Knowing your EFC and researching college
EFC which stands for Expected Family Contribution is a term that you will hear thousands of times while applying to universities especially if you are a student applying for financial aid. EFC is the fixed amount of money your family is supposed to contribute to your college costs for one year. US universities are pretty expensive and for an average family, it is difficult to pay without taking loans.
However, US university education comes at a different range of prices. Columbia University in the City of Newyork, Uchicago. and Harvey Mudd College are some of the most expensive universities in the US with a sticker price of more than 80k dollars per year for tuition, room, and board. Brigham Young University’s three campuses are the cheapest with an annual tuition below 7000$. Also, you may find cheaper options at community colleges. Note: BYU-Provo is ranked inside the top 100 universities in the US.
Although EFC is something that universities will calculate based upon data you have provided on CSS Profile or ISFAA (Financial aid applications), It is good to understand the amount of money your family could afford for your education. This helps a lot while researching colleges and universities. The main thing most students would consider while shortlisting colleges is finances.
It is difficult to talk about finances with your family or parents. But you should at least have an understanding of the finances of your family. You could easily guess the amount your family could contribute to your education. You must also know that living costs in the US are very expensive. There are a lot of additional costs such as books, health insurance, travel, visa processing, etc. That should also be considered in the total cost of education. As most Nepali families cannot pay those prices, you should consider all those factors while researching colleges.
Now, let’s talk about researching college based on EFC. This will help you in shortlisting colleges that would meet your demonstrated financial need. EFC and college acceptance are directly proportional for the majority of universities except for the need-blind ones. Hence, the more you could pay the higher the chance of acceptance, and the less you could pay, the lower the chance of acceptance. However, most of the Nepali students attending the top 50 universities and colleges in the US are in or around the full ride. You must know that those universities will give full-ride only to 1 or on rare occasions 2 students. Additionally, they will give the aid mostly in the early rounds. So, if you need a full ride, you should utilize the Early Decision round.
Researching is the second most important thing after your academics in the College application process. Before actually researching the colleges, I would suggest you surf through college confidential and see the colleges Nepali students have been accepted in the last five years.. From this, you could have an idea about the colleges you should target.
Class of 2025
https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/t/class-of-2025-nepal/2104458
Class of 2024
https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/t/class-of-2024-nepal/2061658
Class of 2023
https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/t/nepal-class-of-2023/2017728
Class of 2022
https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/t/class-of-2022-nepal/1916086
Below are the documents from which you could start your college research.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y7vwShLz5L2hCkPu7D04WuZnYI568MpVNznmoPpagTY/edit#gid=0
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GBSUqSHXoMINMgUIAcD7czG_ULr9jkpc78EvRjOKxww/edit#gid=0
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CZEqZf6dKC_tpY6K_hp-cggrOBEtfOhzj_vRbbLw0uM/edit
You should also surf through other resources like Reddit, discord, quora, and LinkedIn for your college research. US News, QS, and Collegeboard are also some reliable sources to start your research. I do not want to provide links for everything because you would not have to do research that is important during college application but becomes more important once you start your college.
Tip: If you want to know whether there are any Nepali students in any colleges. Just google (College Name Nepal LinkedIn.) For example Tufts Nepal LinkedIn
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