We typically assume single digit acceptance rates for international students.
If you need financial aid, assume less than a 1% chance.
You have selected very tough admission schools. That’s the mistake that many international students typically make when applying to US colleges and universities when they only target top 20 schools.
Why are these schools so competitive?
- Limited seats, excellent student candidates with similar stats/grades/ activities and letters of recommendation.
- The US has about 45K high schools (brick and mortar); each school has a valedictorian and salutatorian. Picture each of those students applying to the top 10-20 schools.
- There are only so many seats and a handful of students get accepted to the top 5, from various regions of the US.
- The public universities are funded by their state taxes such that seats tend to go to the children of the taxpayers.
- Lots of federal and state funds go to universities for academics and research.
The recipients of financial aid-grants/fellowships are designated for US citizens and green card holders as required by federal funding. - Then, add all of the international students who only apply to the top 20 schools.
- and then add all of those who need financial aid to attend a US university. The budgets are finite and the costs of attending are crazy ridiculous, $$60-$80K per year for many of the top 100 schools.
The universities try very hard to create diverse campuses with students from everywhere, who “fit” their core values, but there are only so many spots. A number of US students aren’t able to attend a university for a myriad of reasons like costs, logistics, competition, etc. There are never any guarantees for admission for any students, domestic or international.
All you can do is apply widely to a variety of places that are affordable and where you would have a good chance of admission. Right now, you could look at the Midwest and South US universities, or schools in the UK.