<p>Vassar is a good school, too. I know my daughter visited and was interested in applying. It tends to be a bit more “artsy” oriented, so it would also be a good fit for your studio art interests.</p>
<p>On the financial aid, I can’t find Vassar’s data. However, I would not assume that Swarthmore gives less money to internationals. First, as a percentage of the student body, Swarthmore has more international students. Of the 86 full-time international students registered in the Fall of 2004, 47 received Swarthmore funded financial aid grants (this does not include financial aid from other sources). That’s about 54% of the internationals receiving Swarthmore grants – a higher percentange than for US students.</p>
<p>The average Swarthmore grant for these 47 internationals was $35,563 each. The total Swarthmore grants for international sudents last year was $1,671,456. If they accept you, they will make finances work out if at all possible. Their per student endowment is about three times the size of Vassar’s.</p>
<p>You wil have to do some research to find out Vassar’s numbers. Remember that Vassar is nearly 75% larger, so work with a per capita number (like average grant per international or something).</p>
<p>As for SATS: Yes. Vassar’s median SATs are quite a bit lower than Swarthmore’s. As a US student, my daughter viewed Swarthmore as a reach and Vassar as a match based on her SATs.</p>
<p>I actually think your SATs are quite strong. Colleges will “discount” the Verbal SATs for you because English is your second language. They know that the verbal portions of the test are skewed to favor US, English-speaking students. Your English communication is excellent and your very high Math SAT scores and your #1 class rank demonstrate that you can handle the academics. They may or may not accept you, but it won’t be because your academic qualifications aren’t good enough.</p>
<p>BTW, they make similar allowances on the SAT verbal scores for first-generation US college students, minority students, etc. They know that the SAT test has some culturally-based flaws. 5.3% of Swarthmore’s freshmen last year had Verbal SAT scores below 600. I would bet that all of those were “special” situations, largely involving non-English speaking applicants.</p>
<p>I wish I could give you more precise guidance in terms of your likely “odds” at Swarthmore (or Vassar). But, I just don’t feel that I really have a firm enough grasp on international admissions to do so. I think you are a strong Swarthmore applicant based on what you’ve posted here, but I don’t have a sense of how strong you have to be or how they go about putting together a class of internationals. Obviously, they have some number of Eastern Europeans in mind, but I have no way to judge how you would compare to their other Eastern European applicants – which is what really matters.</p>