Viewing College as a ‘Joyful Celebration,’ as Yet Unaffordable
By UYANGA TAMIR
I always thought that after high school, I would return to my home country, Mongolia, to pursue my undergraduate studies. All this changed during the summer before my junior year; my mentor persuaded me to try my chances and apply to elite colleges here.
Since then, I have been taking the most challenging courses at my high school to boost my G.P.A. An acceptance into a top school has been my goal; however, now I realize that any acceptance is not a thing to be joyfully celebrated if it does not come with generous scholarships.
Financial aid has become the most important aspect of a college; if I cannot afford the tuition, I simply cannot go. Moreover, there is one thing that further complicates my already too stressful senior year: I am an international applicant.
My application will be read with the large pool of intelligent and well-rounded applicants from all around the world. Space is limited, and competition is intense.
Additionally, most colleges require international students to provide their own tuition. Only the top schools consider an international student’s application without looking at his or her financial circumstance.
This is why colleges like Princeton, Yale, and Dartmouth are on my list; they are need-blind to international students and meet the fully demonstrated needs of every admitted student.
To add to my concerns, tuition for international students among public schools is significantly higher; my so-called safety school, the University of Colorado at Boulder, cannot even be considered safety since my single mother cannot afford to pay the tuition of $30,000 a year.
Considering all these facts, my chances of attending a reputable school seem minimal, and I fear that I will end up going to a community college after all the hard work I have put in. This fear has been reinforced by my first rejection.
I started off my college application process by applying to a generous scholarship program called QuestBridge. Through the QuestBridge National College Match Scholarship, I did a special, multischool early-admission program in which my application was submitted on my behalf to six institutions: Brown, Dartmouth, the University of Chicago, Pomona, Princeton and Yale.
I was chosen as a finalist, and the final results came out on Dec. 1. Nerve-racked, I sat in the car with my mother, holding my phone in my hands. With one touch I opened an e-mail that could be life-changing.
Instead of the “Congratulations” that I wished to see, it was a “Thank you for applying” instead. I instantly knew that I had not been accepted.
Though my hopes were crushed, I am still optimistic about the rest of my college application process. In fact, I am still free to apply to these colleges on my own, and plan to do so.
It will be exciting to discover if a quality education in America is obtainable, and affordable, for a poor international student like me.
I have about 13 college applications that I am juggling – 12 in the U.S. and 1 in Korea. The journey down the regular decision road should be interesting to experience.
Ms. Tamir is one of six seniors at Cherry Creek High School in Denver who will be blogging about their college searches for The Choice (NY Times) between now and May.
Read her blog.
