Wanted to play varsity soccer but doesn’t have material now; a heavy oriented athletic environment maybe wouldn’t suit me well;
Business / (open to double majoring and testing adjacent majors to gain abilities and experience; note that not all LACS have business majors standalone)
Didn’t look at GPA yet, but around 3.3-3.5;
Note that Brazilian school system is much more harsh than the US system
(Really renown HS in Rio de Janeiro; probably one of the top schools in the city and in the State, famous for being difficult, and weighted GPA may have signifcant upgrades)
Top 15% of 244 alumns;
ACT/SAT Scores: haven’t taken the test yet;
Some extracurriculars; nothing wonderful, but some leadership and science projects specially; will improve it;
OBS:
Ideally not colleges where socializing / social life is negatively a major point (remember im international and probably not the most wealthy in a cliquey college environment)
No business major may not be a problem; apparently, a good path at an Lac for business may be really about mixing things (Macalester and Grinnell do not have pure business majors, but outher resources)
Top Reaches
-Grinnell College
-University of Richmond / Washington and Lee / Dunno what to put here
(maybe both are too cliquey - please tell me more about those!)
Core List
-Denison College
-Skidmore College
-Franklin and Marshall College
-Macalester College
-Dickinson College
-Rhodes College
Other great alternatives in the list
-Union College
-DePauw
-College of Wooster
-Beloit College
-Lawrence University
-Centre College (Optional, apparently heavy athletic importance)
The first thing that I wonder about: What is your budget?
Just as one example, Grinnell College apparently costs about $93,000 per year unless you get financial aid, and apparently they are need sensitive for admissions and might not meet full need for international students (at least according to a quick Google search that I just did). Therefore how likely you are to get accepted, and how likely you are to be able to afford to attend, will depend upon your budget.
Note that some international students applying to schools in the US need full 100% funding from the school, so that if you need significantly less than this much funding that might (or might not) help at some schools.
Other LACs in the US are often similarly expensive, although they vary quite a bit in terms of whether they meet full need for international students and whether they consider your financial need when deciding whether to accept you. In some cases the ones which are most financially generous for international students are also quite difficult for admissions.
At least from what I have seen college admissions is aware that grading scales are quite different in different countries, and sometimes in different types of schools in one country or in different states or provinces in one country. They seem to be pretty good at evaluating your grades in the context of the education system that you are in. Thus “top 15%” is likely to be more important than “GPA 3.3-3.5”.
Why do you want to attend college in the USA? Are you aware that international students who attend college or university in the USA are typically required to return to their home country, or at least leave the US, after graduating. Sometimes for some majors you can get a short term extension for practical training (such as an internship), but this is short term and is definitely not guaranteed. Will having a bachelor’s degree from a liberal arts college in the US help you to get a job in your home country?
My D attended W&L and had many international friends. She enjoyed events the various international clubs held; the cooking/cuisine and dance events were particularly popular with students of all backgrounds.
For any school in consideration, I suggest asking Admissions to connect you with a current student from a similar background as your own and ask them about their experience. You can learn a lot about the campus culture that way and determine if it is a good fit for you.
Of the schools you listed only Washington and Lee is need blind/meets full need for international students.
W&L is a very social school but I wouldn’t describe it as “cliquey”. There are many overlapping groups, and my son had friends from a wide array of backgrounds/interests.
Yes, it generally isn’t helpful to try to translate non-4.0 International GPAs into 4.0 GPAs. That’s not typically what very selective US colleges themselves do with non-4.0 International GPAs, and you are more likely to get a misleading than helpful estimate.
I think Internationals can best think in more qualitative terms–did they do a rigorous university-prep curriculum, and then were they one of the better such students? If full pay, and assuming good English, they will likely then have a lot of good US options.
If they need a lot of aid, then they likely need to be one of the top such students in their school, or indeed possibly region or even country. And even then, there is a very good chance they won’t get the offer they need in the US.
But what counts as a “better” student or “top” student in their university-prep system usually won’t be obvious from a GPA.
Of the others, OP should be investigating which schools meet full need for internationals, even if need aware - yes being need aware reduces chances of getting in but at least if they do they should be ok financially. There seems little point applying anywhere that won’t meet need.
I note right around $25K (assuming this includes all of tuition and fees, living expenses, mandatory health insurance, transportation, and so on), things get pretty interesting because there are some US colleges where that can work even without any sort of extraordinary merit (maybe some merit, but attainable merit). These are not typically the most globally famous colleges, but still high-quality four-year colleges.
So if the OP signals a willingness to consider such options, we could make suggestions.
Like as a preview, Grand Valley State University is part of the Michigan public system, and can get around there thanks to their standing offer to provide in-state tuition levels to Internationals, plus attainable merit:
Of course GVSU is not an LAC, but it has an excellent reputation in my Michigan circles, and it specifically has a robust undergrad business program (Seidman):
But in terms of budget, it could be close, and then the OP would actually have to want this sort of outcome.
But if that could work, they could then ALSO apply to some LACs with enough of an International need aid budget to offer a decent number of high need aid awards to Internationals. Investigating that is a complex subject, but we can at least explain how to do it.
yes i did a deep research and excluded more than 70 colleges from being in my list. Most of those are very generous. Obviously the ones with bigger acc rates do not guarantee to cover 100% of need, but all of them give some sort of need aid + merit and are in general well-known for helping people in my efc range