<p>Hi everyone,
I am an international student, looking for universities that have a good physics program. I have way too many schools with an acceptance rate under 20% . I do need financial aid, but cant find a good safety school that offers need based aid for international students and have a good bachelor of science program. Can anyone give me a few suggestions?</p>
<p>There are lots of good physics programs out there at the B.S. level. Most programs have the same coursework and requirements so you don’t lose anything by going to schools with lower rankings. You might want to look at private tech schools like the smaller [url=“<a href=“http://theaitu.org%22%5DAITU%5B/url”>http://theaitu.org”]AITU[/url</a>] schools. A number of them do give a significant tuition discount to good students and you might be able to negotiate a better aid package becuase of your need.</p>
<p>Schools that have higher acceptance rates for domestics that come to mind are Berkeley, UCSB (probably not great suggestions given the lack of funding currently, but still excellent schools), Illinois (I know an international student who went there, it’s a wonderful program), Maryland, Michigan, Cornell (a bit easier to get in than the other Ivies but just as good), Johns Hopkins, and Boston University. However, I’m sure the public schools are probably way more competitve for international students. However, even for lower ranked schools it’s probably still going to be hard since they have less financial aid to give.</p>
<p>I would go with Illinois since they have a large international population, however, most are probably grad students.</p>
<p>Where are you from? Many international schools in places like the UK, China, Switzerland, etc. are also great and MUCH cheaper than going to the U.S.</p>
<p>I have looked into schools that offer aid. Most of them were liberal arts. would a liberal arts university (union college, Colgate university for example) offer an equivalent B.S. degree as a research based university?</p>
<p>I am looking at other countries (UK, Sweden) as well, wanna keep my options open</p>
<p>Compare the courses and curricula in your major to see if they are similar (and the courses are offered on a regular basis).</p>
<p>Also bear in mind that LACs often have a different way of educating their students than either you may expect, takes place in your home country, and/or is pursued at large research universities. The research you do on coursework in your intended major (as recommended wisely by ubcalumnus) should be extended to cover how courses are taught and what the “liberal arts education” delivers at different LACs. This is to see how suitable LACs are for you.</p>
<p>For example, at Colgate the student:faculty ratio is 9:1, all courses are taught by PHDs (or terminal degrees in their fields), average class size is 15 in physics (similar is other majors and other classes you will take), and there is a Core curriculum for all students. And the school has 2900 students and just a handful of graduate students.</p>
<p>Lastly, bear in mind that admission to LACs can be very competitive and the colleges’ expectations for complete and ultimately successful applications may differ from what you expect now. While Colgate, for example, has a 10% non-US entering freshman class, the selection of those individuals was extremely rigorous- as you will see in the Class of 2018 statistics. Colgate can hardly be viewed as a “safety” for this cohort; to be successful candidates must show a clear desire to attend and participate in campus life inside and outside the classroom.</p>
<p>Good luck with your research at colgate.edu and direct the resulting questions that arise and for which you want in depth responses to the various individuals identified within their departments.</p>
<p>I am actually planning to major in Physics, and I have that Berkeley and Harvard are two of them. I would recommend Berkeley if you are not going to go to the extremes.</p>