Could you give me some advice?

Because I am a student’s father from China,so I know limited information about US colleges .
On my son’s college list,there are 20 colleges. Finally, he will attend only one college.
It is a big business to select a right college for him.
I will collect some information for him , and he will make decision by himself.

suppose:

  1. not care the tution and fees
  2. not care major
  3. care attend a graduate school after 4 years or find a job.
  4. care racial discrimination (I AM AFRAID A WALL BETWEEN CHINESE STUDENTS AND AMERICAN STUDENTS)

These are some colleges he like, could you give me some advice?

Step 1: selet the best of each group

Group 1: U of Michigan Annabor , U of Virginia, U of North Carolina Chapel Hill ( all big public universities)

Group 2: Brandeis, Tufts, Middlebury (all small private colleges)

Group 3: College of William&Mary, Wake Forest ( both small colleges)

Group 4: Tulane, Emory, (both in the South).

Step 2: select the best of 4 colleges of step 1.

You can also select the best one you like directly.

Thank you very much!

@WELCOMETOCHINA - without details about your son, I am not sure you will receive any meaningful responses. If you are looking for college rankings, google might be an easy answer.

Thank you!

His some details:

GPA: 4.17
Ranking: 2—5% in his class
TOFEL: 109
SAT: (redisigned) 1490

Out of Class: founder of literature group; founder of table-tennis group etc.

Interest: Literature, Environment Science

Major: undecided

He want to study at a closer faculty-student relationship college.

This wouldn’t fit your format, but based on his literary interests, you may want to cross-reference some his listed choices with colleges discussed in this article:

http://flavorwire.com/409437/the-25-most-literary-colleges-in-america

For greatest student-faculty interaction, he should most strongly consider schools that are purely-undergraduate focused (LACs).

I am going to give it a try.
If you do not care about (1) and (2), there is really no difference among any of the groups.
whether he can find a job depends on his major, how good he is, the job market at the time and his luck.
I assume he will have a great chance of going to a grad school for any of the 4 groups, it depends on which grad school he wants to go, or focus on colleges that have grad program in his major, but they are all academically good colleges.
Regarding racial discrimination, you may have a better feedback to post in each of the college’s forum, whether he can assimilate into the student groups, it also depends on him as well. I do not know for a fact, but I assume larger colleges have a larger population of Chinese students.

As you had categorized each of the college in different groups, may be you want to ask him whether he wants large or small colleges, where do his friends go? Is he in US now?

There are not 20 schools

I looked into one of your previous posts, if the choice of the colleges were decided based on the college’s willingness to provide aid for international students, my suggestion is to apply many and decide base on the financial aid packages.

Thank you very much!

Yes, these colleges are typical.

Thank you very much!

Honestly, all the schools in each of your groups are similar in terms of quality, prestige and environment, so “best” of each group is very subjective.

I would apply to all of them and see which ones your son gets accepted to and then decide. It’s a pretty good list. If you want to cut down the list I would drop your group 4 and just apply to groups 1-3.

Between large public universities and small LACs (group 2), I would recommend the LACs as a better overall undergraduate-focused experience.

Would overall selectivity be a factor for him? You can organize his choices to some extent here:

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-50-smartest-colleges-in-america-2016-10/#39-wellesley-college-average-sat-1390-13

This analysis goes deeper, but with data from the prior year:

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-610-smartest-colleges-in-america-2015-9

Btw, if he appears truly interested in the student-faculty interaction available through a classic small-college experience, I’d recommend he include some schools with 2000 students or less. Schools listed as small on your list (e.g., Brandeis, Tufts), are actually much larger than schools typically classified as National Liberal Arts Colleges.

Many colleges included here will offer full financial assistance to all accepted students, irrespective of origin:

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2016-09-19/colleges-that-claim-to-meet-full-financial-need

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if the choice of the colleges were decided based on the college’s willingness to provide aid for international students, my suggestion is to apply many and decide base on the financial aid packages.


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I don’t think the schools in the first group give aid to int’ls. I don’t think Emory or W&M gives aid to int’ls.

What’s the point of mentioning that 2 schools are in the south??

As for any “walls” between Chinese and domestic students, that “wall” is typically installed by the ethnic group. On most/all campuses in the US, ethnic groups (int’l and domestic) tend to gather together to eat, socialize, study. Maybe it’s because they feel a certain instant comraderie? Maybe because they share a common primary language, culture, foods, or ??

I think that the point of mentioning that the schools are in the South is that generally speaking the deep South is less friendly towards immigrants, but I don’t really think that would be relevant at a big University.

The “South” reference would appear to be a brief caption for the purpose of clarifying why those schools were placed together for consideration (as in groups 1, 2 and 3).

Re #11, the figure was intended as about 2000 students or less. Precision with respect to this figure would be counterproductive.

If concerns about integration as a Chinese student are important, I’d suggest looking at colleges on the West Coast rather than the South.

South:
My son like warm and cool weather, not dare cold weather, but not like hot weather.

I do not know the real climate in the US, only depend on my mind.

Financial aid is very very limited to international students ,especially in the public universities.
So I can not think of FA more.
Thank you very much, nice friends !
Your voice is very useful.
We will make a dicision in several months.
Wish we all have good colleges to attend!

Look for schools that offer to meet the full demonstrated financial need of all accepted students. For highly qualified students, these colleges would not be particularly difficult to find, @WELCOMETOCHINA.

If weather is a concern, look at UCLA, UCSD, UCSB.