I’m trying to make a college list as an international with a low EFC, but it’s so hard since I’m a really indecisive person. Any tips/advice would be really appreciated!!
I have really good stats and decent extracurriculars (not Ivy League level tho). Here are some colleges that I’ve shortlisted so far:
Macalester College (Minnesota)
Carleton College (Minnesota)
Oberlin College (Ohio)
Denison University (Ohio)
St. Olaf College (Minnesota)
Luther College (Iowa)
Knox College (Illinois)
Beloit College (Wisconsin)
Union College (New York)
Cornell College (Iowa)
Wartburg College (Iowa)
Augustana College (Illinois)
Lawrence University (Wisconsin)
Gustavus Adolphus College (Minnesota)
Earlham College (Indiana)
Hope College (Michigan)
Allegheny College (Pennsylvania)
Rhodes College (Tennessee)
Hobart and William Smith Colleges (New York)
NYU
Dartmouth College
John Hopkins
Notre Dame
Wesleyan
Minerva
Pomona
Duke
U of Richmond
UNC Chapel Hill
Franklin and Marshall College
The College of Wooster
University of Texas at Arlington
Bemidji State University - Minnesota
Central Michigan University (Mt. Pleasant)
Western Kentucky University
Minnesota State University - Moorhead
New Mexico State University
Southern Arkansas State University
Illinois Wesleyan University
Grinnell College (Iowa)
I’m thinking of applying to around 16-18 colleges. I have no clue where to ED or EA, or whether these colleges are even good enough. Are there some more I should add to this list?
You’re asking us to do a lot of heavy lifting here. Here’s the problem: Even if you could afford the application fees necessary for 16 colleges, not all of them are going to be affordable for someone with your EFC. I’m assuming you’ve at least examined the officially stated tuition and rooming costs associated with them (the “sticker price”.)
Start by organizing them according to which sticker prices match your actual ability to pay. It’s possible they will likewise be a match - maybe, even a “safety” - for you in terms of admissions odds.
Once you have a financial safety, you can go to the next step and examine which colleges on your list have enough endowment money to award cash to students with highly desirable traits, academics (gpa, aptitude tests, etc.) being chief among them. Competition for these spots will prove intense, especially for international students.
The annual USNews magazine poll is a useful tool in that its rankings of colleges are generally divided into categories that track institutional wealth pretty closely. You don’t even need access to the latest poll; the rankings haven’t changed all that drastically in nearly 40 years.
@Ashmaan please do a chance me/match me thread and answer all of the questions on that template. This will give us better information to help guide you.
You don’t need to ED anywhere. It sounds like you are lower income and would benefit from seeing multiple acceptances and their financial aid offers.
You need to check your list. I believe some of these schools offer very limited need based aid to international students, and same with merit aid.
If your stats aren’t Ivy League level, you can probably eliminate Dartmouth, which is in the Ivy League. Schools on your list with similar admission standards would be NYU, Duke, and Johns Hopkins. If you can refine your list a bit using the excellent advice given above by @circuitrider, then come back with a chance me thread. You haven’t given us nearly enough information to assist you in list building.
Set a budget - low EFC doesn’t mean someone will meet your need. You need to provide an actual $ figure
If budget is very low, look at the meets need, need blind schools. That doesn’t mean even if accepted they’ll meet your budget. But they won’t hold required aid against you.
Find other schools that meet your stated budget figure
Need blind schools tend to be very selective but tend to be optimal financially. Other schools may award merit, or have scholarship programs. Your first criterion should be financial if you are low EFC. I don’t think there is a need to apply to that many schools either, as long as you choose carefully.
Need blind schools (and meeting full need) include Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown (Ivies), Amherst, Bowdoin, Amherst (“little Ivies”), MIT. Online Grinnell. Georgetown, Washington Lee and U of Notre Dame are mentioned. Check this out with the schools.
These are the colleges that are BOTH need blind for admissions and meet full financial need (as the colleges calculate it to be) for all international students.
There are other colleges that are need aware for admissions where you could also receive decent need based aid as an international student IF accepted.
Most of the above are highly competitive with single digit acceptance rates for international students.
And there are a small number of colleges that provide decent merit aid to international students as well.
Indeed, the difference between getting into Amherst (“need-blind”) and Wesleyan (“need-aware”) is pretty negligible so far as international students are concerned.
Georgetown is one that is need blind but offers almost no aid to internationals. (International Students | Office of Student Financial Aid | Georgetown University )
I know it’s popular on CC to refer to need blind schools but given that the ones who meet need are so selective, I think not enough emphasis is placed on applying to need aware schools who meet need. Yes, the chances of admission are lower, but if you get in you can afford to go.
Also confused as to why OP states they are not ivy level but throws in an ivy and schools of similar selectivity. The effort involved in these applications could be better spent on identifying schools with better chances.
OP does need to do the legwork of going website by website to see which schools offer to meet need for internationals. Yes it’s legwork, but nothing compared to the actual time it will take to apply to all those schools.
Sure, but OP won’t know that until they get offers and the best way to make their shortlist is to apply to schools who at least claim to meet need. You do what you can in a world of imperfect information.
Plenty here on budget but that’s really step one. From there, what are your stats? Ie if you had to bucket these as reach, target and likely could you?
This is a ton of schools and some of them are very different from each other. Dig into the academic programs you want. Are some stronger than others? Do you prefer more suburban or rural or urban environments? Are there particular extracurriculars or groups you’d want to be part of? These are spread all over the US - very different climates, political environments, etc. Does any of that matter to you?
Before you fire off dozens of apps, start with budget and go from there.
I was going to say run the net price calculators for some/all of those colleges on your list, but I just asked the web, “Are net price calculators reliable for international applicants?” And the answer was “no.” So then I asked, “So how can an international applicant obtain an estimate?” And it gave a detailed answer…. HTH.