my way of saying “no” lol
This is so beyond helpful, thank you so much!
Thank you! I will def look into these
Thank you!
I’m less convinced that OP might not get sufficient merit aid at some of the expensive privates. I think there’s a pretty decent chance of getting sub-$60k, though I’m less sure of them getting under $50k, though it’s certainly possible. Why do I think this?
-
OP would provide geographic diversity, particularly for schools that are pulling their out-of-staters much more regionally.
-
OP’s experience of moving around Africa while growing up is likely to provide a unique perspective at the college.
-
The demographic cliff has hit and though we’re still near the top of the cliff, the merit aid offers popping up this year seem more generous (and more schools that might not have increased their merit aid offers on appeal in previous years are doing so…like in this post) and I only expect that trend to continue.
-
Although a 1300 SAT may not be at the 98th or above percentile, it is still a good score. When the majority of a school’s applicants are not submitting a test, I don’t think that the expectation to be above the 75th percentile for merit aid is as much of a requirement, particularly at schools where fewer than 10% receive no monetary aid from a university (whether need-based or merit-based).
Below is a chart showing the schools I suggested earlier along with their sticker price, some testing data, and merit info. The list is sorted by lowest to highest percentage of students receiving no aid (merit or need) from the university. Seton Hall was not in the aggregator and I was unable to locate a Common Data Set from this decade for it, however I would be shocked if OP didn’t receive sufficient merit aid to bring the price within budget (and I’d expect below the $50k mark being likely).
Based on the above, I’d consider eliminating Lafayette and Brandeis from consideration since they have 44-48% of their students receiving no aid of any kind and odds aren’t great for OP to get a sufficiently large merit aid package at those schools to bring the price within budget. As for the rest, though, I’d still consider applying if they were a good fit to see how the packages turned out.
Full Data Table for Reference
Sticker price I gathered from College Navigator, and the remaining columns (except the last two) were pulled from the College Transitions Dataverse aggregators. I calculated the last two columns myself, using this formula to calculate the percentage of students getting no need whatsoever.
| =(100%-% with financial need-((100%-% w/financial need)*% without need receiving merit)) |
|---|
| School | SY24-25 Sticker Price from College Navigator | % Submitting SAT | % Submitting ACT | Max Possible % Submitting a test | 25-75 SAT Range | % Freshmen without need receiving merit | Average merit award for freshmen without need | % of students with financial need | % of students getting no aid (need or merit) from the school | Average Price after Merit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| George Washington | $ 84,630 | 26% | 11% | 37% | 1350-1500 | 25% | $25,357 | 91% | 7% | $59,273 |
| American | $ 76,753 | 22% | 8% | 30% | 1280-1450 | 28% | $13,691 | 89% | 8% | $63,062 |
| Drew | $ 64,740 | 23% | 2% | 25% | 1100-1340 | 26% | $24,014 | 88% | 9% | $40,726 |
| Howard | $ 53,132 | 23% | 9% | 32% | 1130-1330 | 15% | $15,018 | 79% | 18% | $38,114 |
| George Mason | $ 54,413 | 19% | 2% | 21% | 1160-1360 | 23% | $8,892 | 70% | 23% | $45,521 |
| Connecticut College | $ 85,800 | 18% | 6% | 24% | 1150-1400 | 46% | $28,097 | 57% | 23% | $57,703 |
| Dickinson | $ 82,750 | 23% | 5% | 28% | 1310-1460 | 31% | $32,586 | 66% | 23% | $50,164 |
| Fordham | $ 89,005 | 18% | 6% | 24% | 1320-1480 | 18% | $22,690 | 70% | 25% | $66,315 |
| Mount Holyoke | $ 86,702 | 13% | 2% | 15% | 1380-1530 | 17% | $25,303 | 64% | 30% | $61,399 |
| Brandeis | $ 88,024 | 30% | 10% | 40% | 1390-1520 | 19% | $15,166 | 46% | 44% | $72,858 |
| Lafayette | $ 85,264 | 23% | 10% | 33% | 1350-1500 | 20% | $19,371 | 40% | 48% | $65,893 |
| Seton Hall | $ 71,140 | 25% | 5% | 30% | 1220-1390 |
Since diversity is important to you, below is some information from College Navigator. The data here are from Fall 2024, prior to the current administration’s changes to immigration policies which have had a significant impact on international students studying in the U.S. And as an FYI, 16% of the students at Howard identified as unknown. The schools are listed in alphabetical order.
Full table for reference
| School | Female | Asian | Black | Hispanic | White | 2+ Races | U.S. Nonresident | In-State | Receiving Pell |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American | 62% | 7% | 8% | 14% | 55% | 6% | 7% | 3% | 14% |
| Brandeis | 57% | 18% | 6% | 9% | 41% | 4% | 3% | 19% | 15% |
| Connecticut College | 61% | 4% | 5% | 11% | 68% | 4% | 6% | 13% | 14% |
| Dickinson | 60% | 5% | 4% | 7% | 66% | 5% | 13% | 26% | 13% |
| Drew | 54% | 4% | 10% | 7% | 53% | 4% | 15% | 70% | 31% |
| Fordham | 61% | 13% | 7% | 21% | 44% | 5% | 8% | 38% | 22% |
| George Mason | 49% | 23% | 13% | 18% | 32% | 6% | 6% | 77% | 31% |
| George Washington | 64% | 15% | 8% | 14% | 47% | 5% | 8% | 2% | 17% |
| Howard | 72% | 1% | 67% | 6% | 0% | 5% | 4% | 2% | 42% |
| Lafayette | 50% | 4% | 6% | 10% | 66% | 5% | 7% | 15% | 12% |
| Mount Holyoke | 100% | 7% | 5% | 10% | 52% | 6% | 20% | 19% | 22% |
| Seton Hall | 56% | 9% | 12% | 28% | 42% | 4% | 2% | 71% | 33% |
And as a point of clarification on my previous post, I think that the schools likelier for admission (except American) are also the ones that are likeliest to meet budget.
Oh, I agree that getting enough merit is possible. I just said it wouldn’t be easy. And by that I meant that
- There are many private colleges and universities that don’t give merit at all, or that don’t give awards of half-tuition or more, which is what the OP would need.
- Then there are schools where a half-tuition award is the maximum, meaning that the OP would have to be very highly qualified for that school in order to receive that much merit.
- And there are schools where the OP is clearly overqualified and could definitely get enough merit, but they might not be more desirable than a financial safety like SUNY Albany or its in-state TX equivalent.
In the space between/overlapping categories 2 and 3, there are certainly schools worth applying to in hopes of getting enough merit.
My overarching point was just that none of them will be a sure bet up-front, and the first step of the strategy should be to nail down a safety, so that OP isn’t flying without a net. After that, for sure, there are possibilities. Once the safety is in place, it will be easier to narrow down, as they can eliminate both the schools that don’t give enough merit to anyone, and the schools that they wouldn’t prefer to their safety even if merit were forthcoming. Anything in between is fair game!
The Canadian university system is quite consistently very good. Canada does not have any schools quite as famous or highly ranked as Harvard or Stanford, but has a lot of universities that are really very good and that can provide a very good education (and I have met several people who got their bachelor’s in Canada and then got or are getting a graduate degree at a very good university in the US, even at the “Princeton, Stanford” level in a few cases).
Which might be a wordy way to suggest that you might want to consider other universities in Canada in addition to McGill. I agree with a comment above that meeting your budget at McGill might be at best uncertain. Need based aid won’t happen, and merit based aid seems very unlikely at McGill. The most famous universities in Canada (which includes McGill, Toronto, and UBC) also can charge more for international students because someone is willing to pay more. This brings up the obvious question: Which other Canadian schools might be likely, both for admissions and for meeting your budget?
I noticed above an interest in liberal arts colleges. Canada does not use the term “liberal arts college”, but does have several “small primarily undergraduate universities”, which are pretty much the same thing. In the northeast you might want to consider Acadia University, Bishop’s University, and Mount Allison University. St Francis Xavier is also good, but is likely to be a bit more difficult for you to get to (it is about two hours from the Halifax airport).
Acadia is in a beautiful small town in Nova Scotia, about an hour from Halifax. One advantage there is that you might be able to find direct flights from Texas to Halifax.
Bishop’s is in the small town of Lennoxville right next to Sherbrooke, Quebec. Lennoxville as far as I know seems to be fully bilingual. The first two people I met from Lennoxville did not have a single first language. One mentioned that their first memory was that there were two words for everything. Their second memory was discovering that the two words come in groups, and some people only understand one of the two groups (later of course they learned that one group was called “French” and the other was called “English”).
Mount Allison is in a small town about a half hour from Moncton, New Brunswick. Moncton is also bilingual (New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province), but majority English speaking. It is usually the top ranked small primarily undergraduate university in Canada, but might still be possible for admissions with a 3.8 unweighted GPA.
Acadia will not consider your SAT scores at all. The other two are test optional.
The last time that I looked all three of these schools would be well under a US$50,000/year budget. Keep the exchange rate in mind when you are looking at costs.
If you like McGill, another school to think about might be Concordia University, which is a large university just up the street from McGill. Bishop’s, Concordia, and McGill are the three universities in the province of Quebec which teach primarily in English. Montreal would be an interesting place to live for four years. The part of Montreal around Concordia and McGill is largely bilingual. Some other parts of Montreal are heavily French speaking. Some western suburbs used to be largely English speaking but are probably now more solidly bilingual (it has been a very long time, many decades, since I lived in a suburb of Montreal).
There are a lot of other universities in Canada which might be worth considering.
I might be tempted to at least look at the University of Victoria, in British Columbia. It is quite good, and has the benefit of having the mildest winters in Canada. Victoria is also quite an attractive small city. Again it is likely to be less expensive for an international student compared to a famous Canadian university such as UBC or McGill. My wild guess (I did not check) is that to fly from Texas to Victoria would probably require two flights, with the second being on a very small plane from either Vancouver or Seattle to Victoria (there may be other options). One flight to Vancouver plus a ferry ride might also be possible.
Simon Fraser university is another very good option, which has the advantage that since it is essentially in Vancouver (or at least within a couple of miles of Vancouver, in Burnaby right next door) there are likely to be nonstop flights from Texas. Winter in Vancouver (or Burnaby) will have a lot more rain than Victoria (or Texas), but will otherwise be milder compared to most of Canada.
I did not check all of these with regard to whether they have your major. I know that some do but am not completely sure if all of them do. You will also want to check the prices, although I think that most would probably fit your budget given the current exchange rate. We by the way live in the US and had one daughter attend university in Canada (she is now getting a PhD in the US), and the exchange rate was very favorable at the time (but is even more favorable now for someone from the US attending university in Canada). Canada is a very large country (as is the US) and you might want to also consider travel difficulty for each of these schools.
Thank you!
Seton Hall gives decent merit (15 minutes from our HS so many apply).
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. If you’d like to reply, please flag the thread for moderator attention.