Congratulations on your achievements. Paging @hebegebe for insights/appropriate schools and their categorization
Will your family qualify for need based aid? Please run the net price calculators at all the schools on your list to see if they would be affordable. If your family doesn’t qualify for need based aid or NPCs show you won’t get enough need based aid relative to your budget, you will have to merit hunt which will eliminate all schools that don’t offer merit, like NYU. Note that the NPCs aren’t really built for international students, so do disregard any federal financial aid that they would show as that doesn’t apply to you.
What appeals about both W&L and NYU to make them your top two choices right now?
Are these published in peer reviewed journals and you are a listed author?
Lastly, note that aerospace eng is a particularly difficult major for international students who often can’t get the security clearance for internships and jobs in this industry in the US.
Washington and Lee is very likely to be (much) more generous with financial aid than NYU.
I didn’t think W&L’s engineering program was ABET accredited?
there couldn’t be two more polar opposite college settings than those two schools. If you like one, you will dislike the other. Seriously. If you pine for the urban jungle, NYU is the one. If you hate cities, and love small college towns and schools with defined campuses, W&L all the way.
I think NYU is a perfect fit for my personality .I like the vibrant community, strong academics, and also about 5-6 students were accepted from my country with full aids and pretty similar ECs .
W&L is better with financial aid and my acceptance is more likely than NYU .
I know these are not good reasons for someone to choose a college but i have really been searching for colleges for the past month and i can’ make a proper college list
You’ve tagged this thread “American University”. Are you planning to apply there or was that a mistake?
I think you’re a very strong candidate but (unless you’re perfectly happy with a backup in your home country) you should add more schools beyond W&L and NYU.
Haven’t you been working with your HS counselor to make a list? I am sure your school has good college counseling, so use that resource.
Have you taken an SAT or ACT? If not you should. As an international with these kind of achievements, not having a test score will be a disadvantage at some schools.
It sounds like you want more of an urban vibe, so would encourage you to look at JHU, Northwestern, WashU, Duke. They will all meet need, but acceptances rates are low so they are reaches. U Rochester and Lehigh would be possible targets. Please confirm if you will qualify for need based aid, because if you don’t, the list will be very different.
My school counselor is not really helping and private counselors are really expensive.
No, I haven’t took them due to some personal problems and unfortunately , I will apply test optional
I qualify for need based aid.
Given engineering, the list will be smaller and then you’ll need a test.
If you apply to others, like W&L (not really for a prospective engineer), you may get lucky admission wise but not career wise depending on your ultimate goals.
I think it’s tough with your profile but TO makes it even more difficult. Why TO ?
TO is really not a choice for me , I was studying for the ACT but some problems happened in my home that something like will prevent me from taking those exams but it will try .
For the ED I really did not choose a college for sure I am just calculating my chances . I know my profile isn’t good for T20 colleges even with high test scores , So i’m searching some good alternatives that fits my profile.
You have a strong profile and stellar ECs/awards, I do think T20s are possible but a test score will help. I listed some other schools for you to look at in one of my posts above.
Is your family able to contribute anything towards your college costs? Please do run the NPCs so we can know if meet full need schools will be affordable.
When international students need a great deal of aid, it can be hard to build a list and you will have to keep an open mind. Schools where you might get a lot of merit include Arizona State, U Arizona, Alabama, UAH, Duquesne, Providence college. I’ll give some more thought to it too. Ideas @myos1634?
You can use this database to sort schools that give significant aid to international students:
Although anyone who’s read my posts knows I love W&L, I would take it out of consideration. It is completely not what you are looking for, and I very much doubt it’s an easier admit than NYU. Plus it’s almost certainly unknown in your home country!
The previous counselor could have helped me a lot regrading making a college list , unfortunately she had resigned last year and the new counselor doesn’t have enough knowledge to help me make it according to her words . She will write lOCR btw
