No GPA for IB kids but term 1 39/42, and hopefully will get 40/42 for term 2 and predicted grades
No class rank available officially but top 5 among 80 students
SAT superscore 730+780
Coursework
HL: English lan&lit, Math AI, Global Politics
SL: ESS, French ab initio, History
Awards
National Latin Exam gold medal
Scribo Latin Poetry 3rd place
Immerse writing contest scholarship receiver
CTB regional top 15%
Extracurriculars
Co-founder of a feminist organization which organized two art exhibitions and series of salons (worked with a famous local sex education team)
Co-founder of a historical literature journal, have an accessible website with a few issues released both physically and digitally
The first translator of a female ancient Roman poet’s elegies in my language, already published and sold for 100 copies
A cross-comparison research with a lecturer at an Ivy
Founder of the school’s Latin club
One of the two Student representatives of a worldwide event at the school
Co-founder of a cross-school student group
A pole dancer with a self-made documentary
Dance club member
Cost Constraints/Budget
Able to pay for a maximum 40k
Please match me with schools! Thank you so much in advance for any suggestions!
Not a comprehensive list in any way, but two suggestions off the top of my head: one large school and one small school.
U of Cincinnati is a large, urban, public university that’s known for inventing co-op education. It’s known for strength in majors as diverse as Industrial Design, Nursing, Engineering/CS, and Musical Theater. Also in the mix is a surprisingly prominent Classics department: https://classics.uc.edu/ For undergraduates, they offer two majors, Classics and Classical Civilization. The full-pay cost of attendance for international students is just over 50K/year, and the maximum International Outreach Scholarship is 15K/year, so getting to your budget is possible.
In contrast, Kalamazoo College is a small liberal arts college (just over 1200 students) in a charming small city. They have a flexible curriculum that allows students to customize their majors, and they are generous with merit aid, so quite likely to get to your budget in my opinion. Their Classics department offers four different majors, which is pretty impressive in such a small school: https://classics.kzoo.edu/
Would you qualify for need-based financial aid? If so, there may be options among schools that offer need-based aid to internationals (although most either don’t guarantee to meet full need, or make need-aware admissions decisions).
But the two I suggested have potential to get to 40K or below on merit aid alone.
I’m sure there are more good possibilities, but comparing these two very different schools would be a place to start.
As you may be aware, getting to that budget as an international is the trickiest bit as need aid for internationals is relatively limited and the competition for it is fierce, and $40K is below the full cost of attendance for international students at many public universities (which usually do not have any need aid for internationals).
A few suggestions to consider:
St Olaf is great for Classics and specifically Latin or Latin-based Classics. They have a robust need+merit program which might get you within budget:
Gustavus Adolphus also has a robust Classics program, including a Languages major with a Latin concentration option, and they have a specific combined merit/need program for internationals that could get you in budget (the Count Folke Bernadotte Scholarship):
Oberlin is generous with international financial aid if you can get it–more competitive than domestic but you strike me as someone they might really see as a great fit. People sometimes think of them in relation to the Conservatory but they are ALSO a top academic LAC and have a robust Classics program with a possible Latin major:
I’m just going to rapid fire some more names of broadly similar colleges which I know do Classics–you can look up their international aid for students pages and Classics department pages like the above to see if they seem like good opportunities. That list would include Wabash, Dickinson, Skidmore, Rhodes, Kenyon, Grinnell, Carleton, Macalester, and Ohio Wesleyan.
Another idea would be to look at women’s colleges. Bryn Mawr has a legendary Classics program which then extends out through its consortium relationships with Haverford, Swarthmore, and Penn. I know it has a lot of international students, I am less sure what its aid looks like, but could be worth taking a shot:
There are then also a bunch of very highly selective private universities with good aid for internationals if you can get admitted and with excellent Classics departments. Brown, for example, sounds like a great fit for you. Everyone knows Penn for Wharton, but their CAS is fantastic and very strong in Classics. WUSTL, Georgetown, or Emory. But you need to check if these sorts of colleges would be within budget for you, and they can’t be Plan A, just possible “reach” applications that would be nice if they worked out.
Hi there! Thank you so much for your reply! I am a uwc student so davis scholarship can cover some part of the tuition fee as well. I guess that helps a little bit. The two colleges you mentioned are really cool! Will definitely look into them
This site names 27 colleges that may be especially suitable for your intended major:
You will find a range of selectivity across schools such as Amherst, Hamilton, Holy Cross, Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Carleton, Macalester, Kenyon and Oberlin.
My gratitude for your suggestion is beyond my English vocab❤️ Thank you so much for your reply! Will talk to my counselor as well about those colleges you mentioned!
Sorry people I didn’t mention it but I guess it will be better if I state it here: I am a UWC student so davis scholarship will cover some of the aid!
Holy Cross is well-known for Classics and has merit aid for classics majors. It’s a highly selective, small, Jesuit college (nationally a top Catholic college alongside Georgetown and Notre Dame).
Your SAT score could get you merit aid at several public universities
For instance, Miami-Ohio. Not as strong as UCincinnati for Classics but they like high SAT scores and their Honors college is solid. The campus is beautiful.
UCincinnati’s Cincinnatus scholarship would make that university very affordable. The campus is urban with nice modern/postmodern architecture.
Both would be good possibilities.
International students who need aid must be ready to apply to MANY universities they like.
Their best bet, of course, is to run the NPC on the 2-3 colleges they like best and apply ED at the one “meet need for internarionals” that seems to return the best result. (The NPC is for domestic students so the amount you see should be cut by any Pell or federal money but it does indicate whether the college treats your situation more or less favorably, e.g., equity, etc).
IPEDS, through which you can get a sense for the size of the classics community at particular colleges, can be another good source for research. This is the information for Bryn Mawr, for example: College Navigator - Bryn Mawr College. In using this information, you may want to adjust for the size of the school, however. Larger schools should be expected to have more majors in a given field than smaller ones, so consider percentage of representation as well.
Same basic data but it is easier to compare schools at a glance (particularly if you use the filters to get to roughly similar colleges). It also allows you to consider secondary majors, which I think can be useful in smaller departments or other departments where secondary majors could be an important part of the community.
But I note one of the tricky things with Classics (and some other fields) is the majors can be listed under a variety of different things. Bryn Mawr, for example, has four different Classics majors, and also a AB/MA program (pretty cool). But at any given time different people could be choosing different majors, so for small schools in particularly one year of data may be a little limiting.
Many strong Classics programs have already been mentioned (U Cincinnati, Holy Cross, etc.), but I would add in College of Charleston - it’s a larger department with more faculty and more majors than one would expect for the size of the school. They offer merit aid through the university generally, plus several departmental scholarships specific to Classics.
I wouldn’t let the size of the department (either faculty or the number of majors per year) scare me off without more research.
I was a Classics major, and it is a particularly ripe field for inter-disciplinary work, visiting professors, etc. so the numbers don’t tell the entire story.
The professor who specialized in the art and architecture of the ancient world “belonged” to the Art History department (but was a very popular instructor for various Classics courses). The professor who specialized in the history of civic life and government (or something like that) was in the Poli Sci department but supervised undergrads and grads who were researching the origins of the city-state and civic life in ancient Rome and Athens. And at least half a dozen literature professors- comedy, tragedy, poetry-- who taught Classical literature, very popular classes-- but were affiliated with either the Comp Lit department or English.
There were visiting professors every semester-- experts in inscription and linguistics, archaeologists, even a professor of geology who was an expert in soil (he’d sponsor “stump the scholar” nights-- yes, he could tell the difference between Sicilian and Jerusalem dirt!)
So do not rule out a small department if the course offerings interest you… it could be “small but mighty” which is fantastic- close relationships with professors and other students, wide relationships across departments as well.