@carman817, If you’re a Holyoke or Springfield resident, perhaps this will be of interest.
Springfield/Holyoke Partnership
https://www.smith.edu/admission-aid/financial-aid/first-year/merit
Notice that it is Smith giving the scholarships to locals from poor towns, not Mount Holyoke. BAsed on this thread and others in college confidential, the following is obvious 1) Mount Holyoke has trouble attracting US applicants 2 TO ensure it has enough applicants and students, it aggressively recruits overseas students and gives them a degree of financial aid they can’t get elsewhere 3) the international students who get aid are of a higher caliber than US students and are the ones who take all the harder math and science and economics classes and do well in them 4) Mt Holyoke will a allow lower caliber internationals to buy their way in as evidenced by the post from the international who said the college would admit her if she found a sponsor. 5) many internationals go here because their parents don’t want them at coed schools. 6) many internationals go to MtHolyoke because they simply would not get the same degree of aid elsewhere because other schools do not wish to shaft American applicants.If the admissions office wishes to rebut these assertions, it can answer the following 1) what percent of the financial aid budget goes to internationals 2) what is the average grant per US student and international student 3 what percent of applicants are international and do not have US parents. 4 what percent of internationals are allowed to attend if they find a financial sponsor. 4 what is the gap for internationals on financial aid compared to those not on it. 5) when will the college be majority international I can’t be the only one asking these questions and the admissions office will have to answer them sometime.
I should add the the internationals are of higher caliber and more likely to major in science and math because mt Holyoke can’t attract enough top US students, especially in these fields. Maybe it would if it offered better aid or made a greater effort to recruit them. And I should also add the the internationals only go there because no other college gives so much of its money to internationals. That’s the main factor in their decision
Can we lay off the namecalling please? Not necessary.
OP, I would engage on their blog or FB page to see if YOU can get them to come to your school. It would be a good show of initiative and you would learn a lot.
I think it is fine if a kid doesn’t want to consider schools they consider unbalanced in some way. It is a legitimate thing to consider.
I’m confused by the numbers above, someone help. So many different sets: why is the average for US aid less than $20k, and international over $50k? That doesn’t seem right on its face? Are the income numbers vastly different?
The difference is probably related to the fact that US students have to take loans as part of their financial aid package. Internationals aren’t eligible for federal loans, so Mt Holyoke gives them vast sums of money. As one international on College Confidential bragged, they get a “free ride.” Seems pretty unfair that a US student who needed 50k in assistance has to take a massive loan while an international that required 50k gets that grant amount in full from the college. That discrepancy is why many colleges have caps on internationals. Since Mt Holyoke needs these students desperately, it doesn’t have a cap. The more aid that shits to internationals, the more loans US students will have to take. I am not going to take on massive loans so I’m not applying.
I think you are assuming a lot without any facts. That said, I wouldn’t have let my D apply to MHC - their aid for very low income students is not great, I agree (and I ran the NPC - have you?).
I think it is a matter of their endowment not being as robust as some other schools (in your area the big one would be Amherst which does use its $ to get high achieving, low income students).
I think the reason MHC has a high % of international students is because they DO pay more - that’s the case for many schools and I don’t know why MHC would be that different. MHC also uses some of their aid budget for merit aid, which is not based on need at all. That may go to domestic and international students but it doesn’t go to poor students, in most cases.
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It’s wise for a prospective student to be concerned about student loan debt. Fortunately, the US Dept. of Education compiles data on federal loan amounts and repayment rates for each college. This info is presented in the “Financial Aid & Debt” section of the easy-to-use “College Scorecard” website: https://collegescorecard.ed.gov
One way to minimize student loan debt is by attending public schools with subsidized tuition for in-state residents. If you are in central Mass, then such schools could include the following:
UMass-Amherst: 60% of graduates have federal loans, averaging $24,300, with 74% paying them down
Fitchburg State: 71%, $22,650, 66%
MCLA: 71%, $25,000, 66%
Private schools typically have higher tuition, and so their students are often more likely to take out loans, and often in higher amounts. For example:
Western New England U: 75%, $27,000, 75%
Springfield College: 80%, $24,827, 55%
American International College: 85%, $24,827, 46%
However, the wealthiest privates offer good financial aid, so if you can get in (which may be difficult), then the loan burden may be relatively low (comparable to a state school, or even lower):
Amherst College: 16%, $11,706, 86%
Smith College: 52%, $19,000, 78%
Mt Holyoke College: 44%, $21,000, 74%
Hampshire College: 55%, $21,500, 70%
There is a lot of misinformation out there on the Internet, so it’s helpful that the US government makes official data on federal student loans readily available.
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@carman817 I am not sure what is your plan now. If you really want to go to a top women’s college at the lowest possible cost, you should reach out to MHU, Smith and Wellesley (to give you more chances of scoring a great need-based package) and let them know that you are interested. Also, as others have posted here, find out when they will be in Western MA and try to meet the adcoms. I know that it may be hard to travel but it could we worth your while.
Back in the day, my wife took an 8 hour bus ride (including two transfers) to visit Grinnell College in IA. After a day of meetings, the school offered her a big scholarship on the spot! So it never hurts to show interest!! Good luck.
As a current student, I wanted to provide some statistical information and general responses to OP’s comments for prospective students who read this thread in the future, to counter the misinformation present.
Smith also has more than twice the endowment that Mount Holyoke does - 1.672 billion vs 667 million, according to a quick Google search. This means that Smith has the ability to create a bigger financial aid budget, and allocate more room in their budget for a wider variety of scholarships. You can also choose to see it as a reflection of institutional priorities, which would suggest that MHC is not the school for you as your priorities do not align.
This is a wild accusation, with 0 reliable sources provided on the topic. MHC’s acceptance rate is 55% - they turn down about half the people that apply. There are many colleges that struggle to fill their classes each year – which show up on the NACAC website – but MHC is not one of them. Furthermore, the yield for this year’s class was higher than expected. All of these different, verifiable factors suggest that there are enough applicants that apply that MHC does not have to “aggressively recruit overseas” to fill the class.
How/why is this a problem, exactly? Since you seem to have a problem with international students attending college in the US, shouldn’t it be comforting to know that they are at an equal academic level when compared to their US peers?
Another unsupported accusation! Yes, MHC is generous with aid. But being generous with international aid does not preclude it from being generous with domestic aid.
Giving more aid to international students in comparison to other schools ≠ prioritizing international students over domestic students when giving out aid.
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1 – You can find the answer to this online on the MHC website, which I will link for you. According to the Common Data Set published (https://www.mtholyoke.edu/sites/default/files/iresearch/docs/CDS_2016-2017.pdf):
MHC students received a combined $66 million (total of scholarships, grants, and loans), of which $12 million was awarded to international students.
That’s 18% of the total money awarded according to the information provided. This means that 28% of students receive 18% of the total money awarded. This proves your claim that
is false, since 72% of students (% Americans at MHC) receive 82% of the overall financial aid money.
2 – What is the average grant per US student and international student? Again, using the Common Data Set we can see:
International Students
365 out of 589 (or roughly 60%) of international students received any form of financial aid.
The ”average dollar amount of institutional financial aid awarded to undergraduate degree-seeking nonresident aliens” is $33,040.
All Students
Only 73% of students applied for financial aid at all (1,620 out of 2,213).
Of that 73%, 71% of students were demonstrated financial need (1,152 out of 1620) according to the college’s own calculation method.
100% of the students who demonstrated need had that need met WITHOUT being awarded financial loans.
The average financial package of students without loans was $37,763.
As far as I can tell the $37,763 figure is inclusive of all students including international students. Therefore, if the average aid for 28% of students on campus is lower than the average overall aid, you could reasonably assume that the remaining 72% of students actually receive a higher average amount of aid (because when the figures are combined, it results in $37,763).
Even if you reject that assumption, $37,763 > $33,040. Therefore, there is no way American students, on average, receive less aid than international students.
3, 4 - What percent of applicants are international and do not have US parents? What percent of internationals are allowed to attend if they find a financial sponsor?
You are asking for a statistic which the majority of private colleges in the US do not provide. Even Harvard does not separate the # of applicants who are international vs domestic or the % of international students who are allowed to attend given they find a sponsor. I suggest you contact your specific region’s admissions officer with these questions directly at this site: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/user/5563/contact .
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Other problematic statements OP has made:
So, I’ve already established that domestic students receive more aid than international students (on average).
While International students cannot receive federal loans, they can (and do) receive private loans as part of their package. To say that International students receive all the grant aid money while Domestic students are forced to take loans is very untrue.
Source: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/sfs/resources/student_loans/mhc_global_loan
There are so many icky things with these statements.
1 - American women and non-binary folks do want to go to traditionally women’s colleges. Just from this year’s incoming class, students have chosen Mount Holyoke over other great schools like Emory, Northeastern, and NYU. Some of my friends turned down Ivies like Columbia to go here. I personally turned down Wellesley for MHC because MHC actually offered me a better financial package.
2 – To suggest that top US students are not attending MHC because International students are the ones who take the hardest classes and get the highest grades is… for lack of a better word, icky. Is it so impossible to think that International students have a stronger academic background than American students? Also, note that the commenter who said this was talking from anecdotal experience, which you turned into a generalization and stereotype.
Please stop presenting personal anecdotes, which make up at most less than 1% of the student body at MHC, as fact. You are neither a student nor an administrator at the school, and you have a very limited idea of what the deciding factors for current students were when choosing MHC.
That being said, why is prioritizing financial aid in college decisions a bad thing? You are doing that yourself, having said that you won’t apply to MHC because they’ll just give you a lot of loans. Many domestic students end up choosing the financially affordable college over the dream school, so why can’t international students do the same?
One final note: the students of Mount Holyoke strive to foster an inclusive atmosphere which challenges your points of view. This is reflected in our admissions policy, in the recent protests by students to hire more diverse faculty and administrative staff, and in the creation of LLCs centered on the experience of minority students. Students who feel comfortable making statements such as:
would not find MHC to be the right fit for them, as this kind of prejudice generally does not go over well with students here.
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How dare you say that Mount Holyoke is filled with lesser students. I turned down Wellesley and Kenyon to come to MHC. Among my friends, I know people who turned down every other 7 sisters, multiple Ivies including Yale, top UCs and William & Mary, University of Chicago, even someone majoring in politics who turned down Georgetown which is right in D.C. Our acceptance rate is 50%, yes, but our yield is consistently too high which is why that number is soon to fall as we physically cannot fit the amount of students who want to attend.
My anecdote about the internationals was to show you that those “chinese” students you so disparage work just as hard as any student there. They don’t ~overpopulate~ the “harder” fields (which, vomit to that comment because you’re acting as though international relations or other “soft” fields are inherently easier than STEM which is gross), liberal arts colleges tend to attract students interested in social sciences and arts.
Smith has a larger endowment because until the last few years (class of 2019-2021) MHC was around 1.7k students and Smith was always closer to 3k. MHC yield went up (C/O 2020 was supposed to be 450, ended up being 600+) and Smith stayed the same or smaller. Thus, historically, Smith has just had more graduates and thus more people willing to contribute to the endowment. Additionally, MHC administration has made some questionable moves in the past decade or so that has caused a shrink in our endowment. (https://www.mtholyoke.edu/media/mhc-endowment-passes-700-million-mark our endowment used to be above $720mil)
Please do not apply to Mount Holyoke or to any of the Seven Sisters. I cannot imagine there will be many people there who will appreciate your attitude towards international students as second class citizens of the school.
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I’ve found this expression for a scholarship to attend college to be especially ungracious as well. Nonetheless its usage commonly appears on CC by posters from all countries it seems.
@phoria You’re the one who stated in this thread 1) The hardest econ class at Mt Holyoke largely contains international Asians. 2) The internationals did so well that there was no curve 3) You, as an American, had to retake the class (and probably all the other Americans). This suggests 1) The hardest math and science classes at MHC will be largely composed of international students 2) The Americans in these classes are not of the same caliber as the internationals. From this we can conclude: 1) Top American students are not applying to Mt Holyoke 2) The admissions office is throwing money at internationals because they are more qualified than the American students who are willing to attend. 3) The top internationals are only attending because Mt Holyoke gives them more aid than they would get at any other US school. 4) Mt Holyoke would rather throw aid at internationals than step up US recruiting of top students because that is more difficult and doesn’t get as many full pay students. There are exceptions, of course. Unqualified internationals who can pay the full bill can buy their way in. On the 2017 admitted student thread, there’s an international who said they admisssions office told her they couldn’t admit her because they couldn’t give her all the aid she requested but that she should contact them again if she found a “financial sponsor.” The girl’s family then said they’d pay so she’s attending. This suggests 1) Mt Holyoke knew the student was lying about family resources 2) MT Holyoke didn’t care that the student was a liar, as long as she could shell out money 3) Mt Holyoke was willing to let a subpar international in if she paid full tuition. Have you ever heard of an admissions office reaching out to a US student by saying, “We’re not willing to give you full aid, but if you stop lying about your family’s resources and pay the full tuitiion, we will let you buy your way in.” I haven’t
Most recently USNWR rated Wellesley as even with Barnard in terms of selectivity (but good disclosure on your limited access):
So much wrong with post #53.
Firstly, that international student didn’t buy her way in. She was already qualified, but Mount Holyoke couldn’t give her all of the aid she was asking for. She didn’t need to have lied on her financial aid application to have found more resources. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc, they count as family, don’t show up on financial aid resources unless there’s a specific fund in your name, and often find a way to help in a pinch. Maybe this is what’s happened. Maybe the parents decided to take out extensive personal loans to cover their daughter’s college costs. This doesn’t mean they could AFFORD to do this, just that they’re doing it. Loans are frighteningly easy to get.
I wouldn’t normally engage with someone so irrationally vitriolic, but I object to slander. I’ve personally spoken on many occasions with people in Mount Holyoke’s financial aid office, and they are some of the nicest and most helpful people I’ve ever spoken with.
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With a US student, is the financial aid office going to say, “Sorry, you’re qualified but we can’t afford to give you the aid you need. If you pay in full, we’ll let you in.” Nope. So why do internationals get that option?
International students do not get that option according to several posts here.
Honestly @carman817 I struggle to understand the point of this post.
Holy s—, you are making huge reaches there.
- I had to retake the class because a chronic illness that has recently sent me to the hospital detracted from my time and ability to study. I had multiple american (which I know to you means non-asian, still disgusting of you) friends in the class who took it and passed with little issue. I was about to fail the class because the week before the second midterm I was in and out of medical centers thanks to lung issues.
Not the least of which is the fact that one of my friends who is international and majored in econ waited until her SENIOR YEAR to take the class because it’s so challenging. Wow! Maybe it’s just a tough class in general! Who woulda thunk it? - Who gives a rats ass if the international students are smart? That was ONE MICROECONOMICS course, christ, you WANT to find excuses to hate the international students. Don’t worry, sweetheart, there’s plenty of Trump voters at MHC that you can fraternize with who are in the ~tough~ departments as well.
Again I say, please do not even consider applying to MHC or any of the top 20 schools in the country. You’ll also probably hate schools like UC Berkeley, UCLA, U of I UC, etc as there are large portions of asian students there too. My picks for you? Liberty University, Bob Jones University, anywhere where open xenophobia is appreciated and lauded.
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@phoria its you who is making the assumptions. I am not a trump supporter or xenophobic. As I stated earlier In this thread, I have a foreign born parent. most people automatically classify me as Latina based on my name and appearance, although my father, who I never see, is half black, half white. I do not hate Asians. I cited Chinese as an example because mt Holyoke admissions bragged that they get enough applications from China to fill the freshman class. They extensively recruit there but can’t be bothered to recruit locally. You stated that it was the Asian students who scored highest in your Econ clas,not me. You stated that it was the hardest class. If there were enough of international Asians to eliminate the curve, they represented the majority of the class and were the best students in it. It is the Americans who are pathetic and that’s because all the resources go to recruiting top internationals, rather than top US students. Either that or top US students don’t go there. All I know is, Mt Holyoke puts no effort into western massrecruiting.