Need help finding colleges please!! (international student)

Hey guys, been looking around the internet for days but having a hard time finding good colleges to apply to (Undergrad). Have a few on the list right now: NYU, BU, Northeastern, Penn State, Syracuse. Would really appreciate if you could recommend me some Safeties/Matches/Low Reaches. Heres some stuff about me:

Intended Major: Econ
Currently on a gap year, working and travelling

SAT - 1280 (pretty shiz i know)

IB - 38/45 , 7 HL Business, 7 HL Chinese B, 6 HL Film Studies, 6 SL Biology, 6 SL English, 4 SL Math

I’ve also taken part in some pretty big business startup events, and have a little work experience to go with that. Also have quite a bit of community work + sports extra curriculars.

I’ll take any recommendations right now so any opinions are appreciated, thankyou!!

What can you afford per year? Have you given us your GPA?

Dont use GPA at our school since we do the IB. If i were to convert my ib score to GPA it would be 3.7/4.0 (ish). Price is not an issue, would like to get a solid selection of colleges first. Thankyou

Congrats on your hard work and success! Those are strong IB scores.

The financial aspect is very important for international students. Schools, generally speaking, prefer international students to be full pay, and are much stingier with aid for them. So if you aren’t applying for financial aid, and will be a full-pay student, the answer as to which schools might be safeties or matches. For example, and it’s just example, Syracuse would probably be at least a match for a US student with your IB scores. As a full pay international student, MAYBE that would be the same. If you were looking for significant financial aid, it MIGHT be a different answer.

You seem to prefer urban schools where you might have opportunities for internships, coops, etc. (given your business interests). You might look at Babson College, which is primarily for business and entrepreneurship. It’s probably a reach.

Also, you might look at some schools like the University of Cincinnati, University of Dayton, and Creighton University in Omaha. Some are public and some are Catholic schools (Catholic schools typically have non-Catholic students and there are typically no religious requirements, other than taking a religion class or two, which can be on any religion). Creighton is in Omaha, which has a strong business presence for a mid-size city. I think most of these would be safeties/matches.

Some state flagships might also work well. I could probably recommend almost any of them. I’ve heard recently that the University of Kansas and Lawrence, the city where it is located, are surprisingly vibrant, with a very nice downtown with lots to do, and a developing tech community. The Universities of Nebraska and Iowa, although in rural states, have urban campuses. The University of Minnesota is located in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul) area. It’s cold but a very nice community.

Good luck!

Price is almost always an issue. Can your parents pay upwards of USD 70,000 each year, or not? If they don’t have that kind of money, take NYU off your list right now.

For each place on your list, check the website for the International Student Cost of Attendance. That is the minimum that you will need to prove you have available for your first year of college, or you will not get a student visa. Find out what your parents can pay, and then eliminate any places that are outside your parents’ budget.

38 is very good (it’s good enough for any college in the country - a strong 4.0).
Are you full pay? Where have you already applied? Did you retake the SAT in December?

Thankyou! Yes, I will be full pay and will not require financial aid. However I recognize that my low SAT score is a limitation and 1280 (640/640, 19 Essay) is the highest score I can report. So far on my Common app I am applying to NYU, BU, IU Bloomington, NEU and Syracuse. I also applied to UofT, UBC and McGill in Canada due to the IB being more recognized there.

Apply to Babson, Bentley, Bryant.
At Penn State make sure to apply to Schreyer and if not admitted to sign up for Paterno Scholars+living learning community.
Miami Ohio/Farmer + Honors. UF (Florida) + Honors, FSU Honors, SDSU Honors. UCSC honors. Villanova. UVermont honors. Denison. Colgate. Lafayette.

These posts have been very helpful and much appreciated.

As I’m trying to narrow down my choices, one thing I am quite confused about- There seems to be an overwhelming amount of colleges in the US, such that hardly any rankings are remotely similar to each other (outside of the top 20 or so). This begs the question, how reliable are these rankings, and are they an important factor to consider when choosing which to apply to? Which is more important: overall ranking or subject rank(econ)?

I also noticed that many smaller colleges and private schools tend to be omitted from these rankings. Do larger schools/ state schools have better prestige/reputation and offer more opportunities compared to smaller private/ liberal arts colleges? Since I dont have a clear career path right now, which would offer more flexibility after graduation(especially as an international student)?

Thanks again for your time!

What rankings are you talking of?

Popular ones online like QS, times higher education, niche

“Since I dont have a clear career path right now, which would offer more flexibility after graduation(especially as an international student)?”

What is your citizenship situation and where do you want to work when you graduate? If you’re not a US citizen and are hoping to work in the US after graduation, that’s highly unlikely. H1B visas are a hot topic over here, likely to be even fewer issued in the future. Most employers aren’t going to want to go through the expense and hassle of trying to get a noncitizen a visa, especially given you’re looking at a fairly nonspecialized degree from colleges that aren’t especially selective.

QS and TImes look at quality of graduate education (essentially, research output) not quality of undergraduate education and obviously skip all undergraduate-focused programs.
Niche is helpfully completed by USNWR (look at National Universities, LACs, and Regional Universities).
But all in all start by readingthe Fiske Guide or the Princeton Review’s Best Colleges guide.

Yes, QS and Times effectively weight professor research and publications highly. So larger US research universities (including state flagships) tend to be ranked much higher than in US rankings like Newsweek and Forbes, which weight other things like undergrad prestige, test scores/grades of incoming students, competitiveness (acceptance rates/yields), grad rates, and that type of thing. Schools like Williams and Amherst are small LACs with very strong students, small classes, and excellent teaching. They are elite undergrad institutions but very low in those international rankings because the professors focus on teaching, not research and publishing. Except for some fields where research is especially important, they pretty much give you as good or an even better undergrad education than anywhere.

If an international student were from India or Singapore, just for examples, and wanted to go to work for a major financial institution or something similar, they might pay more attention to world rankings because these institutions are paying attention to them. For a job in the US, or for just a quality college education, I would advise relying more on US rankings like US News, Forbes, and/or Niche.

For an international student, rankings can be helpful. But keep in mind there are something like 3000 colleges and universities in the US. So the difference between 80 and 100 is really insignificant, or even 100 and 150. 150 may be in a place you’d love and strong in your area of interest, while 100 might be a place that would not appeal to you, and maybe doesn’t offer what you want to study. So 150 might be the best choice for you.

And keep in mind that these rankings are based on some somewhat arbitrary criteria. For example, research and publishing, which is important in QS and Times rankings, can actually be a negative for an undergrad because then the focus of a large number of professors at a highly ranked school might be on research, not the classroom, although this also can mean more research opportunities for undergrads, sometimes a lot and sometimes less. So rankings are just very rough guides, aimed at a general audience, not you.

And, even though most US students don’t do IB programs, admissions reps will be very familiar with it. So don’t be concerned that that will have any impact on how your application is viewed.

I’ll just throw out one more: Santa Clara University: beautiful campus, the best weather, business school, and located in Silicon Vally, so the best internship/coop opportunities of anywhere.

Okay say I will return to my home country after graduation. speaking generally will studying in a larger more well known college be better in terms of employability? I know the quality of education in some of these smaller schools (eg. bentley, lafayette) may be superior, but would it be as recognized to employers?

Very grateful for the help, TTG & MYOS1634. Off to do some applications now. Will keep this thread updated for any news!!

“Okay say I will return to my home country after graduation. speaking generally will studying in a larger more well known college be better in terms of employability?”

That’s the rub. Most of the US schools you’re going to be able to gain admission to have little to no name recognition overseas.* It stinks because many of them would give you a great education, but if your goal is employability after college, you might be best served going to college in your home country. We’ve been going through this analysis both with our nephews (who live in England, don’t have US citizenship and would be returning to England after college) and my son (who has dual US/British citizenship so could go to school or work in either but would like to return to the US after college.) After our research and talking to dozens of employers, college placement people, etc. we concluded that unless the student was able to go to one of the tippy top colleges in the foreign country - such as HPYSM or UCB in the US or Oxbridge in the UK, name recognition outside the country is low to zero. To add insult to injury, having a foreign college on your resume may hurt your first few job searches because potential employers assume you aren’t a citizen and won’t be able to work without them committing to going through the paperwork and expense of trying to get you a visa, so they don’t even bother to contact or interview you.

If your family can afford to pay full price for an education that probably won’t help you get a job in your home country (and may actually hurt your first few job searches), then no worries - there surely will be one of those US colleges you can get into. But it’s not very practical if your goal is employability in your home country. I’m sorry, it’s unfortunate that the complexities of immigration/employment policies turn something that could be wonderful into something negative. And you may decide that it’s still worth it to you personally to come to the US and just work to overcome the fact that overseas employers won’t recognize how good your education was. I just want you to understand the risks so you have all the information when making your decision.

  • And foreign name recognition can be just plan illogical and weird. If you're British, you''ll know what a fantastic school Imperial College London is; in Britain for most science/math subjects ICL would be considered more prestigious than London School of Economics. Here in America, few employers would have heard of ICL and even fewer would understand how strong a degree from ICL is, but they'd be extremely impressed with the LSE degree. But again, sadly if most employers received a resume from a LSE grad, their reaction would be "wow, look - this guy graduated from London School of Economics! Too bad he's not a US citizen and can't work here. Next!"

I’d say, in general, the answer is a very unsatisfying “it depends.”

On the one hand, you have the answer in #16, which is accurate and helpful. I can add another similar example. I know someone who manages hiring for a large financial institution in a large nation outside the US. They say they only will look at resumes from about a dozen US universities. So that is one side of the argument. (And kind of crazy from a US perspective, because there are incredible people graduating from any different universities, so they are just flat-out overlooking a lot of potential talent.)

On the other hand, I know an international student who just graduated from one of the handful of most prestigious US LACs. I’m sure it’s ranked very low in QS and Times rankings. They had tremendous interaction with faculty and deep support from the school in arranging internships, coops, and opportunities to attend very significant conferences, etc. That is one benefit to a small LAC where students might get extra attention and resources. They have developed a great network, are doing very well, and can probably attend any grand school they would like.

Sometimes on CC, I note that Kenyon, a small LAC in Ohio, has produced almost a half dozen of the most successful writers over the last few decades (Laura Hillenbrand, John Green, Bill Watterson, etc.). San Jose State sends the most, or almost the most, people to jobs in Silicon Valley. It is a public CA school ranked below the big ones in the state, Berkeley, UCLA, etc. I know a business owner in the Boston area who mostly employs Northeastern students because they do a better job for them than the Harvard students they’ve employed. Holy Cross is a mid-size Catholic university in a mid-size city. It offers academics as strong as anywhere, and students are very well prepared and do well in winning scholarships and going on to prestigious grad schools.

Many public universities, including state flagships, offer fantastic educations and research opportunities. And many students go on to very successful careers. If you wanted to go into science, whether or not you were going on to grad school, you might get fantastic lab research opportunities at any one of dozens of state research universities.

Some, like myself, like to argue what is most important is HOW one goes to school, not WHERE. Some of the most successful people I know, both in their careers and personal lives (and they are extremely wealthy), attended schools that are not very highly ranked. One, who is very extremely successful ($$$$$), attended a third-tier public university that is not ranked in the top 500 on any list. They worked hard, did very well, and went on to a top grad school.

Of course, in some countries, and in some specific fields (particularly finance), where you go does matter. You’d have to figure out what is most important where you intend to live and work, and what you might do. But you would get a great education at any of the schools mentioned in this thread.