-blind for internationals when the endowment increased appropriately, but then the recession hit and Stanford put that on the backburners. Believe me, it confuses you as much as it confuses current students, many of whom have called for Stanford to change its financial aid policies for internationals. I think the editorial board of the Daily published an article a few months ago criticizing Stanford for not being need-blind for international students. But even if it did officially change the policy, it wouldn’t cause a significant difference: right now only 50-60% of the student body is on need-based aid, while 64% of internationals are on aid. Because internationals are few (only 7-8% of the student body), changing the need-aware policy won’t make much of a difference, since most are already on aid. (At most it would make the average financial aid package for internationals closer to the average for domestic students.)</p>

<p>And to do quotes you use the [ quote ] and [/ quote] tags.</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>“it intentionally admits students who on average have less need than the rest of the student body.”</p>

<p>Why does Stanford do it then? Why can’t it be need-blind like other universities that are need-blind to internationals? (sorry: the tone in the internet may sound harsh).</p>

<p>BTW: Can anyone tell me how to put the quote in boxes as Phantasmajoric did?</p>

<p>Oops:: While testing the quote thing…my browser shut down…</p>

<p>[ quote ] just testing…

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<p>Hey it’s not working!???</p>

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<p>Sorry GYKhasin, to make your thread a Quote Class!!</p>

<p>Remove the spaces ;)</p>

<p>Yes!!! I did it!Now I can quote!! Oh yeah!! Thank you Phantasmajoric!!! lol. :)</p>