International Admission & Aid FAQs
We’re thrilled you are interested in attending ¹ú²ú¸£Àû¾«Æ·ÍƼö! While we ask a lot of you during the application process, it comes from a good place to get to know you well and imagine you as a member of the Davidson Community.
We know questions may arise as you complete your application. Below are some of the questions we receive most often along with our answers.
As a first-year student, you must apply using the or.
Yes, we waive the application fee for students who are not U.S. citizens. The Common Application and Coalition Application will automatically waive the fee after you select your citizenship.
No, we do not offer CSS Profile waivers; however, we do accept the International Financial Verification Form as an alternative form. If your total financial contribution is less than USD $5,000 per year, the form, available on your , will expand with additional questions, which we will accept in place of the CSS Profile.
Yes, financial aid is available for international students. It is need-based and is available for Early Decision and Regular Decision applicants, however financial aid is limited to first year students who have not enrolled at another college or university, in the U.S. or another country.
The amount of financial aid awarded is based on calculated financial need (how much we determine your family can afford based on your financial situation).
While we consider financial need during the admission process and are need-aware for applicants who are not citizens of the United States, we meet 100% of the calculated need for all admitted students.
International applicants are also eligible to be nominated for or apply to the small number of scholarships we award. We do not offer general merit scholarships.
Financial aid is limited and competitive; international students seeking financial assistance are required to submit financial aid application documents by the same deadline as their chosen admission period.
No, financial aid application documents for ¹ú²ú¸£Àû¾«Æ·ÍƼö will be available to you after you submit your Common Application or Coalition Application, when you gain access to your Davidson application portal.
We do not accept applications for financial aid submitted after we release admission decisions.
If your family’s financial situation changes during the application process, we require any updates be made prior to decision release.
We want you to meet our current students and they want to meet you. Start by learning about the international student experience and support in place to help make your time at Davidson great. Chat with one of our international admission ambassadors and for more in-depth information, register and attend one of our virtual sessions.
No, we do not offer interviews.
Since we are unable to meet every student who applies to Davidson, we don't require interviews as part of the application process. If you would like to include an interview as an optional supplement, we encourage students to submit either an or a interview, however we do not provide fee waiver codes.
Since or is an optional supplement, like the ACT or SAT is an optional supplement, we do not offer fee waivers. If you submit one, we will happily watch it as a way to get to know you better.
Maybe. All international applicants for whom English is not their first language are required to demonstrate they possess the level of communication skills necessary for thriving in Davidson’s dynamic, immersive, and academically challenging educational environment. To satisfy this requirement, we accept results from TOEFL, IELTS, or Duolingo’s English Test (DET).
Learn more about English Language Proficiency Requirements
By selecting the "English Language Proficiency Requirements" dropdown on this page, you'll find who is eligible for waivers, what to include in your request, and typical scores achieved on English proficiency tests.
No, we do not provide coupons or fee waivers for testing. To help offset the cost of applying to ¹ú²ú¸£Àû¾«Æ·ÍƼö, we waive the admission application fee for international applicants (those who are not U.S. citizens).
Davidson will accept ACT or SAT scores self-reported on the application, from your college counselor, or sent by you, the applicant, as a PDF via email to admission@davidson.edu.
We do not accept self-reported English proficiency scores (DET, IELTS, or TOEFL). We require your DET to come directly from the Duolingo via your Dashboard. We will accept IELTS and TOEFL scores emailed to us from your school/college counselor to admission@davidson.edu.
We do not accept TOEFL/IELTS/DET scores directly from applicants/students.
Yes, we are test-optional for the ACT and SAT.
This test-optional policy speaks to Davidson’s commitment to access and reflects our belief that while tests provide some useful information, other parts of an applicant’s academic journey better reflect how they will perform and thrive at Davidson.
We consider many factors. We engage in a holistic read of each applicant with the goal to get a better understanding of who you are, where you are from, and some of what you have experienced in life. Applications are read thoroughly by individual readers and are then discussed in a committee setting with many admission counselors. These discussions give us a better sense of each applicant as an individual and as a potential member of our community.
We emphasize certain factors in the review of an application, such as the difficulty of high school course selection, and the depth and breadth of extracurricular pursuits.
It depends on the time of the year. There are times during the year Kaye-Lani Laughna, Director of Admission and Financial Aid, offers virtual office hours to help answer the questions you can’t find answers to on our website.
We ask you first to register and attend one of our virtual sessions before virtually meeting with Kaye-Lani.
These meetings are not interviews.
No, we do not. ¹ú²ú¸£Àû¾«Æ·ÍƼö is an undergraduate college for students pursuing their first bachelor's degree. We are a residential college, with students living on campus for all four years. Most students at Davidson are between the ages of 18-23.
If you have already earned a bachelor's degree, we recommend you search for universities that offer master's degrees or have a program for students pursuing a second bachelor's degree.
Yes, we do. We encourage students to meaningfully engage with our community through , and programming throughout the year. Students are not required to do any of these in order to be admitted, and we appreciate there may be limited opportunities to do some, but we do monitor how students have engaged with us in order to understand how they have learned about the Davidson community they are seeking to join.
Your application will be read within the context of your school by an international admissions counselor familiar with your grading and school system, however for financial aid purposes, you will be considered a domestic applicant, and your application will be read need-blind.
No, ¹ú²ú¸£Àû¾«Æ·ÍƼö is an undergraduate institution offering the first bachelor’s degree a student can earn. Even if you earned a bachelor's degree from a university in another country, we focus on student’s earning their first post-secondary degree. We do not enroll students seeking a second bachelor’s or a master’s degree.
No, you must apply as a transfer applicant. If you have enrolled in a post-secondary degree-seeking program and have earned credits for courses (even if you do not intend to transfer the courses), you are required to apply as a transfer applicant.