So I messed up big time, now need help finding two Safety Colleges

College Search & Selection
1

First of all, I’m from Spain, so I am quite unfamiliar with Us colleges, I barely now what I’ve been able to gather in the last two months.

My problem is the following: two months ago, I decided that if I ever wanted to achieve my goals I needed to aim higher than I was aiming, and considering that I really want to leave Spain, the rational course fo action was getting into some top college in the US, having decided this, I registered for SAT and started gathering info on how to apply to the one place that could help me achieve my dreams much more than any other: MIT.

I was positively surprised when I learned that MIT gives full-need financial aid to international students because my parents earn next to nothing (15000€ a year between the two of them, approximately), so I need either an incredibly generous aid program or just full-need.

Then when I actually registered for SAT I decided that since MIT (and my first chosen safety school, Tufts) did not require the Essay it was pointless to study for it, specially since I have basically an entire year of Physics and Maths to learn before June 6 (my Subject Tests dates).

This is where I messed up, see, I decided I’d just chose some other top universities (quite the optimist I am) as second and third options to apply, but I forgot to check if they required the SAT with Essay, and since I’m taking SAT next week. I can’t add the essay now, so either I take it again in August or I change two of the colleges to better suited, safety colleges that could also provide the financial aid I need.

Being the last-hour-careful person that I am, I’ve decided to change my score reports to safety colleges, just in case I don’t get into MIT or Tufts.

Any suggestions? I’m at a lost for which college to choose now. Thanks in advance for taking the time to read and answer my post.

2

It is rather late in the process. Most universities require you to apply earlier than this in order to be considered for financial aid. Also, it is extremely hard to get into MIT and Tufts, even for students with perfect grades and perfect scores. Finally, most US universities do not give much (if any) financial aid to students from outside of the USA.

Do you still live in Spain? How much can you afford to pay out-of-pocket (not including loans)? Judging from your parent’s income, I am thinking that the answer might be “zero”.

Your “safeties” might need to be outside of the USA, probably in Spain. If “Tufts” is a safety school, then either your definition of “safety” is not the same as mine, or you are an extremely strong student. Just being the number one student in your high school is not enough to make Tufts a “safety” school.

Quite a few of the threads under “international students” talk about choices of universities and costs:

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/international-students/

3

I’m still in Spain, note that I’m doing SAT now on my freshman year to apply for college later this year and start on september of 2018.

About choosing Tufts as safety, I did so because I read, can’t remember where, that it is much easier to get into Tufts than it is to get into MIT (which is really my goal, even if I get into another college I’ll keep trying to apply as transfer student). A safety in Spain is not necessary, I’m choosing safeties to send my SAT scores to, if all 4 options failed then I’d just stay in Spain (that’s the backup plan and it’s already worked out, but it’s the least convenient in my opinion).

Thanks for answering and for directing me to the other forum, I hope I can find some other affordable college.

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" …and start on September of 2018."

Okay. You have lots of time to figure this out and to apply to universities.

“…it is much easier to get into Tufts than it is to get into MIT”

This is true, but more because it is VERY difficult to get into MIT. When I was at MIT approximately 1/2 of incoming students had scored 800 on the math SAT, and I would suspect that the percentage is probably higher now.

If you post what sorts of grades you have then this will help other folks on CC get a sense regarding what sorts of schools might be feasible. However, if you wait until you have SAT scores, then this will again make it easier for people to comment – particularly since most CC readers probably are not aware of how grades are done in Spain, but we are nearly all familiar with SAT scores.

Good luck with all of this. Buena suerte.

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If Tufts is your safety then you had better plan on going to university in Spain.

6

What is your GPA on a 4.0 scale?

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MIT is almost impossible to get into. Tufts is a little less impossible but still very difficult. If you are the best student in your city, you may have a chance. No one can really help you without information on your grades, class rank, etc. What is the highest level math you gave studied?

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" If you are the best student in your city, you may have a chance. "

I think that this is about right for Tufts. For MIT, it might be more like “best STEM high school student in Spain this year”. Obviously there is someone in Spain that matches this level each year.

And for out-of-the-US folks: “STEM” is a common abbreviation for “Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics”. Also, “OP” is an abbreviation for either the original post, or the original poster (@41ADAN in this case).

In defense of OP’s looking at top universities only: There is no point in OP’s applying to universities in the US unless those universities are in some sense good enough to justify the trip from Spain to the US. If he doesn’t get in, I expect that there are good universities in Spain.

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Ok, thanks for the assistance, I guess I’ll wait untill I have my scores to decide, nto the best plan but it’s better than nothing.

About those saying that it’s near impossible to get into MIT and extremely hard to get into Tufts, I have to say that I’m aware, I expect to get about 780 or more in both parts of the SAT and just about the same score in the Subject Tests, and if I have to study 10 hours a day to get into MIT then that’s what I’ll do, because it’s improtant for me. Of course I have back-up plans in Spain, but getting into top colleges in the US is my goal, and I’m not going to look for schools with a lower level because if I wanted that I’d stay in Spain.

About my grades, I had an average of about 8.2/10 in the last trimester (I know it’s low but it’s because of subjects like philosophy dragging down my grades), and looking at the last trimester of my junior year I expect about 9/10 minimum average. Next year I have less of the subjects I’m less proficient at and more science subjects which means my grades will go even higher.

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Tufts is not the safety. OP is asking for help finding safety schools. The problem is full aid for an international plus relatively easy to get into.

Go to the big future website. Under “Paying” select meets at least 80% of need, uncheck include schools that don’t report financial need met, and check the box for financial aid for internationals, then filter down from there.

https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-search

Use a computer, the mobile site doesn’t have all those features.

11

Are you a freshman in college? If so, many US colleges will consider you a transfer. You need to check each college website to see if they offer financial aid to international transfer students.

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Oops! I meant to say junior, I’m on my junior year! Big slip I made there. That said, if I happened to fail to get into any US college in the 2018-2019 term, I’d get into an spanish one and try to do transfer, see how that works.

But going back to the thread: how good would Worcester Polythecnic Institute and UMASS Lowell be as safeties? According to BigFuture they provide 80% and 90% of financial aid on average, and acceptance rate is between 50% and 60% on both so it looks much easier, specially if I get the grade I’m specting on SAT.

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If you are not a US citizen living in Spain, then you will find that many otherwise-generous-with-financial-aid universities in the US are much less generous for international students.

This is also true of merit scholarships in that only a subset of them are available to international students.

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UMass Amherst is Massachusett’s Flagship school and possibly better than Lowell depending on what major you want with the additional bonus of being virtually a small town. However, you need to understand that UMass schools do tend to cater more to in state students and I don’t know their acceptance rate for international students which tends to differ from the acceptance rates you see on their websites.

WPI and UMass do not offer very good financial aid for international students; most US schools do not offer good fin aid for internationals. Please understand that when schools claim to offer 100% of demonstrated need, it often is based on what they think you need. For example, my family’s Estimated Family Contribution from the FAFSA that American students fill out for the government’s estimation of cost of attendance was approximately 28k per year. However, none of the schools that I got into gave me anywhere close to enough aid to even be close to 28k per year cost of attendance. @41ADAN

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I understand, I’ll keep looking then, see what I can find and try to look for accurate information too.

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@41ADAN In addition, I just reviewed the collegeboard’s policy on the SAT which I thought had a part about changing to and from SAT with Essay. Here is the link: https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/register/policies-requirements/changes

You are allowed to change your exam to SAT with Essay and I know from personal experience all I had to do was ask the proctor at the exam that day. There is probably somewhere on the Collegeboard website that you can change details about the test on or you can call them and ask about it.

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@Syrxis it’s weird, because I recall reading that, but I must be experiencing some kind of bug because when I try to change the details from the College Board web an error comes up, somehting about there not being any dates left for this year. I assumed it was because you can’t change details this close tot he date fo the test but it seems it’s actually a bug.

Thanks for the help.

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Is there a particular reason you want to come to the United States to study so bad? US colleges are not particularly well known for being a cheap option and can often leave you with a good amount of debt.

I think you’re trying to change the date of the test by accident although I don’t remember because I did this like 2 years ago. I would call them right now because their call centers should be open and I’m sure they can inform you on how to properly change it

@41ADAN

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Your odds of getting the score you want/need on the first attempt at the SAT aren’t great. If you can’t change it now, odds are that you will sit for it again prior to applying.

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I’ll probably call in a moment.

About wanting to get into a college in the US, I have several reasons. First of all I don’t want to study to get a job, I want to study to investigate and make advancements in certain fields, which means I’ll need the best education I can get, coming right behind that reason is the fact that I dislike Spain, I just want to leave, and some parts of the US seem quite interesting to me.

There’s lesser reasons but those are my main two.

@intparent I’m counting on the fact that if I get less than I expect on SAT on my first try I can still do it again on July or August.