I was having a conversation this week with another mom. She knows lots of top performing kids here in India who are definitely not US Citizens who claim to have received “Full Rides” to places like Harvard, Stanford, Yale. Now, not only are the parents claiming this, the international schools the kids attend here routinely claims large scholarships to non-US citizen kids who attend their schools.
My reading on this site led me to believe that there are only a handful of schools (and none of them Ivy League) that offer significant scholarships to non-US citizens.
So I am confused. Are these prestigious schools secretly giving out non-publicized scholarships to non-US citizens? Or am I completely wrong in thinking that there were only a very few schools that would give scholarships to non-US citizens?
In general, these kids come from wealthy families in India but that doesn’t rule out some of these being “need based” I suppose.
And I don’t think the families are simply attempting to create a false impression…these kids are attending these schools currently and some of these families would not have been able to afford the tuition (some could have.)
They may be referring to outside agencies that funds the education also. My wife received a “scholarship” from an outside agency coming from South America that paid for her education and gave her a living stipend.
Hmm I’ve never heard of any outside agencies funding kids from international schools in India.
I can only come up with a few possibilities:
Parents are lying to impress their friends (a possibility)
Schools ARE giving large scholarships to non-US citizen kids but not publicizing the fact.
I misunderstood that only a few colleges offer scholarships to non-US citizen kids and the fact is that it is more common in schools (including Ivy League) that I was aware of.
My student had a room mate that loved letting everyone know they were on full scholarship. Come to find out, it was all need based aid. A ton of kids on need say they are on scholarship and people assume it is merit (since that is truly what a scholarship is). And also, parents lie all the time to impress people.They know the difference but find it easier/better to say their kid is attending on scholarship than aid. And the legend grows…
Privates can give scholarships to anyone they want as far as I know. I would guess public’s don’t give to internationals, but not sure about that.
Ivy league only gives financial aid, not merit. As I understand it, the Ivy League conference rules prohibit merit awards. So anyone getting large award from an Ivy League school has high financial need.
Perhaps the parents of these kid would rather say their kid got a scholarship, than need based aid…because that would show that their income is less than $60,000 USD per year.
The schools can call it scholarships…I know Dartmouth does. But in fact…it is need based aid.
International students would not get loans in their financial aid packages. They are not eligible for federally funded loans…and colleges are not lending institutions…so no loans there.
I bet a good number of those “Full ride” internationals are either boasting about their accomplishment because you know the culture of overzealous education and competition. I am an Asian and lots of old-school Asian parents love to exaggerate about their oh-so-mighty kids. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them lie.
@blueskies2day yes there are actually a good number of PUBLIC schools that give scholarships to foreign studetns,(not need based) but whether its enough to cover the cost is a different issue.
I think the most likely scenario is for the students to have shown financial need even if that seems unlikely. I suppose it could easily happen that many of the parents’ assets are in somebody else’s name in their family, and then their income is not that high when translated into US dollars even when they can afford a high standard of living in India. Maybe grandparents are paying for the international school fees, for example? Or it could happen too that there is some fiddling around with the real assets and income figures. How are colleges going to figure it out if the documents seem in order?
Some international students I knew from Mainland China, Hong Kong, ROC(Taiwan), etc were given full-ride scholarships to attend Columbia Fu Foundation SEAS.
Those scholarships were administered and funded separately by another foundation set up by the Fu family to enable lower-income students with great academic potential to attend Columbia SEAS and foster greater social interactions between the overseas Chinese communities across Asia and the US.
Don’t know the application process, but those scholarships are not provided as need-based aid by Columbia SEAS itself.
I hosted an international student last year who received almost a full ride (merit) to a good university, not ivy. I saw the letter myself. It was based on his grades and ACT score. He is from China.
Stanford does not offer academic scholarships but offers both need-based aid and athletic scholarships. The members of the Ivy League are precluded to offer athletic scholarships.
How foreign applicants are reporting their family income might facilitate the need-based scholarships, but it probably amounts to little over a rounding error in the FA budgets.
Yes, I think those of you who talk about hiding assets are on to something. Over here it is very easy and common to shift assets around into different names for a variety of reasons.
I also think that I was not aware that schools would be “need blind” for international applicants and then offer full need based aid along with an admission.
So many times on this site I have seen very qualified but fairly poor international applicants who wanted to apply to prestigious schools be told that they would not get aid because they were international. I understand they would not get loans. But if these schools are need-blind for internationals, and then cover as much as is needed, why are they not being FLOODED with applications from abroad? Or are they?
There are only FIVE U.S. colleges that are both need blind for admissions (meaning your financial need is not considered when your application is reviewed) AND also meet full need for all acceoted international students. And they are amongst THE most competitive for admissions with likely about 5% of international students admitted.
They are indeed flooded with applications from fully qualified (and some not-so-qualified) international applicants because of the need-based aid that is offered.