<p>I had my mind set on BU before, and it really matches my scores (1990SAT). I'm pretty confident that applying ED to BU will get me in. BUT. I am an international student. And the only appropriate scholarship for me would be trustee scholarship; and it's results won't b out until April!
I will have to commit to BU in January, tho. And that's just not feasible!!
On the other hand, dartmouth is need-blind for international students. And I would very much like to go to Dartmouth. But dartmouth is much more competitive than BU. and I almost 100% sure I won't get in anyway.
What do u think?
Please reply soon, the deadline is tomorrow & I'm freaking out.
plus, I can't really contact my counselor about this. She's on vacation & I can't reach her :/</p>
<p>Dartmouth is “need-blind” with respect to making the decision whether to offer you admission, but that is not the same as saying that they will provide financial aid sufficient to meet all your needs. And even for schools that promise to meet all demonstrated financial need for internationals, that does not mean that their estimate of the amount you need will match yours.</p>
<p>You need to carefully review the need-based financial aid policies for international students for both schools before making your decision.</p>
<p>Well Dartmouth says that they are need-blind and full-need to all applicants.
I have gathered information from different resources: last year, BU gave aid to 100 international students out of its 2000 students body. The avg. award was $30,000, tho.
But Dartmouth aided 250 out of 270 students, with an average of $45,000.
So u could clearly see Dartmouth is much more generous with international aid, but also much harder to get into…
It’s a dilemma, really :/</p>
<p>You need to run the Net Price Calculator at the Dartmouth website. Just because the average award is USD X, doesn’t mean that YOU would get that much money. They might award you significantly more, or significantly less. They are the ones who get to decide who much to award you.</p>
<p>If you feel that you absolutely MUST apply anywhere ED, apply to Dartmouth. If you are admitted, you will get your aid offer in time to decide whether or not to attend. BU is pointless for you right now because you won’t get the aid decision you need in time to decide.</p>
<p>To be perfectly honest here, I think you should just wait and apply everywhere in the RD round. There is no point in being admitted to places that you can’t afford.</p>
<p>^^Agree. Your chances of being accepted to Dartmouth with a sub-2000 SAT score are really slim. ED at BU is for full pay students. </p>
<p>Apply RD and see what happens.</p>
<p>I believe that one of the ‘exceptions’ to the binding nature of ED is ability to afford the school. So, you might be able to keep other applications active. However, I don’t know how this applies to international students.</p>
<p>Dartmouth – SAT looks very low.</p>
<p>zephyr15,</p>
<p>Anyone whose aid package isn’t good enough can get out of the ED agreement. However, and this is a very big however, the OP won’t have the final aid offer from BU in time to decide whether BU is affordable or not because the scholarship that is needed to make BU affordable isn’t announced until well after the ED offer has to be accepted or rejected. That is why the OP shouldn’t be applying to BU until the RD round. The OP needs to be able to compare all of the possible aid packages.</p>
<p>^^Not to mention, that with 99.9% probability, the offer from BU will be too low. BU is quite public that they reserve their merit money to attract high stat students in the RD round. And if one has near certainty that the offer will be wanting, why waste time even appyling?</p>
<p>The OP is better off considering full need colleges that might be seeking a low stat Egyptian. Colgate, for example, might be interested in greater international diversity.</p>
<p>“the OP won’t have the final aid offer from BU in time to decide whether BU is affordable or not”</p>
<p>At our DD1’s school there has never been an ED case (I asked) where the final number’s differing from the preliminary number prevented a student from attending. I think schools want their ED admits to be able to attend, so they do a good job of making estimates and working with families when numbers change.</p>
<p>It’s worth a call to the school’s FA office to ask about this, as long as the ED school is by far the number one choice, the dream school.</p>
<p>The most likely result is that you won’t get into Dartmouth, and if you get into BU they won’t give you enough money.</p>
<p>I’d take bluebayou’s advice and look for another school.</p>
<p>
Some of the test-optional colleges like Wake Forest, Bowdoin, and Hamilton would be especially worth a look if the grades are better than the SAT scores. </p>
<p>[SAT/ACT</a> Optional 4-Year Universities | FairTest](<a href=“http://www.fairtest.org/university/optional]SAT/ACT”>ACT/SAT Optional List - Fairtest)</p>
<p>Thank you all for replies.
I already applied ED at Dartmouth. I figured i wont lose anything…so I’ll see what happens.</p>
<p>Let us know how it goes, now we are all curious ;-)</p>
<p>Guys, update: I got deferred at Dartmouth…</p>