I have plenty of friends in the United States who applied to Mount Holyoke and got in, and the school met they financial needs well. If they didn’t get enough US applicants, then where the hell do the 70% of their students come from?
Now, talking from the point of view of an international student who will apply to U.S. colleges: I found your post extremely offensive, because of the fact you seem to despise the fact that within the student body 30% of the students are completely capable and smart international people. Do you think we apply to the U.S. just to take your spots? Your money? (That it is not even the governments money, but whatever). I will apply because I wouldn’t be able to study the two things I love the most if it weren’t in the United States, because in my country the education is extremely bad and I have been working hard since I’m in middle school to study abroad (I attend a boarding school in Asia, I’m Latin American), to get a proper education so I can go back to my country and make a real change. That you are poor? I am poor too, and it never stopped me from applying to different schools and trying to get what I wanted. I didn’t even speak English properly until last year. We apply because we want to excel in life and we really want to get the most out of the experience. For us, having a scholarship/that the school admits us and meets our full financial needs, is a privilege, if we apply it is because we really want to be there and because we will do our best to give back to the school and the country that is giving us the opportunity.
Just for your information, when they “recruit” in Asia it is because the school requests it. In my school we, the students, have to reach out to the officers and we have to convince them to come. Most of the time, they reject our invitations. So maybe instead of complaining you should go ahead and try to get a representative to your school? You won’t do much from behind a computer screen. Practice your leadership and try to make a change if you don’t like something, maybe then you will catch a school’s attention and get accepted because of your potential, but those who complain and don’t move a finger to be change-makers? Those don’t achieve much.