Please Help. No where to go!

Hi. I’m an international student who has the dream of getting the opportunity of studying in a better environment such as the one US universities offer. I got accepted at Dartmouth ED but couldn’t get in because of the modest financial aid. I applied at Harvard, Yale, Duke, UChicago, and Northwestern RD. However, I was so disappointed to find out that I didn’t get accepted by any of them, just waitlisted by UChicago. What should I do now? What universities should I think of applying at, if there are any?

Everyone needs to apply to some colleges that their family can afford. You need what are called, “financial safeties”. I think there are threads here that list colleges with good merit aid. Since you are international you might want to google schools that have generous aid for internationals. Worse case scenario is that you take a gap year and start the application process over

You should’ve applied to safety schools.

Do you have options in your home country?

For someone who needs a lot of financial aid and is international, there are few choices. If Dartmouth’s aid was not good enough and you didn’t get into one of the schools that meets need for internationals, I think you have exhausted your US options and need to look in your home country. Sorry.

If you have the grades and test scores that would qualify you for Dartmouth, you have the grades and test scores taht would make you competitive for the scholarships on this list:
http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com/
and would qualify you for the automatic scholarships on this list:
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/

How badly do you want to attend college in the US? Are you only interested in certain “top” institutions, or could you be happy pretty much anywhere?

If dartmouth couldn’t meet your need the other ones probably couldn’t either… so even if accepted you wouldn’t have been able to attend. I agree with the above poster that you should look into schools with merit aid.

@happymomof1
Thanks a lot. The point isn’t that I am only interested in certain top institutions, but that I did have the opportunity of getting into one of them and I got waitlisted by another one which means that I do qualify for some of them, so I don’t want to lose such a chance. I am so hesitant whether should I attend a relatively lower school such as university of Alabama or Howard university or should I wait and try again Fall 2017 but I believe that it’s so risky.

@newjerseygirl98
The worst school at U.S would be better than the best school in my homeland, so I believe I am not thinking of attending at my homeland at all.

@Hypocrit - That is entirely understandable. However, if you need or want significant amounts of aid, and Dartmouth didn’t give you enough aid to make it affordable, it is reasonable to expect that the other top institutions won’t give you enough aid either. You need to focus on places that will be affordable. Every year plenty of students who get into places like Dartmouth, but can’t afford them, decide to go Howard, U of AL, and the other places that offer a lot of merit-based aid money. If you end up at one of those, you will find lots of students as well-qualified (or even better qualified) than yourself.

If you want to be in college in the US this fall, and you have an affordable offer, accept it and don’t look back.