What are my chances? (international student)

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi! I´m a student from Sweden who is looking to apply for college in the US (class of 26´). I was wondering if someone would be able to tell me my chances of getting accepted to these schools : Vassar, Pomona, NYU, Bowdoin, Nova southeastern, Smith, Tufts,

My stats: GPA : unweighted 4.0 (we do not use weighted)
We are not offered to take AP or honors.
TOEFL : 580
Hoping to major in biology

Swe div1 soccer player
Varsity soccer
Volunteer work (for building schools in cambodia)
Head girl
class president
providing food for healthworkers at my local hospital during the pandemic - every day from march - july
competed in math
working as a waitress during the summers
taken summer course abroad (biology)

First in my family to go to uni. Will apply for financial-aid

2

You’ve got a great chance! The best FA schools for international students would most likely be Pomona or Tufts would be the best shot. Good luck! Let me know if you have any more questions!

3

Are you applying later this year, or have you already applied?

If you are applying later this year, could you say a little bit about why these colleges/unis? They are all over the map in terms of selectivity, geography, campus type, etc.

NYU is famously both very expensive and stingy with financial aid.

4

All those colleges are need aware, especially for international applicants. They prefer international students who are full pay, and being 1st gen may not help as an international student.

Looking at that list of colleges, I am struck by the fact that they are all very different from one another. I think that you may need to go back and do some research on American colleges. You should figure out what you are looking for in a college, and how well a college would fit you. Pomona is a extremely selective liberal arts college in the extended LA area. Vassar is a selective older LAC, and it is in the suburbs of Poughkeepsie, NY, Bowdoin is a small extremely selective Liberal Arts College in Brunswick, Maine, Smith is a woman’s only small selective Liberal Arts College in the extended Springfield, MA area. NYU is a very selective large research university smack in downtown Manhattan, New York City, NY, and Tufts is a very selective small research university in the suburbs of Boston. Nova Southwest is a not very selective small research university in the Miami Urban area in Florida.

Of those, Pomona and Bowdoin accept fewer than 10% of their applicants (and far fewer of their International applicants), Tufts and NYU accept only around 15% of their applicants, Vassar accepts fewer than 25%, and Smith accepts around 30%. Nova accepts 80% of its applicants.

However, as a rule, the higher the acceptance rates, the lower the amount of financial aid that a college is willing to give. While colleges with high acceptance rates often give good amounts of merit funding, the majority of that funding is limited to American citizens and residents.

On the other hand, you may want to look into getting recruited as an athlete to a college which is full need met. Check out how you compare to soccer players at the Div III.

However, my central burning question is: undergraduate education is free in Sweden for Swedish citizens, so why the USA? It is also extremely cheap in many other European countries for Swedish citizens. After all, except in very rare cases in very few universities/colleges, your expenses for living and studying in the USA will not be any less than those at most European universities for a Swedish citizen.

Bottom line - if you need financial aid to study in the USA, you would do better to study in Europe.

3 Likes
5

You need to improve your TOEFL score to 600 to meet the requirement at these colleges.
Contact all the coaches with an athletic video, academic stats (swedish, not toefl, they dont care), athletic stats.
As a recruited athlete your chances would shoot up drastically.