International class of 2015!!

rdgonzalez
Thu, 21 Apr 2011 14:36:44 +0000

Hey query123, financial aid is definitely an option for international applicants, but it is definitely not going to be easy. Well, if you want to assure yourself that you’ll have all your need met if you’re accepted and that admissions are going to be need-blind, you should apply to: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Dartmouth and/or Amherst(where I fortunately got in). It is true though that these schools are veery selective. There are also some schools that provide aid to international applicants that are need-aware. These schools know if you’re applying for aid and take it into account when deciding to accept you or not. So, they will accept you only if they’re willing to give you financial aid and some do not meet your full need there also. I’ve heard that liberal arts colleges give a lot of aid to internationals as well for diversity, but I didn’t want to apply to too many of those, I just applied to Amherst and Williams, but there are surely others that would be very generous if you meet their standards. There are also universities that have merit scholarships and those are also a very good option.

Well, considering my eligibility I’m having a full ride to Amherst and WashU because of my family’s financial circumstances, although my family makes around $65000 a year. Well, from my experience I won a merit scholarship from WashU that covered all tuition and the need-based aid covered the rest. For Amherst the need-based aid covered all, I think there’s something like $500 that I will have to pay for the academic year and a campus job that covers $1800 for the academic year. For Northwestern I received about $40000 in grants, $5000 in loans and there was still a gap that I had to fill that was over $10000. At Cornell, they decided to not give me aid in the end, I don’t recommend you apply here if you’re looking for financial aid because I know a lot of internationals that got accepted and didn’t get aid in the end. Heck, I even know a guy from my country who got a full ride to Boston College, Stanford, Penn and Yale(where he’s now attending) and he didn’t get anything from Cornell. Your link is kind of true though my SAT score was only 2050. I did have an 800 on Spanish, a 710 on Math 1 and a 770 on Math 2 for my SAT Subject Tests though. My TOEFL was okay, I expected to get a better score, but I got a 110. My GPA was pretty good too.

I’ll be glad to help a fellow international student in what I can. Feel free to PM if you have any questions!