Hey everyone,
I’m an international student from Ethiopia who is planning to attend a U.S. college. I am aware that financial aid for international students is cut-throat competitive at most schools, and I know that for a low-income student like me, who literally needs a full-ride scholarship, the game is going to be even harder. Can anyone suggest colleges that may be able give me generous aid?
Here are my stats:
SAT (old): 2220 (710M 750R 760W)
SAT II: Math II 800
GPA: 4.0 (unweighted) 97.4 (Ethiopian system) record score in my high school
Rank: 1/154
Rec letters: History (glowing recommendation) and English (wouldn’t let me read it but I’m sure it’s pretty good)
Other rec: Supervisor of a training and research program I’s involved in (couldn’t write a better rec myself)
Hooks: extremely low-income, first generation and URM.
ECs & Honors:
-Captain of the debate team (best delegate in junior year and honorary delegate in senior year (I’m a gap year applicant))
-Founder and president of the reading club (also the starter of our school’s magazine)
-President of the charity club
-Leadership Institute Research Program (the first high school graduate to ever qualify. My paper was presented at a national conference and also documented by Addis Ababa University)
-Qine Practical Educational Challenge (1st in state)/General Business Category
-Winner of an essay contest two years in a row (1st from approx. 800 essays submitted)
-“Dirset Yideg” (promoting authorship): my book, The Bright Shadow, was elected for publication by the Bole Printing Agency, which, every once in a while, elects one from several books written by young authors and publishes it for free. I was awarded 50,000 Ethiopian Birr.
-Young National Scholars: top six students in nation (those with the highest academic merits)/gold medalist.
-volunteer as an English tutor at a public high school for three years (on weekends).
Any suggestion would help. It would be particularly helpful if you could point out particular schools that I may be competitive for (competitive enough to get a full-ride) based on my stats.
Thanks.
Tnx @magnetnh I was also wondering, will colleges consider the fact that English is not my first language and also that I’m from a low-income family (i.e. I didn’t have much resources) in evaluating my SAT scores?
Where are you now? Ethiopia? Then contact the EducationUSA office in Addis Ababa, and ask the counselors to help you with this. They know where students like you have been accepted in recent years, and whether or not those students received sufficient financial aid. https://educationusa.state.gov/centers/educationusa-advising-center-addis-ababa
Dozens of U.S. colleges claim to meet the full demonstrated financial need of all accepted students, irrespective of origin, @blackandwhiteisgrey. The correspondence with that link (post 1) may not be 100%, but it should be close.
There are only 5 colleges that are need-blind in admission for international applicants AND guarantee to cover full demonstrated financial need for international students. They are Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Amherst College and MIT.
Other wealthy schools may offer you a full scholarship if you get in, but only those 5 guarantee that financial need would not influence their admissions decisions for international applicants and that all need is covered.
By the way - you are an extremely impressive candidate and many top American universities will be interested in you.
Research the competitive full ride awards at Centre College (KY), Clark U (MA), Davidson College (NC), Drake U (IA), U Richmond (VA), Rollins College (FL), Wake Forest U (NC). Click the links in Post #5 (competitive awards).
Email the schools to confirm which awards are open to international students. Note that some have early deadlines such as Dec 1. And be aware that these awards are super competitive and the essays/application process can be time consuming.
If you were to find several scholarships open to you, narrow them down to perhaps 3, based mainly upon the overall selectivity of the school, the likely scores/profiles of the winners, how many total awards are offered relative to the number of (school) applicants, etc. In other words, estimate your odds. Consider school “fit”, too, of course.
Throw in a couple of apps to the schools (5) mentioned in Post #8.
Go for quality over quantity. Try to identify the very best fitting schools, then focus hard on showing them why they need you. If you spread yourself too thin over many apps, the quality of each application/essay will suffer and your odds will plummet.