There are many International students on this site but I see very little about US residents seeking college and financial aid in other countries. If you are a US resident and applied to a college outside the US or Canada, what was your experience like? Were you interested in a school where classes are taught in a different language? What about the financial aid offered? Did the country of interest embrace you and grant you aid? Particularly of interest is a student whose family does not speak the language of the destination college-so not 1st generation in US applying to schools in the country their parents immigrated from. Most interested in those who pursued or are pursuing a degree from that school (in other words, not exchange students for a semester). What was your experience. If done, would you do it again? Were there any advantages or disadvantages compared to a comparable school in the US?
Also interested in experiences in colleges in English speaking countries like Oxford or Cambridge.
I didn’t actually go abroad but I considered the University of Edinburgh VERY seriously my junior and senior years of HS.
Upsides: for a full pay family like mine, it is substantially cheaper than a private or even public school of similar caliber, admissions doesn’t care about “fluff” and app. bolstering, I love living in other countries (typing this from Spain, where I am taking a gap year), for some students the laser focus on one specific subject rather than having distribution requirements is a draw, easy access to many beautiful European locations, and (sorry, but it’s true, I did think about this) the drinking age is lower so you have nothing to hide at parties. The experience of living abroad is really quite special, hence why so many students study abroad.
Cons: this was not a con for me as I am not particularly close with my family, but airfare costs mean you can only come home once or twice a year, you’re very far away from family and loved ones, you’re in a new culture, which is challenging especially on top of being a student, the degree may or may not be recognized for what it is outside the country you studied in, the job search can be difficult because generally unless you are a dual citizen it can be very difficult to get a work permit in a foreign country (any American with dual citizenship to an EU country: I am jealous of you), and generally there is less flexibility when it comes to degrees. Scotland is not hugely strict when it comes to this but in many countries if you change your mind about your major you must start the entire degree from scratch.
Ultimately, I decided to attend an American university because the smaller, LAC like, flexible curriculum is more important to me than completing my degree abroad. For grad school? Who knows. And of course I ended up taking a gap year abroad, so I am having that experience.
Financial aid is more or less non-existent for American students in the UK, so you would need to finance it yourself.
I wonder if the US is one of the few countries to have colleges that do award scholarships to international students.
To a degree. Germany currently offers free tuition to everyone, regardless of origin, but it’s not that easy to get in. At one point I believe all the Scandinavian countries did too, but it became financially unsustainable for some. I think Finland and Norway are currently still free, but under constant debate. You’d still need to pay for travel, visas, health insurance (probably) and living costs, and those aren’t cheap countries to live in.
Most international scholarships in the UK are aimed at postgrad students, and/or those from developing countries. The US is seen as a wealthy country with plenty of domestic options, so American students are rarely going to be first in line, even if their individual circumstances are dire.
In addition, many countries’ university systems are predominantly state-funded, without the prestigious private institutions with big endowments and high tuition fee income from full-pay students that can fund generous financial aid for poorer students. In the UK, for instance, few universities have much of an endowment at all, and most of the income for undergraduate tuition (setting aside research grants) comes from government grants and student fees. There’s not enough slack in the system to basically offer discounts to foreigners whose families don’t pay tax in the country in question and aren’t likely to stay and pay taxes in future. Somewhere like France offers low fees all round - but I wouldn’t pick the system there myself, because of the high wash-out numbers at the end of the first year.
Aren’t most US universities offering FA to internationals privates with high fees? If they had lower up-front fees, they too would have less room to discount in the form of FA.
I have an unconditional offer from Christ Church, Oxford, and can shed a little light on UK admissions. Oxford states quite clearly that it does not offer aid to international students on its website. Depending on the course to which you apply (that’s another thing: you have to apply to a single course to study for 3-4 years), the total cost will be somewhere between 35k-50k USD, including airfare and other personal expenses related to living abroad. The Oxford calendar is also quite different; students are actually in school for far less time than their American counterparts. I will say that Oxford is much more welcoming to American applicants than Cambridge, which is very snobbish and makes it clear that an American high school curriculum cannot adequately prepare anyone for the rigor of a Cambridge education. (This is ridiculous, of course, but it does mean that very few Americans, if any, are admitted to Cambridge each year.)
I applied to Oxford because it has the strongest French department in the world, and because I am someone who very much appreciates history and tradition. In the end, I probably won’t attend for two primary reasons: firstly, Princeton (where I was also accepted) offered me very generous financial aid such as to render it less expensive than Oxford, and secondly, I can’t quite bid farewell to the idea of a liberal arts education.
The process of applying to Oxford is also different than that of applying to selective US schools. You fill out a preliminary application form, the UCAS (British equivalent of the Common App), then take Oxford-specific admissions tests and submit examples of written work you’ve done in the subject to which you’re applying. If they find those materials to their liking, you will be invited for an interview, in which the professors themselves will ask you unique and challenging questions about your course. If they like you enough in the interview, you will receive an offer: either conditional (on your receiving certain grades on APs, SAT IIs, etc.) or unconditional (if you have already received satisfactory grades).
If you really want to attend Oxbridge as an international but do not have the money, there’s not a whole lot you can do. You might consider applying to external scholarships, but you certainly won’t get any financial aid from Oxford or Cambridge internally.
Best of luck!