My cousin from India is the equivalent of a high school junior. She’s going to take the SAT soon (practice tests 1400-1500 range), with a 96 percentile on her 10th grade board examinations. She wants to go into a STEM major but has no idea which colleges are in her range. Her budget is not the highest (she can probably afford ~30K a year). What colleges are good for international students & will be cost effective at her level and budget?
She should check schools that give scholarships to international students and that have good STEM. Mount Holyoke is one–it’s in a consortium with several other top schools. She would be able to take classes at all of the schools. Buses run to the various schools. Understand of course that she would need to plan her schedule to accommodate about 1/2 hour rides to some of the colleges. Still, she’d have a great opportunity there.
Smith is part of the same consortium. I’m not sure if it gives funding to Int students.
Another school that I believe gives funding to int. students is Bryn Mawr. It’s in a consortium with Haverford, UPenn and Swarthmore, all top schools.
She may also want to check out Wellesley.
As for public schools, U of Maine at Orono has ABET accredited engineering and computer science programs. They also give funding to international students. There is an airport at Orono. Maine is a beautiful state. The school also has excellent marine sciences and forestry/ environmental sciences.
Other often overlooked STEM schools that are fairly cheap include:
New Mexico Tech
South Dakota Mines and Technology
U of Wyoming has excellent astrophysics
For geology and astronomy she may also want to look at schools in Hawaii–the big island has an active volcano. U of Hawaii at Hilo
Bryn Mawr, mentioned above, is also well known for geology (and other STEM) Bryn Mawr has a 4+1 program with University of Pennsylvania for various programs. https://www.brynmawr.edu/academics/41-master-engineering-penn
Agnes Scott has great astrophysics
There may be other similar schools.
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