<p>Hi,
I’ve heard that universities are willing to accept international students that have lower SAT score than required. Is that true?
What is more, I’ve also heard that if two student with exactly same records(SAT, GPA, etc)(of course, that’s impossible, but imagine) USA universities are more likely to accept international student than American. Is that true as well?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>No and no.</p>
<p>(a) There is no minimum SAT requirement. Your SAT score is interpreted in the context of the rest of your application. International students often have higher SAT scores than their American counterparts though. See part (b).</p>
<p>(b) American and international applicants are not directly compared to each other. But to play along in your scenario, the answer would still depend on the university and its applicant pool. Universities with an international reputation and colleges with financial aid are flooded with international applicants and have lower admission rates and higher admission standards for international students. Expensive no-name universities on the other hand might welcome the rare international applicant with open arms!</p>
<p>Thanks for your reply. It’s interesting that in my country everyone believes so. To talk about SAT, I know that there is no minimum score but I think that International students have less chances to do as well as American in SAT (Reasoning and Subject as well) because of differences of learning techniques. When you study in your own language and then go to take test in English, IMO, it’s kind of disadvantage because you can make a mistake if you don’t know what the particular term means. IMO, in this case natives have some advantages.</p>
<p>It depends. If you are able to pay the full tution, then you have higher chance than an American with the same score.
HUsually, internationals have higher scores than Americans (especially in the Math section), because only the best international students apply to the US colleges. And that means that colleges with a lot of international applicants requiring financial aid will have higher demands on internationals than on the Americans.</p>
<p>I agree with what you said about maths. But I was talking about CR mostly.
What about students who cannot afford paying full tuition? Do they have less chance to get accepted?</p>
<p>yes, unless the school is need-blind.</p>
<p>International students that require financial aid have a smaller chance of being admitted anywhere, even if the school claims to be need-blind. There are about seven schools that are need-blind for internationals, and their international admissions are extremely selective. </p>
<p>International students that ask for FA are actually expected to score higher on the SAT, especially in the math section.</p>
<p>Do Ivies have the same politics about international students?</p>
<p>Especially the Ivies and other similarly selective colleges.</p>
<p>A need-blind admission policy means that financial aid applicants are not at a disadvantage compared to full-paying applicants. However, international applicants are still at a disadvantage compared to domestic applicants.</p>
<p>Think about the domestic vs international applicant pool at Ivies this way: the brightest students from a population of 300 million compete for 85% of the spots; the other 15% go to the brightest students from a population of 6 billion. Which pool sounds more competitive?</p>
<p>^ that’s not particularly true now, is it ? for one thing, how many international students apply to ivy league schools (or any other college) in the US ? and how many americans apply to ivy league schools or US colleges ? you can’t make a direct comparison using just the data of the total population of the US or well, the world.</p>
<p>I see that you are right. It’s a bit disappointing. Not that we don’t have better chances but that we have lower chances. However, it makes me study harder. :)</p>
<p>depr91, you are right that working with total populations skews the numbers quite a bit but it captures the idea. I don’t know if this is true everywhere, but it seems to be primarily the very top students or the very rich students who want to study abroad in the States. Students who would have a shot at Harvard or MIT are a <em>lot</em> more likely to consider studying abroad than your average foreign high school student. </p>
<p>That means that if you restrict your attention to Ivy League material, the total population approach might work. Yes, it still skews the numbers, but it might only skew them by a factor of 5 or 10 as opposed to 100.</p>
<p>A little bit more on the need-blind for international applicants schools: The ones that are need-blind has now shrunken to Amherst, Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, MIT, and Yale. Williams and Middlebury promise to meet the full need of international students, but now take financial factors into consideration when evaluating international applicants.</p>
<p>Last time I had talked with Lafayette college counselor. According to collegeboard its acceptance rate hovers around 37-40%. However, international acceptance rate is less than 10%. Lafayette is a popular college here in Nepal and perhaps around 100 candidates apply there alone from Nepal.( I am from Nepal)</p>
<p>barium is 100% correct in this regard. You would be competing with international students. A lot would have very good scores. If you are paying full freight- the standards against you would not be of the same caliber as those requesting financial aid. Those requesting financial aid have close to a 3-5% acceptance at most top school and LAC. When I applied to Bowdoin College for example, they accepted only 6 out of the 300 applicants for finaid. However they are not that selective in general.</p>
<p>if you are from a south asian country (Nepal, bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka) or china or europe get ready for heavy competition. Your best bet would be to change your nationality</p>
<p>What about intls not asking for aid? If you only qualify for a small amount of aid (if your EFC is really high) is it worth it not asking for aid even at schools like Harvard and Princeton (hypothetically) which are need blind even for intls?</p>
<p>Harvard and Princeton get so many applications from rich foreign students that not applying for aid doesn’t give you much - if any - advantage. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if you have good stats and require little to no aid that may work to your advantage in less elite schools, particularly in areas of the country looking for diversity - in the mid west US or the south.</p>