What colleges should I be looking at?

<p>Vassar doesn’t give Merit money at all.</p>

<p>^^^</p>

<p>True…we were talking about his match/safeties.</p>

<p>No, but Vassar does give need-based aid for international students which the OP has suggested he might qualify for.</p>

<p>@mom2collegekids : Where I come from (I’m international), some people complete their A-Levels before applying. From experience, it seems colleges feel more comfortable seeing your final year grades for internationals and they seem to have higher chances of success. However, this is just conjecture on my part. Also conjecture is my assumption that when colleges say “senior year”, they do so because most of their applicants are high school seniors, not because they exclude non-traditional students. </p>

<p>“I know the scholarship my daughter has at her State U (full tuition plus some additional money) specifically said she was required to start college the fall after graduating high school.”</p>

<p>Perhaps this is because she Applied during her senior year and got accepted, so they didn’t want her to defer a year because that wouldn’t help the stats of their incoming freshman. And, next year, when they buy another student with a merit scholarship, they wouldn’t need her any more to inflate their stats. Also, I don’t understand why schools wouldn’t report the stats of non-traditional students if they enter in the same freshman class in the same college. I guess I can understand that Columbia’s GS students wouldn’t be included because that’s a separate college, but otherwise, it doesn’t really make sense to exclude the stats of non-traditional students. For all we know, it could be lower than the average of the student body, even though the person in question is older. Older doesn’t necessarily mean higher GPA/SAT. And even if it does, shouldn’t a student have the chance to raise their GPA and SAT to qualify for merit scholarships if they wanted to?</p>

<p>“I think that your activities seem a little too scattered. You should try and make them more focused. I would probably try and set up a website for your business and then, depending on when you started making money, you might be able to say that it was a 3 year activity.”</p>

<p>Can you elaborate a bit on them being scattered? I do have genuine full interest in what I’ve done.</p>

<p>And again I’ll say, I have no choice but to start next year. They do require the results I get only in April, and official certificate only in May maybe even June. Besides, I do want a gap year to do some research, possibly some work, and get ahead for college work.
I don’t think I even qualify for the Merit scholarships, don’t you have to be a US Citizen or Permanent Resident? I’m looking into scholarships which they’ll offer to Intls. and/or scholarships outside.</p>

<p>Does anyone else have any advice/suggestions?</p>