Are Olympiads medals helpful for an International applicant who wants to study at MIT or Harvard ?
Also in my country JEE Is has a lot of craze ( It’s an exam that takes you to IIT)
So which one would be better to win a gold for my country at Olympiads or get a AIR 1 rank at JEE ( for getting admission into Top collages)
// Help me find out which is better JEE Vs Medal at Olympiad
Thanks for reading and giving your time
And I also Need financial need, I have other things too in my application but here I am just asking about JEE AIR 1 ( AIR Is All India rank 1) Vs Olympiad medal
And considering that I need financial aid
Neither will help if the rest of the application is subpar. The reality is that the acceptance rate for Indian applicants to either of those schools is ~2%, so your focus should be on that which will assist you in getting acceptance into an Indian university.
My friends from IITs are proud to say that IIT is tougher to get in than Harvard or Stanford, at least from a pure numbers standpoint, it’s like a million applicants for 10,000 spots and less than 1% for the most coveted ones and it’s just one or maybe two tests.
Anyway OP, If AIR 1 means you can into a top IIT, why not just go there and maybe come to US for grad school? Lot of my colleagues have done that and it’s worked out well, the financial aid is better.
Harvard only enrolls about 5 students a year from India.
You have asked this question multiple times. The answer is still the same. Even if you win an Olympiad medal, that is not a guarantee you’ll be admitted to a highly selective US college. It is definitely a huge accomplishment and could help your application to be considered stronger than it would be without the medal. But you will still need to have the rest of the things the college is looking for - from TOEFL to the attributes they’re seeking - to be admitted.
I think I should go for JEE as it would serve as an backup option
I didn’t compete in any international olympiads, but I got in a decent school. It definitely helps, but its not an “end-all be all” type of thing.
@nomansland Sir Where you did you undergrad from ?
I have couple of questions ( if you are free please answer those )
- Does homeschooling affect your application as when people say a lot about GPA what is the position of a student with no GPA ?
- Are Internships helpful or Getting a research paper published ( as I found a prof. Who’s ready and also got a internship offer in c.s dept )
- Should I consider taking AP’s
I’m planning to get my undergrad from Penn.
- No, it doesn’t matter as long as you can compare to other applicants. I know many homeschooled students who got into Harvard and other top schools.
- Yes
- I think its a little too late for you to think about AP classes. You are a senior, right?
Are you a junior or a senior?
Really what would help most would be to be an excellent student and a state-level athlete part of a recognizable club.
What classes are you currently taking?
Air would be of zero interest to us colleges.
Also, look into colleges with merit scholarships: UAlabama, Ole Miss, Temple, UMN…
If you are homeschooled and have no gpa, you need to look at how each college handles both.
Do you mean “homeschooled” or something else? Maybe, some self study? OP has said he’s in 11th, we have no idea when he plans to apply.
But it seems, from your questions, that you are not looking at the info the colleges do share on their web sites and in other ways. You don’t seem to understand what matters to top holistic colleges, how they review, or what they expect. It is not best scores, best internships or contests that get an admit. You can’t be their quality without this reading, that energy and will.
Go look at MIT admissions. Learn from what they tell you. Learn about the TOEFFL and student visas. Don’t ask us to speculate until you have a much better understanding, have done more…
Don’t live your high school life to match what you think a college wants to see. For one thing, colleges see through that. Also, you won’t stand out from the crowd if you have all the same qualifications as everyone else. Plus, you can do everything “right” and not get accepted anyway. Chart your own course, doing the best with the resources available to you, and with the endgame being a life and career that you love and in which you can take pride. College is just four (or so) years of your life, but a career lasts 40+.
Guys finally wait is over I got AIR - 100 JEE rank after couple of days going for advanced so getting admission in IIT Bombay Is almost confirmed ( so should I do undergrad from there and then come us for masters I mean for MIT or Stanford again and will I have better chances that time )