schools for international students?

Answered

This was my response to the same question earlier in the week: (the inquiry was from someone with a 3.5 GPA)

Many International students ask this same question so I recommend searching on previous posts because there are many good answers to this very question.

In general, it is very difficult for International Students to receive what you term as a full-ride scholarship to attend a 4-year college in the US. Just so we are on the same page, I want to share that there is no such thing as a full-ride scholarship. The best you can ever achieve is a full tuition, room and board say from a top university like Stanford or Yale. In all cases, full-ride implies that there are 2 components that must be addressed in your financial aid award, 1.) your family contribution (and that varies based on the many financial aid documents you have to supply namely the FAFSA and CSS profile), and 2.) the student contribution. In most cases, the financial aid award will require you to work at the school for some 10-15 hours a week, and the proceeds are used for your college expense. In addition, travel to and from your country for 4 years, student VISAs and fees, technology (laptops, mobile phones, peripherals, and data plans), student health insurance, various athletic fees, club fees, books and supplies, and room and board costs for the 3 1/2 months each year the college is not in normal (Fall/Winter/Spring) session during the summers is not covered by the financial aid package. So if your total costs are $85,000 per year, you should budget at least $10-15,000 per year even if you get a great tuition, room, and board grant.

The greatest hurdle you will face is with someone who has a GPA of 3.4-3.6 is actually getting admitted to one of the say 25-35 schools that provide the best financial aid packages. While schools like 6 out of 8 Ivys (UPenn/Cornell not include), Stanford, MIT, and other elite schools like Amherst, Williams, etc provide excellent Intl student financial aid that is need-based versus merit-based, the big hurdle is to get admitted. Typically 95% of the best schools for Int'l aid have very low admit rates in the 3-9% range. Typical admits at these schools have GPAs of 3.9-4.0 unweighted and SAT/ACT scores of 1500+/34+. Therefore someone with a lower GPA is unlikely to qualify for these better aid package schools.

If I recall from my past answers I think the type of schools you should target that have in the past accepted students with your GPA range would be the following:

Skidmore College, NY

BEREA college, Kentucky

SOKA University, CA

Pepperdine University, CA

Connecticut College, Connecticut

Illinois Wesleyan, Illinois

DePauw University, Indiana

Earlham College, Indiana

St.Johns College, Maryland

Clark University, Massachusetts

Wheaton College, Massachusetts

Hope College, Michigan (they have a new pay what you can program)

St. Lawrence University, NY

SUNY, Various State University of NY Campuses, (you have to research that)

Kenyon College, OH

Reed College, OR

Dickinson College, PA

Franklin & Marshall, PA

Lafayette Colleg, PA

Sewanee, TN

Bennington College, VT

Whitman College, WA

Now keep in mind there are not full-ride colleges but they still offer great packages for International Students, so you should temper your expectations. Getting $25,000 to $40,000 annual grants toward your college education are still very generous compared to other 4,000 US colleges that might only contribute $5000- $10,000.

Good luck.