First Year International student begging for scholarships

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Demographics

International (Bangladesh)
Private School

Cost Constraints / Budget

Legit I can barely afford the cost of living as in the US .Food Utilities, Transportation, and housing. So its either full tuition scholarship or im cooked

Intended Major(s)

Mechanical Engineering

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
my school does not calculate GPA but its the highest it can be ig
A very competitive school but still in top 5.
International A levels four subjects:
Phy 96
Chem 92
Math 86 (valid reason for this one)
Furhter Mathematics 87

SAT: first sitting 1510
another one in nov 2

  • Unweighted HS GPA:

UW is 4.0

  • Weighted HS GPA: I think above 4.5

  • Class Rank: top 5 of 150

  • ACT/SAT Scores: SAT 1510

List your HS coursework

A levels Physics
A levels Chemistry
A levels Further Mathematics
A levels Mathematics

  • English: O levels
  • Math: Further Mathematics A levels
  • Science: Physics Chemistry
  • History and social studies:
  • Language other than English: Bengali O levels
  • Visual or performing arts:
  • Other academic courses:

Awards
18th in National Physics Olympiad grade 11
42nd in National Physics Olympiad grade 9
A lot of 1sts and 2nd prizes in School level and inter school competitions quizes and olympiads but these add 0 value ig

Extracurriculars

  • Research Paper on Compliant mechanisms, Lead author awaiting approval by IJSRA

  • Volunteer SAT tutor with 28+ hours of tutoring 12 students from 9 different countries (Schoolhouse)

  • Project Member of Social Justice App (Tohol)

Basically during government unstability specific minorities where being attacked and there was no law inforcement to stop it. A team including my self made a telegram bot that notified everyone around them about the crime being done. This gained over 2000 users in the first 2 days because of the support by some very popular unbiased influencers.This potentially saved multiple lives.

  • Creative Director of Schools MUN event

  • Teachers Assistant (Paid Work)

  • Private Tutor since grade 9 (Paid work)

  • Technologist of Schools Programming club in grade 9 and 10

  • Intern at Non profit Organization

  • Designer for Schools Basketball team

Essays/LORs/Other

Essay i think is a solid 8.5+/10
LORs are a solid 7/10

Schools
University of Connecticut
University of Notredam
University of Southern California
Florida International University

I desperately need full tuition scholarships or aid so please suggest more universities that are willing to give full tuition aid/grants to international students

If a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below; also, for colleges that admit by major or division, consider that in chance estimate.

  • Assured (100% chance of admission and affordability):
  • Extremely Likely:
  • Likely:
  • Toss-up:
  • Lower Probability:
  • Low Probability:
2

USC offers no need-based aid for international applicants and any merit scholarships are extremely competitive and will not be close to a full ride.

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Do you have an affordable option in your home country? If yes, then you’re not cooked.

Getting a full scholarship is extremely competitive. Sorry.

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I believe University of Notre Dame guarantees to meet your need if you are accepted. But that’s the rub…the acceptance rate is low, and even lower for international students. But apply and see! It would seemingly be affordable if you got accepted.

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5

OK, so this isn’t good news, but you should understand the situation.

Generally speaking, most US colleges have no International aid at all, or not at the level you are seeking.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of engineering colleges in the US fit into that category of not having the aid you need available.

The US engineering colleges that do have aid at that level for Internationals only have a few such offers available. But they get many highly qualified Internationals applying for them. So, only a tiny percentage of the Internationals applying for those offers are going to get one.

OK, so, just to begin with, you should understand you need to check if a college you are considering has ANY offers for Internationals like you.

And I am concerned about some of the schools you named. Another poster already addressed why USC is not a good choice. I believe it is the same for UConn (they have competitive merit available for Internationals but not at your level of need). I’m not sure about FIU, so you need to figure that out.

Notre Dame, though, does have such aid available. It is incredibly hard to get, but they do have MechE, so that is one.

Another like that you might consider for your list is Lafayette. Again, incredibly hard to get, but they have MechE and they have some such offers.

Lehigh would be another.

Case Western and the University of Rochester are maybes. It appears to me they tend to mostly admit Internationals without as much need as you have. But maybe they let in some.

Again, these are all going to be incredibly hard to get, so you need a good Plan B in case no college in the US with MechE makes such an offer. But at least they potentially could work.

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6

You might consider applying to Iowa State since they have limited merit scholarships for international students.

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Thanks a lot man. Yeah im only shooting for scholarships not aid.

8

I’m confused by this statement. It seems like you require need-based aid. There are schools that will assess what a student can afford and will provide a package that will reduce their cost based on demonstrated need.

Merit aid is offered to students the university or college wishes to enroll due to their academic profile.

Either, way the cost of attendance is reduced. The opportunities for international applicants for both types of aid are limited, as noted by others.

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9

So far, the schools that do provide need based aid to international students are usually T20 unis, but I have seen some “saftety” or low ranking unis that do offer a decent amount of scholarship. for example:

Florida International University
University of Tennessee Knoxville
University of Southern Misissipi
University of Southern Florida
University of Alabama
University of New Orleans

I am looking for more unis that fall under this category

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10

You said full. It’s not these. But Bama will get you closest. You’ll be low 20s a year with room and board and get less as you move off campus.

Their merit is the same for intl as out of state.

So you’ll get $30.5k off of $33k tuition.

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It’s possible OP thinks “aid” has strings attached (like repayment or contracted to work in return). I know in my home country, unless it was outright called a “scholarship” there was usually some sort of requirement to pay it back. In the US of course it doesn’t mean that.

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Edit: As another poster pointed out, you may not be familiar with how the term “financial aid” is used in the US. It is used as a generic term for any sort of financial support provided by a college that helps reduce your cost of attending. So, a grant you get and do not have to pay back, also known as a scholarship, is a form of financial aid. And colleges can give you grants based either on need, or merit, or a combination of both. All of that would be included in the definition of financial aid. Unedit.

The US colleges that have need-based aid for Internationals are definitely not all within that list of 20 research universities. Just to begin with, there are something like 70 (give or take) colleges that are what are called meets need for Internationals, which means they will offer enough aid to cover all of what they calculate to be your need. And then there are more that do not guarantee that, but have some budget for International need aid.

In general, for practical purposes it really should not matter to you whether a college calls its International aid need-aid, merit-aid, or a combination. So rather than try to micromanage how the college offers aid, I would just look for any college that makes any offers as large as you need, and has MechE.

Speaking of which . . .

So one thing you should get used to doing is checking a college’s CDS, Section H6, to get an idea of what is really happening.

Like, let’s look at UTK:

They apparently gave out 48 aid awards total to Internationals. I believe this is only about 1 in 5 Internationals at UTK, so most don’t get aid at all.

OK, then the average award was $11,137. Tuition and fees for non-TN-residents is over $33K. So even these few were mostly not getting anything close to full tuition.

And in fact, I believe this is the program you might have had in mind:

The award ranges from $8K to $18K annually. That is consistent with their reported average. But even the maximum award of $18K is not full tuition and fees. It is over $15K short of that.

So based on what you have said, these sorts of colleges are not going to work for you, because their maximum aid is not enough to come close to a full tuition award.

Again, I realize all this may not be good news, but I think you need to understand all this. The number of colleges in the US with a MechE program and aid for Internationals–need, merit, or need+merit–that gets as high as covering all tuitions and fees is very low. And it doesn’t include colleges like UTK (as far as I can tell at least).

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13

I have read before elsewhere of an international that claimed to have a full ride at OSU for engineering…no direct knowledge of what they offer

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I think Lehigh/Lafayette are your best bets. They meet need so if you get in, they would be affordable (according to the school). They have good engineering programs. You are a qualified candidate, but as an intl seeking FA you’re really limited. Please make sure you have affordable options in your home country.

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15

Are you talking about Oregon, Oklahoma, or tOSU (the Ohio State University)?

16

What are your predicted grades for A level? (A*AA?)
What actual grades did you get for each subject at O’Level?
Can you afford 25k for housing, food, books, transportation…?
How set are you Mechanical Engineering?
Are you a boy or a girl (or identify as boy or girl/nonbinary)?

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17

I wonder how recent fraud will affect international applicants to Lehigh going forward.

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Sorry. Ohio State.

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All A* for A2 predicted
(i swear I have a valid reason for the low grade in Math and Further in AS)

O levels:
Phy 97
Maths 97
Chem 95
Computer science 92
Additional Mathematics 92
Biology 92
Bengali 90
English 87 [ :frowning: ]

Yes I can afford the 25k for the first year, last 3 years has to be from on campus work ig

I mean im a guy but if i have to turn into anything else to get a scholarship, i’ll gladly do it.

20

You can’t turn into something else, no.

Solid results across the board. :+1:
(Both OLevels and ALevels will be used).

So your total budget is 25k - about 6k per year – working on campus can’t be used to pay for room/board, just your miscellaneous expenses like toothpaste or new socks or a pizza. Typically you’d earn $350-400 a month through hours done on campus, which is very very little due to cost of living. Textbooks alone could cost $400-500 - although you can make copies at the library or use the reserve to lower costs, you may have to buy a clicker for a class, an online workbook…
To give you an idea, socks would be $10 for a basic pack, pizza about $20.
(Before you get a visa you’ll have to show evidence your parents or family have a plan for 4 years. That plan can’t involve working off campus to make money.)

So, if you can afford 6k, you need almost a full ride and is very very hard to get.

Do you have family in the US that’d welcome you and let you stay for free while you commute to a university?

Try to get the highest possible score because that’d open merit scholarships at public universities.
Then you have meet-need colleges but many don’t offer Engineering so competition for Engineering is crazy.

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