<p>I'm a senior considering applying to the US. I know that Williams is need-blind to international students, but are there other colleges like that? (I'm also thinking of applying to Oberlin but they say they have limited resources.)</p>
<p>Thanks for reading my post.</p>
<p>Harvard, Yale and Princeton are also need-blind to Internationals. Although meeting demonstrated need is not guarenteed by the rest, it is possible that they will attempt to meet some of the need. </p>
<p>The college stats at collegeboard.com do give stats on how much aid was disbursed to International students and to how many. It is possible to arrive at an average figure per International student from there. I would sugest that you take a chance and apply to colleges that have given aid to Internationals in the past. A match or a notch below the match is where one can expect merit scholarships. </p>
<p>Most colleges that give away a lot of merit scholarships will also consider giving the same to Internationals also. Emory, Washington University, Vanderbilt, Brandeis are some names that come to the mind.</p>
<p>There are a couple of threads on this topic already, check them out!</p>
<p>The five schools in the US that are need-blind to internationals are Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Williams and Middlebury. Most liberal arts colleges are generous with aid as they are trying to diversify their student populations - Colby, Bates, Mt. Holyoke, Macalester, etc. Most top universities also offer aid - Johns Hopkins (they just started), Dartmouth, Brandeis, etc.</p>
<p>MIT is also need blind, full demonstrated need for internationals</p>
<p>What does need blind mean? :)</p>
<p>Need blind means that a school accepts students regardless of their financial need. Though many schools have this policy, I'm not too sure whether its entirely true...</p>
<p>Maybe I'm naive, but when a school says it's need blind, I believe them. They can't expect us to be honest if they aren't.</p>
<p>In most respects i agree with you, but I'm almost positive that if they have two exact candidates, one that needs a huge amount of aid, another that doesn't need any, they will chose the latter.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the replies.</p>
<p>Right now I'm considering (in order of preference) Williams, Middlebury, Oberlin, Colgate, Colby, and Carleton. There was a college fair here last month, and the Colgate representative told me they do give good aid, but to only a few internationals. I'm also trying for the Wesleyan Asian Freeman Scholarship--my fingers are crossed, and so are my toes.</p>
<p>I had been thinking of MIT since the 7th grade, but I just realized that the liberal arts is my true calling.</p>
<p>If a school is need blind, does that mean that it technically should have the same success rates for international students and home students? - or am i on the wrong track?</p>
<p>Well, in a need blind school both international and domestic applicants are technically teated alike in the admissions process. This means that usually no distinction is make between these two. So if there is a higher rate of domestic applicants, a higher rate will be admitted. If there is a higher rate of int'l applicants, a higher rate will be admitted.</p>
<p>oh right, that's what i thought, although the success rates for home students is higher than for international students and maybe its just me but i feel due to the amount of self-selection that occurs for international students, the overall calibre should be higher?</p>
<p>I guess that in most situations that's true. Most students have higher credentials, and the competition is higher, but it all depends on how many int'ls apply.</p>
<p>Angi you make a good point...</p>
<p>a repost from another topic:
there are exactly 6 intl need blind colleges
harvard princeton yale mit williams and middlebury</p>
<p>2 that are need blind when considering u for admission but may not have the funds for you
grinnell and cornell</p>
<p>didnt really look through the unis (most of them offer very miserable aid other than H,Y,P, MIT) , but for the LACs these are very generous with intl aid too, but not need blind
vassar, oberlin, bard.</p>
<p>hm i just read this "MIT Seeks to Reverse Decline in Intls"</p>
<p>and </p>
<p>"We are capped at admitting around 100 [international students] each year, Espinosa wrote in an e-mail. International students are not entitled to federal aid, which limits our ability to meet full need."</p>
<p>so this isn't exactly need blind?? since intls are being discriminated against due to their "limited ability to meet full need"?? i wonder what about the other schools that claim to be intl need blind...</p>
<p>Angi/alukaszewicz,</p>
<p>Need blind does not automatically include Intls. One can safely assume only domestic students. One has to read the pages for Intls on college web-sites to find out if the college provides need blind admissions and/or need-based aid to Internationals. </p>
<p>MIT seems to have a quota for Intls. purportedly based on finance avaioability. I suspect that that will be the case with all indtitutions, and not just for internationals. I think colleges do have a rough ball-park percentages for different segments of the domestic population also - based on race, gender, ethnicity, income etc. </p>
<p>From UPenn web-site:
"Penn maintains a policy of need-blind admissions for citizens and permanent residents of the U.S., Canada and Mexico; financial need does not affect their admission decisions. Almost two-thirds of Penn undergraduates receive some form of financial assistance, and approximately 40 percent of the students are awarded need-based grant aid. All financial assistance is based on evaluated financial need; no merit or athletic grants are awarded."</p>
<p>"The University is able to offer financial assistance to very few students who are not citizens or permanent residents of the U.S., Canada or Mexico. Therefore, most non-citizens should plan to meet expenses for their entire schooling before applying for admission.</p>
<p>Students who absolutely require such funding should submit Penn's Institutional Financial Aid Application, but they should also understand that they are in competition for very limited funds. Penn will not admit a financial aid candidate for whom we cannot provide aid. As a result, some candidates we would otherwise want to admit will be turned away."</p>
<p>Hopkins says "Hopkins offered need-based scholarships to undergraduate international students for the first time for the 2003-2004 academic year. Approximately 10% of the incoming international freshman are receiving need-based scholarships. The average scholarship covers full tuition, but individual amounts can be more or less, depending on the financial need of the student." </p>
<p>Whether need-blind to Intls or not, colleges will certainly try their best to lure the outstanding candidates from wherever they are. Private colleges have more financial leverage to do this than public schools, who cannot give money as they please. Therefore if one's credentrials, acheivements etc. put one in the top 5 % of the applying pool of candidates, it is certain that the college will try to fulfill demonstarted need.</p>
<p>Now I really dont understand 'demonstrated' need. Even with domestic students, what one sees is that different schools calculate the demonstrated need and EFC - expected family contribution - differently. I dont understand how the same FAFSA form can lend itself to different interpretaions. Therefore, even domestic students many (or is it most) times feel very let down by the need-based aid packages they receive. Which is why even many domestic students refrain from applying ED if they feel apprehensive about the aid meeting their actual need. </p>
<p>Basically, as an example, if one is match at UPenn but is top notch at Vanderbilt, it is highly possible that UPenn might not give a dime (and if there is a significant demostrated will not offer admission at all), but Vanderbilt might offer a full ride. </p>
<p>Even with Merit scholarships, some colleges make a distinction between domestic and Internationals. For eg. Emory, Washington at SL, Vanderbilt do not make the ditinction, but Case Western and Brandeis do. </p>
<p>It is not a simple arithmetic of who gives need-based aid to Intls and who does'nt. If one is good enough to get into Harvard, Yale and MIT, they are also sure to receive generous funding from the next tier of colleges like Johns Hopkins etc.</p>
<p>ok i was going through their site and fair enough it states this... my bad then.
"We do have one quota at MIT, which concerns international applicants (non US-citizens or permanent residents), for whom we limit enrollment to between six and eight percent of the entering class."
The class admitted for fall 2004:</p>
<p>10,464 students applied
1,664 admitted
2165 international students applied
104 admitted
so 1560 out of 8299 domestic (18.79%) accepted
but only 104/2165 for intls (4.80%)</p>
<p>i think you need to make a distinction between 'need-blind' and 'nationality-blind'. if MIT has a quota of 100 int'l students a year, but evaluates each individual in the int'l pool without any consideration of financial need, then i think it can still call itself need-blind. in fact i'm pretty sure that's exactly what most other top US schools do - and it's justified. otherwise you'd have ever-escalating int'l percentages.</p>