<p>@worldtraveler14 "So I do not believe the whole argument many people have that international students don’t get aid…So I just don’t see where the whole argument comes from. "</p>
<p>Well, please remember that you are asking opinions from complete strangers on the internet
There’s a saying: “Free advice is worth every penny you paid for it”.</p>
<p>I understand Chapman University gives need-blind merit-aid to anyone who qualifies, including international students. And they’re pretty BIG on community service as well.</p>
<p>Remember, just because a college is need-aware (i.e., not need-blind) doesn’t mean it’s impossible to gain admission; it means you are competing for the right to receive aid, usually a higher threshold than just whether you can do the work.</p>
<p>Look up the Common Data Set, Section H6, for any school that interests you. You will find that many state universities indicate they do not offer aid to internationals.</p>
<p>MIT
Duke
UNC
Northwestern
Chicago
Michigan
Johns Hopkins
Vanderbilt
Virginia
William & Mary
Washington@StL
Notre Dame
Rice
Emory
Stanford
Berkeley
UCLA
Wake Forest
NYU
CMU
USC
Georgetown</p>
<p>Amherst
Williams
Sharthmore
Pomona
Harvey Mudd</p>
<p>I’d say these schools rival in terms of academic quality and selectivity of the Ivy League. Countless folks from these schools turn down the Ivies to go here.</p>
<p>These are a little bit further down but they are almost similarly prestigious:
USC, Tufts, Emory, Carnegie Mellon, UVA, NYU, Michigan, Middlebury, Bowdoin, Carleton, Wellesley, Haverford, Wesleyan, Vassar, Davidson, Claremont McKenna</p>
It seems to me you should be getting advice from counselors and administrators at your school, rather than random people online, since they have such astonishing success getting their students admitted to US colleges with good aid. And after having submitted successful applications to 36 LAC’s, your sister is likely an excellent source of information as well.</p>
<p>Pomona’s average aid package to international students is $38K, according to its 2011-12 Common Data Set section H6. Claremont McKenna unfortunately does not post a CDS file, but in general its financial aid tends to be very good.</p>
<p>Foreign Policy magazine publishes an annual ranking of the top 20 graduate and undergraduate programs in international relations. Williams and Swarthmore are two LACs that make the list. Tufts also makes the list; it is not a LAC but is a relatively small university (~5000 undergraduates).
[Inside</a> the Ivory Tower - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_the_Ivory_Tower]Inside”>Inside the Ivory Tower - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>The Williams College average aid package to international students was $50,591, according to its 2011-12 Common Data Set. Swarthmore’s average was $44,889. These are very high averages compared to other colleges.</p>
<p>Top National Public Universities: UC Berkeley, Michigan </p>
<p>These are a little bit further down but they are almost similarly prestigious:
USC, Tufts, Emory, Carnegie Mellon, UVA, NYU, UCLA, Middlebury, Bowdoin, Carleton, Wellesley, Haverford, Wesleyan, Vassar, Davidson, Claremont McKenna </p>
<p>Berkeley and Michigan are prestigious.
UVa or William & Mary, and especially UNC, are less expensive for OOS students. </p>
<p>Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once stated that William & Mary has perhaps the finest undergraduate international relations program in the country. In addition to a lower sticker price, it offers smaller average class sizes than Berkeley or Michigan. It also is much closer to the Washington, DC center of action for IR internships.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, none of these 5 public schools offers aid to internationals.
The LACs rjkofnovi mentions do offer it. For undergraduates, I would not say they are less prestigious than Berkeley or Michigan (though for sure, they do have less name-recognition).</p>
<p>"IMO, i’d say that best public universities are probably: Cal, UCLA, and Michigan.</p>
<p>Michigan and UCLA are pretty tit-for-tat. I’d say they’re basically equal to each other"</p>
<p>My comments were, obviously, a sarcastic response to post #28.</p>
<p>I would say that Michigan is a bit more tit and UCLA is a slightly more tat, but otherwise I concur that they are basically equal. Btw, I am more into tits than tats personally. I hope I can say that? ;-)</p>
<p>“For undergraduate education, UVA and UNC-CH are tops along with W&M while Berkeley and Michigan excel at the graduate level…”</p>
<p>…unless you want to study engineering, the hard sciences, or the myriad of other programs at the undergraduate level where UCB and Michigan are clearly superior.</p>
<p>What exactly do you mean by that? Are you saying that when one wants to study economics, for example, one can better learn it at UVa or UNC than at Berkeley or Michigan?</p>
<p>What about when one wants to study undergrad business or computer science? Would you rather recommend UVa/UNC than Berkeley/Michigan?</p>
<p>I think CWM is a notch below the other five. Berkeley’s ranked higher above the other five on US NEWS; it’s also tied with CWM for best undergraduate teaching.</p>
<p>As far as UVa goes, it’s notoriously weak in the sciences; it isn’t even ranked on ‘best undergraduate teaching.’</p>
<p>There are many other elite public universities that are outside the top 5; these would include, Texas, Washington, UIUC, and so on. (Georgiatech, while amazing, is probably more specialized than the other ones.)</p>
<p>Each of these universities is an amazing deal for their in state residents. This is regardless of whether they’re ranked top 3, top 5, top 10, or so on.</p>
