Advice for an international student

momrath
Sun, 29 Mar 2015 07:38:01 +0000

Your ECs and grades are acceptable for any college. Your scores – either the SAT I or the ACT – will be important. Predicted IB scores are helpful, but not as significant. Your essays and recommendations are very important.

Need-blind vs need-aware is not the major factor. What you need to look for are colleges that demonstrate to meet full demonstrated need. This means if you are accepted, they will give you what you need (according to them) to attend.

Yes, it is a severe disadvantage to be an international student – who needs financial aid! The competition is fierce.

These schools are need blind for internationals and guarantee to meet full need:
Amherst, Dartmout, MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Yale

Cornell and Georgetown are needblind but do not guarantee to meet full need. Columbia is not need blind and does not guarantee to meet full need.

These schools are need aware for internationals but also guarantee to meet full need. Even though some of these schools may not be well known in the Czech Republic, they have excellent academics and would most likely be interested in your profile.
Brown, Colby, Davidson, Emory, Grinnell, Hamilton, Macalester, Middlebury, Pomona, Stanford, Swarthmore,
U of Chicago, U of Pennsylvania, Vassar, Wesleyan, Williams

Some of the others on your list may fall into this category. You’ll have to check their websites.
My understanding is that the UCs don’t give need-based financial aid to internationals.

In addition there are several schools that offer merit scholarships to internationals, but these are very difficult to secure.

I don’t see much advantage to applying SCEA to Harvard.