As an international student with high financial need, should I apply to 10 schools?
Yes you should. As long as they give financial aid for international students.
Apply to schools that offer good merit aids to int students.
agree with paul. don’t bother to apply in stingy schools.
Actually, if you have financial need, 10 is probably not enough. You should get fee waivers though.
Do you also refer to the universities in your home country, that do not give FA to every foreigner who wants it, “stingy”
@PrimeMeridian @MYOS1634
@PrimeMeridian @moneyp @paul2752 @unicornbae
Since financial aid is a huge concern for me(my family’s income is less than 12k per year), merit aid it’s not the best option because full rides are too competitive, and full tuition scholarships would not work for me (besides EFC, I can only contribute 10k from savings + a 15k loan which I can take out once I enroll to university). In addition, I have a 94 TOEFL score which I cannot retake because it’s too expensive. Therefore, I’m limited to Universities that meet full need, which require a minimum of 90 in the TOEFL ibt, or which offer flexible standardized testing policies.
Anyway, thank you for your responses.
What schools are you looking at? Schools that meet need for internationals are extremely competetive. Most schools that i know of that meed aid does so with federal aid, something international students are not eligible for.
I dont see any way for you to afford an education in the US if you are an average student. Are there even 10 universities that meet need for inter? I can only think of very few
Yes, there are fewer than “meet need” for Americans, but they do exist - I’d say there are probably 40 of them.
(Also, OP is not an average student).
Apply for competitive full rides, too. You never know.
You can apply to universities with tuition, fees, board, too - Howard for instance.
Apply to Canadian universities - Waterloo, UBC, McGill.
Is the 15K loan for all 4 years (3,800 per year)?
If so, your budget is roughly $6,500 per year.
That means you MUST do a lot of work, and apply to as many as you can - all 20 commonapp slots, for instance.
@AvonBarksdale well, my app strategy consists on 3 ivy league unis, 1 top school, 6 LACs, and 1 Uni which offers offer full rides on a first come first served basis (I won’t include more of these ones because I may not receive the scholarships). 8 of them meet full need to all accepted students including internationals, 2 are need-blind and the other ones are need-sensitive.
You should apply to Berea (if you’re not already). Deadline is October or November, I think. Acceptance rate for internationals is 5%.
@MYOS1634 I checked Berea before but I don’t know why I did not include it in my list haha (I checked over 40 universities, maybe I didn’t notice it). Howard is in the list but it’s a shame that they require WES ($100 dollars extra, and it’s the only one which requires it, Nevermind).
I do not know about Canadian universities, do the ones that you mention offer good need based aid/merit aid? Can I apply to them with the SAT? via commonapp?
The loan is from the OAS Rowe fund: up to 15k can be taken, no cosigner is required, free interest, and deferred payment until 3 months after obtaining my degree. The only condition is that I have to come back to my home country after 1 year of degree completion, which is enough for doing the OPT. However, I don’t know how do they distribute the loan, is it better in the way you mention it?
Thank you for your suggestions.
Canada: you apply through an application or directly on their website. The three I mentioned have good scholarships but few of them.
There are four very good colleges that offer significant financial aid to international students that are not impossible to get admitted to. Wesleyan awarded on average $55K in financial aid to 80 international students; Skidmore awarded $54K to 98 international students; Bates awarded $52K to 88 international students; Trinity awarded $52K to 159 international students. Now this is across all four years not a single incoming freshman class but some of these colleges are small enough that a significant number of international students are offered very good financial aid. In most cases you would owe an additional $10k/year or so perhaps half that if work study is available
These numbers are averages, so it’s very possible internationals with full need are fully covered if some others only need part of the bill paid.
I know Bates gives internationals FA as grants that do not need to be repaid plus some work study. Wesleyan’s FA packages include loans. Not sure about the other schools, but it’s something to check.
@Wje9164be, I’m not sure what you count as impossible, but Wesleyan, and to a lesser extent, Bates, are pretty tough schools to be admitted to.
Apply to these two schools:
University of Alabama and Howard University. Both are pretty good, and the letter is called “Black Ivy”
Agreed, Bates and Weslyan are very selective. I just mean they are not as tough as Williams or Bowdoin or Swarthmore
@Sue22 @Wje9164be @MYOS1634 Thank you for your help, I’ll read further about those institutions
@paul2752 thanks for telling me about Ualabama, do you know which are the scholarship deadlines?
@MiddleburyDad2 I am aware of the selectivity that full-need-met schools have, do you know if coming from South America would help in any way?
“Agreed, Bates and Weslyan are very selective. I just mean they are not as tough as Williams or Bowdoin or Swarthmore”
I don’t think Wesleyan is terribly far off from any of those … maybe Swat. If you can get into Wesleyan, you are in the game for applying to the others.