You say you are worried about FA at Chicago, but you will get none at Wisconsin. What is your exact financial situation?
Only Yale and Dartmouth are need blind for internationals. UPenn and Chicago and Brown will take into account that you can’t pay the full tuition which may hurt you as they have limited financial resources for international students.
If you don’t know your GPA, then do you know where you stand academically to your peers?
@rdeng2614, thank you for the clarification.
For an international student the most generous schools in terms of financial aid are also going to be the most selective schools with a few exceptions. USNWR lists Yale, Amherst, Williams, Wesleyan, U.Chicago, Stanford, Bates, Harvard, Trinity,and Skidmore as those colleges awarding significant financial aid to internationals students. In some cases these colleges have a very limited number of international students getting this financial aid in other cases, it’s a decent number of students. U.Chicago - 80, Yale -349
Thanks for all the replies
My parents can pay about $30,000 but even then, I’ll have to take out personal loans. I love UChicago but due to their financial constraints, they will only accept and offer aid to the best of international applicants. I felt that I would be unlikely to fit in that group. I love UChicago, but so what? If the money doesn’t work out, I can’t go. Plus, UChicago is not really known be generous in terms of financial aid.
I am aware Wisconsin does not offer financial aid but I’m applying there for two reasons: first, it’s tuition is cheap to begin with and I may qualify for some merit aid with my grades.
My parents earn a bit over $100,000… I understand I am not super-needy but the reality is, I cannot go unless I receive an aid around $30,000
The main dilemma is having to choose between Yale, which is much more selective but need-bllind vs UChicago which is less selective but need blind. Also, the fact that these are Early Action and not Early Decision makes it more likely I will be deferred in both schools since I’m applying for Financial Aid. Hence, this is the reason why I’m considering slightly less competitive schools such as UPenn and Brown. Although both schools are not need blind, they accept more internationals than UChicago.
I’ve even considered Dartmouth ED. Their online calculator (although it is a very rough approximation) offered an aid of about $30,000, which is an amount we would be willing to accept. However, the binding nature of the ED and the inability to compare/negotiate is why I pushed it to RD. Which is quite a shame actually, since I’ll have the best chances in Dartmouth ED…
That was bit of a long rant, but all these complicated factors are making me change my mind constantly… Also, I will only be applying to 2 reach schools and since I’m set on applying to Dartmouth, I will only apply to one of these universities: Yale, UChicago, Brown or UPenn
I’d love to hear more advice on this matter.
Thanks
For what it is worth, my D2 got her best FA offer from U of C. She is not international, though. That may be “old U of C” to assume the FA generally isn’t good.
The University of Minnesota costs about $31,000 per year out-of-state, one of the best OOS values in the USA. Your loan amount would be minimal to attend it.
It is a quality school. It might be worth your fifth application.
So since money is a concern, either of these app groups might make sense:
SCEA: Yale
RD: Dartmouth; Brown or Penn; Wisconsin; Minnesota
SCEA: Yale
RD: Dartmouth; Brown or Penn; Williams or Amherst; Wisconsin or Minnesota
The second strategy replaces one quality state school with a top-quality LAC option: Williams and Amherst are two of the very best LACs and both give good financial aid to international students.
Is there no way you can apply to 6 schools and do Yale, Dartmouth and UChicago? That would also depend on how strong your background is.