<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I’m looking for a “reach” university that offers financial aid for international students (I’ve found a lot financial aid opportunities for my match and safeties) and pretty much all I’ve seen is: </p>
<p>“X University offers need-based financial aid awards to a small group of international students.” ??</p>
<p>I’m just wondering, as I have been for the last few months, what exactly do universities mean when they say something like this? </p>
<p>I’ve been to quite a few competitive universities’ websites and so far, Duke is the only place I know that actually says that they accept about 20-25 international students who apply for need-based financial aid, which in my opinion is appallingly low. Is “small” even smaller for other universities? Is that why they don’t post the numbers? Or is it really something that varies? Why should it vary so much that they can’t put a range to it? It seems to me that this is the one piece of statistic that they don’t boast about.</p>
<p>I’ve really come to dislike this word, small.</p>
<p>Students vary quite a bit.
Admission is not generally need blind for international students.
When a school has limited funds for aid, students are carefully selected to receive aid.
Most aid is going to be going to instate/citizens/legal residents.
A small reserve may be set aside for intl students, but I imagine they will withhold it for really standout applicants.
The amount may still not be enough to allow the student to attend.</p>
<p>Assume small is like “reach”.</p>
<p>Here is the hard cold truth: If you are an international student who needs significant financial aid, every single college and university in this country is a Reach. No matter how good your academic profile is, the chance of you getting the kind of money that you need is very, very low. b@r!um who posts on that topic in the International Student Forum has good ideas on strategies for finding money. Track her down and send her a PM and ask for advice.</p>
<p>Wishing you all the best.</p>
<p>*I’ve been to quite a few competitive universities’ websites and so far, Duke is the only place I know that actually says that they accept about 20-25 international students who apply for need-based financial aid, which in my opinion is appallingly low. Is “small” even smaller for other universities? Is that why they don’t post the numbers? *</p>
<p>It could be far fewer than 25 students. It could be 5 students. </p>
<p>When you think about it, it’s MUCH harder for schools to truly determine the financial need of int’ls. Some countries don’t have income tax, some countries’ citizens operate largely on the black market with unreported income. Some applicants are from countries where it’s hard to find out what assets they have or their value. Because of these difficulties, many schools don’t even bother to try, and a few can only award to a few (maybe the ones who have verifiable need and come from countries that have good records.).</p>
<p>Yes, smaller than 25 is common. So is zero. In a perfect world we’d have global colleges. But we Don’t. A Handful of rich US colleges give aid to intnls. Far fewer intnl school’s
give a dime to Americans. When you get old and wealthy, start a
SCholarhip fund.</p>
<p>I see. I will be up for quite a challenge then. It’s nice to see that even though it’s for them, universities still try to help.</p>
<p>I imagine the degree of difficulty (very hard versus extremely hard) depends on one’s nationality too. For instance, there is a ton of competition (and full pay students) from India and China.</p>