<p>The universities you are looking at cost 55-65K a year. You need to get in AND receive 35 to 45K a year to be able to afford the school. The best way to do that is to be a the top of the scale. Your scores are average or a little below average for that purpose. I don’t know. Maybe you have a chance if they want someone from South Korea. It could happen. I gave you a few safety schools where you would be one of the stars. Not the smartest but one of the smart ones. You would probably be offered a place in the honors colleges. That is your best chance for $$$ if your family cannot pay $60K out of pocket. You can try but add in those safeties. Also maybe include UMass Amherst. A girl from Venezuela was just awarded great merit aid.</p>
<p>University of Michigan ROCKS! Also, you may want to consider looking at Wash U and CMU as well. All have very strong programs. Best of luck to you!</p>
<p>@ekroxx But the question is: do I have a chance to get accepted? </p>
<p>@mom2collegekids Hello! I’ve been looking through your posts and found them very helpful. Would you please be willing to help me? 
I recently started thinking about Middlebury, Colgate, Carleton as my EDII. What do you think about it? </p>
<p>no</p>
<p>Only if you can see yourself attending. Wash U-St. Louis has some great merit scholarships you can apply for - but the deadline may have passed. My son got “invitations” to apply - but couldn’t see himself there. I’ve got friends who have kids at both Wash-U (freshman) and Carnegie-Mellon (sophmore). Both really like - but neither school is easy to get into. Also depends on whether you need merit $$$ and financial aid to apply. You might look at something like Case Western - not sure how their economics dept. is but I’ve heard of several folks with similar scores who got nice merit $$$ from them. Seems to be a school on the ascendancy. If you’re happy w/ Kalamazoo as safety and Dickinson and possibly Tulane as matches, you’re probably fine. You might want to add one more safety/match school to the list though … just in case. All of the others - Brown, Penn, Cornell, Amherst, CM, etc. - are pretty much reaches / crap shoots for most everyone.</p>
<p>@4Gulls I heard Carnegie-Mellon doesn’t give financial aid to internationals. Is that true? I’ll look more for Wash U-St. Louis. What do you think about Colgate and Carleton? They sent me an invitation to apply, all the way to Africa. </p>
<p>@mmmmmmmmm why do you think so?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t put too much stock in “invitation to apply.” It’s marketing. They send thousands and thousands of thosee out. Colgate’s a very good liberal arts school in upstate NY - nearest city, Syracuse. Great school. Don’t know much about Carleton. </p>
<p>@4Gulls I acknowledge that do you think its worth for me to apply there as ED II? Also, do you know if Wash U provides financial aid to internationals? </p>
<p>Wash U and Carleton have financial aid for internationals. CMU, indeed, doesn’t.</p>
<p>@MYOS1634 Do you think I should try both schools? Or do i just not have a chance </p>
<p>You should type the name of the school into College Data and see if your stats place you in the top 25% or so, especially your test scores.
WashU loves test scores so yours won’t get you sufficient financial aid/admission.
Carleton is super competitive but they’re quirky, they like kids with interesting stories (such as you could have by moving to Africa, and with your many activities). I think it’s worth a shot.
I would <em>strongly</em> recommend you apply to UAlabama this weekend so that you can apply for the scholarship within the deadlines. DO NOT waste time, they need to have your application downloaded on Monday.</p>
<p>@MYOS1634 Why do you strongly promote UAlabama? I really don’t like to attend to big schools, which is the reason why all my school choices are small LACs… </p>
<p>because you have guaranteed admission, guaranteed honors college, guaranteed full tuition scholarship, and it’s very similar to Tulane (which is not small and not a LAC).
You need to have a safety. If you wait too long, it’ll be too late.
If you get in and into Kalamazoo, Tulane, and Dickinson with sufficient financial aid, then you won’t even have to think and you’ll pick either Kalamazoo or Dickinson, right? But if you don’t get in, you’ll have a decent fallback you can afford.</p>
<p>@MYOS1634 Right… I’ve chosen some safeties - Depauw University. But I will try to do UAlabama… What do you think of Knox College as safety? </p>
<p>DePauw is VERY heavily Greek (check out things related to “fraternity deaths” in the Parents Forum, not to mention “UVA fraternities all suspended” to have an idea of the less savory side of what “Greek” means - nothing to do with Classics.) Think about it carefully before you join as a lower-income, international student who’s very likely not going to “go Greek”.
And the college’s budget does not make it a safety at all, unless they have an automatic scholarship you qualify for?
Knox may be a better safety for your academic interests and because if you can pay 20,000+ it may place you in a semi-favorable situation compared to other internationals who apply, many of whom have less than that, but of course, much less so that full pay/near full pay applicants.</p>
<p>@MYOS1634 Could you kindly suggest other safeties for me other than UAlabama and Knox? I just choose Depauw since they don’t have application fee 
</p>
<p>The problem is that there are very few “safeties” outside of automatic scholarships for stats, if you’re an international who needs financial aid. Schools that are at match or safety level (ie/., not “reach for everyone”…) are need aware, so that the more financial need you have, the harder it is to get in.
For a student interested in economics, a major present at most schools, an ability to do well in math is important (in fact, if you want to go on for a graduate degree in economics, it’s more important that you have advanced math classes than you have economics classes!)
Also free to apply and with very good to decent academics:
- Allegheny, St Olaf, Hendrix, St Lawrence, Butler, Case Western Reserve, Centre, Southwestern, Drake, Earlham, Sewanee, Ursinus, Gustavus Adolphus, Illinois Wesleyan, Ithaca (Suny Geneseo)
- St Edward’s (TX), Wells, UScranton, Elizabethtown, Valparaiso, Guilford, Hartwick, Hiram, Susquehanna</p>