Hi,
I got accepted to Pomona this admissions cycle and am very excited to attend. However, I am an international student and was accepted without any aid and as such, I cannot apply for aid in the future. While my family was ready to pay that amount before, they have now said that it will be a problem. Furthermore, after some extensive thinking, I also realised that I might wish to pursue engineering, a major that Pomona does not offer. I wanted to know if it’s possible or realistic to expect transfer from Pomona to one of the top universities with aid given that I’ve heard that colleges prefer students from community college and other non-traditional backgrounds.
If you cannot afford Pomona, you should not attend.
You should re apply in the future.
If you want to major in engineering, same issue. Reapply to others next year.
Can you transfer - yes. Will you get in or be able to afford the next school ? If you can’t Pomona, then unlikely although each school calculates aid differently.
There are stronger engineering programs at non ivies that may be lower in cost, depending on your cost.
What is your budget ?
I mean Pomona meets need for international so if you got none, they believe you can pay $90k plus.
I’d assume then others would assume the same.
Help me understand.
Thanks
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I think we need some clarity on your situation. Pomona is a meets need college for internationals. If you applied for aid and then got no aid from Pomona, then I am not sure it is realistic to expect aid from any other US college.
But did you not apply for aid as a way of dealing with need aware admissions?
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Alright so to explain my situation. Before applying to college I had a discussion with my parents and they told me that they would manage the amount with some help from my relatives, so I didn’t apply for any aid. However, now they feel that it’d be difficult for them. Just to clarify, I would have clarified for aid had I applied with it but my aunt had offered to pay a part of my college fees. Even with the help though, my parents now realise that it’d be very expensive. I also don’t have any backup at this point, so they have asked me to go through with it, however, they have also asked me to look into transfer as an option. That’s why I want to research on it, so that I can apply for transfer this upcoming march.
So you need to take a gap year and re apply - not applying for aid is foolish.
What is your budget?
You could, for example, study engineering at U of Alabama, if you have a top SAT/ACT for $20K a year plus health insurance. Is that within budget?
If you want to be an engineer, the where matters little. I can’t speak for your home country.
But the first thing you have to ask your family is - what can they afford.
Applying without a budget is what caused this issue.
Good luck.
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OK, so you are going to try to transfer, but this time also submitting a financial aid application. I personally agree maybe a gap year is a better idea, but it sounds like your parents would rather you go to Pomona, and you want to know what that would look like.
To be very blunt, a transfer is going to be very difficult to pull off at the highly selective private colleges you mentioned. Not only do they have very few transfer slots, it is in fact true for those they usually look for a different story (like community college transfers, or sometimes people looking for a VERY specific program), and on top of that they are also often need aware for transfers. So someone looking to transfer from Pomona with a lot of need is really stacking the odds against themselves.
Of course in general there is no need to limit yourself to those colleges for engineering. However, a lot of other engineering colleges are public, and those are not usually good options for internationals looking for a lot of need aid either.
On the other hand, even full pay for Internationals at a lot of public universities is going to be less than full pay for Pomona (and maybe they will give you a merit offer, although you need to check if they are available for transfers). And that path (person starts at fancy private without Engineering, transfers to public with Engineering) is not so uncommon. So as long as you are not going crazy with the selectivity of the engineering program in question, that is probably your best bet to actually save something on costs and get an engineering degree.
But it is very unlikely to be as highly-ranked a college as Pomona. Just a good college for engineering which costs significantly less.
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The Ivy League universities, and other top universities in the US such as MIT and Stanford, accept very, very few transfer students. It is generally considered to be easier to get into these schools as a student coming out of high school (with or without a gap year) than it is to get in as a transfer student.
Generally speaking the Ivy League schools are not particularly well known for engineering, although some are okay for engineering. However, for the really top schools for engineering again coming in as a transfer student is difficult.
Engineering is a major for which there are quite a few required classes that have prerequisites, where those prerequisites have prerequisites, and so on. It is important for engineering to take the correct required classes starting freshman year. If you start at a university that does not have engineering as an option at all, then I do wonder whether after transferring you might still have a full four years to go before graduating. Adding an additional year to your time in university will also add additional expense.
Getting significant financial aid can be more difficult for a transfer student, compared to a student coming in straight from high school.
If paying for university is a stretch for your family, and if you might want to study engineering, then starting off at a university that you cannot afford and that does not have engineering as an option to me seems like a bad idea.
This might leave you with no university to attend in September. What to do instead becomes something to think about.
You might need to take a gap year, and think carefully about applying to a different list of universities next year, and applying for aid next year.
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Yeah, by way of background, if you start off at a college like Pomona and end up wanting an Engineering degree, the easiest path is to do something like a 3+2 program. Like, Pomona is one of the affiliated schools for WUSTL’s 3+2 program, and although you have to meet various requirements, if you do meet those requirements you should be admitted (meaning it is not capacity constrained).
But that takes an extra year, and in this case would not solve the problem of Pomona not being comfortably affordable.
My understanding is some people do transfer instead, and sometimes that does not take five years, but it is tight. You basically need to make sure you take as many of the basic Engineering prereqs as possible at Pomona, you need to make sure they will transfer over, and so on.
This is definitely not a recommended path, then, if you know you want an engineering degree and are cost sensitive. It is more something people sometimes fall into by accident–but I guess that is sort of the OP’s predicament.
Unless they can be persuaded to take a gap year, which does seem like a better idea.
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First step is will you be able to show you have 12 months of financial resources to pay for the first year of Pomona which is required to get a student visa. Will your family be able to satisfy that requirement?
I agree with the others that transferring to a meet full need school will be tough due to extremely low acceptance rates for international students with financial need. You can certainly try, but you need to have a back up plan. What would that be?
Do you have any options in your home country for this Fall?
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Just want to clarify. Yes Pomona meets full need for internationals but it is not need blind for admissions. I know many talented students (whose essays I worked with so I know their stories) who did not get aid at need blind schools because the aid given is limited and competitive, OR they did not get in at all because the schools was need aware.
Seven schools are need blind at this point, for internationals. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, MIT, Bowdoin and Amherst.
That said, you didn’t apply for aid at all. That may have helped with admissions but, um, you got no aid.
There are many programs that might be glad to have you and give you aid, even if they are need aware. The idea of a 3+2 program is a good one. Here is one:
Dual Degree Program | Case School of Engineering | Case Western Reserve University
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I don’t understand the 3-2 suggestions.
OPs family cannot afford Pomona. They cannot go this year. A 3-2 presumes attendance this year. How would OP pay (for one year let alone 3 plus 2 more)?
They need to go at home or set a firm budget and then reapply next year to a four year engineering program they can afford, forgetting the name of the school.
Budgeting is ALWAYS first and foremost.
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The odds for anyone trying to transfer to a Top 20 school are very small.
The odds for an international student who wants to transfer to a Top 20 are even worse.
The odds for an international student who needs aid to transfer to a Top 20 are so small that it is almost laughable.
If you want to be an Engineer, you don’t need to go to a Top 20.
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OP- you need to spend an hour researching what it takes to get a student visa to study in the US.
You will NOT get a visa on the basis of “we’re going to try and figure it out financially” or however else you and your family are considering, and noting that a family member wants to help will NOT help your case.
You need to come clean with Pomona-- ASAP-- that your circumstances no longer allow you to attend. If they are willing to consider offering you aid-- fantastic- be honest about how much you need. If they are not willing, you need Plans B and C. But getting a visa without a firm, documented financing plan is not happening no matter how much good will you can show and no matter how many loving relatives really, really want to help except they can’t transfer you the funds right now.
Good luck to you…
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Thank you for your suggestions but Pomona knows my circumstances and I will be able to attend, I have my I-20 and all in order with it known that a part of my funds will be through my aunt and my parents will be able to pay, it is just for the year after that they want to me to potentially get something else so that it’s comfortable for them but even in that case, they will be able to manage my college. However, personally I feel that since it won’t be comfortable for them, I owe it to them to try at another institution that could potentially ease the burden for them. Furthermore, the main reason why I wish to transfer is that the 3-2 program with Caltech and Dartmouth is also essentially a transfer but it is a route that takes another year without any significant advantage
So your question is “what is the likelihood of me gaining admission to an Ivy/T20 which will give me more financial aid than Pomona did”? With an essay about how you didn’t know that Pomona didn’t offer engineering when you applied?
I’d rate your chances as low but that’s me.
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No, I knew Pomona didn’t offer engineering, I have just been looking at it as a career path that I might be interested in
So your stated reasoning for transferring is what exactly? The schools are going to ask-- Why us, why now? And the more coherent and cogent your answer, the higher the probability. Still VERY low- these schools don’t take a lot of transfers-- but you need an answer which is credible.
That I might like to do engineering but I can’t if I stay at Pomona. Even though I really like the college, staying at Pomona closes that option for me.
But you need to understand that by sophomore year, engineering is not a “might like to do”. You’re either in it or you’re not. And if you’re not- you are looking at an extra year anyway.
Your plan seems like it’s been thrown together to placate your parents who are now balking at the costs of four years at Pomona. Which is understandable- and I totally respect. But “might like to do engineering” is a huge red flag; “closes that option for me” is the other red flag. No top 20 college is admitting you- with funding- because you “might like to do” their engineering program and you can’t if you stay at Pomona.
Right? Think this through.
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So you can afford it!!
I understand prestige but if I said you can get a solid engineering degree for $120k vs nearly $400k or 5 year at $500k on a 3-2, wouldn’t that savings overcome ‘prestige’?
First you said this: While my family was ready to pay that amount before, they have now said that it will be a problem.
Now you say this: it is just for the year after that they want to me to potentially get something else so that it’s comfortable for them but even in that case, they will be able to manage my college.
Which is it ? Because if they can afford it (your most recent comment), it may be unlikely for you to get aid anywhere.
So if you want Ivy or Ivy level, which for engineering is not necessarily tops, then how will you pay if they can’t pay for Pomona?
What is the amount they are willing to pay and can comfortably pay per year ?
That is your budget.
Then you find schools to meet that budget.