Aspiring International

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi, I’m from India. I come from a lower-middle class family, and so I will need a lot of financial aid (can pay max 10-12k per year) (:/) I know how hard it is considering my situation, but I know that the States might help me achieve my dreams, so I’ll be applying.
Tests/GPA:
SAT: didn’t take
ACT: 34
SAT II - Math 2 - 790, Physics - 800, Chemistry - 790
AP - Calculus AB - 5, Physics 1 - 4
GPA - 10 CGPA each time (it’s the max, Indian scale.)
Rank - top 5%

Major awards and honours:
-> Runners up, Asian Regional Space Settlement Design Competiton
-> Semifinalist, International Space Settlement Design Competition
-> Indian semifinalist, IRIS science fair (qualifier for ISEF)
-> Summit Diplomat, Conrad spirit of innovation challenge
-> Attended selection camp for team India for the international physics olympiad; didn’t make it though
-> Gold medalist, national standard examination - astronomy
-> Lots of national and regional quizzing, theatre, debate and game development awards

ECs:
2 years of MUNs, several awards
Started NSS chapter in my city this year, secretary
Honorary Adviser, Debating Society - 2 years
Attended International Space Developers Conference, Puerto Rico
Member, Students Council - 3 years
Some research at Indian Institute of Sciences
Research paper on nuclear propulsion published in national science journal
President, Comp Science+IT club - 5 years (Became prez this year. member before that. same with posts in other clubs.)
Honorary adviser, Aerospace society - 4 years
Honorary adviser, Physics club - 3 years
Member, Quizzing club - 4 years
Member, theatre club - 2 years
Member, Psychology society - 1 year
Member, chemistry club - 2 years
Member, Music Club (choir) - 3 years
Member, Pre-pharmacy club - 3years
Member, Amnesty Club - 2 years
Chief Organiser, TEDxYouth event

Summer Activities/Jobs:
Taught programming to kids - Python
Attended Yale Young Global Scholars - Beijing

Thank you in advance. Please chance me at the following for a Computer Science/Physics/Engineering major (undecided).

->All Ivy’s (will apply early to princeton. im not applying to all of these, obviously - will do once i get a good idea about all of these, to around 10-12: 3 reaches, 5 matches, 3-4 safeties if any.)
->Williams
->Earlham College
->Northwestern
->St.Olaf
->Georgetown
->Tufts
->Lafayette
->Trinity College NY
->College of Wooster
->Carleton

2

Edits: Also attended the International Summer School for Young Physicists.
Please also consider Colby College and CalTech in the above list. (I really, really love CalTech.)

3

You’re going to apply to 10-12 Ivy’s or schools? There are only 8 Ivy’s in total, and they’re all fairly different so it doesn’t make much sense to apply to every one. The ivys also dont encompass all of the elite schools in the united states, it’s just an athletic conference. And you definitely need safeties. You have a lot of reaches right now. You have great stats and you do have a chance at these schools, but you need to apply very broadly since you need so much financial aid. Since you’re doing CS you might want to look at Stanford and MITas well.

4

As I said, I won’t be applying to all of them. Probably not to Yale, Dartmouth and Cornell. Then again, i haven’t finalised it yet. I did consider MIT, never liked it. Stanford, definitely will, they take several people from my high each year, not a top choice for me, though.
I thought the safeties might be Earlham, Beloit, Union College NY, Wooster, and possibly Connecticut College. Cant call any of them a safety, since no one wants to pay an international willingly :stuck_out_tongue: As you go down the college tier list, international aid becomes harder, so it’s been pretty tough for me till now. Will narrow down my list to 10-12 soon, though, but thank you so much!

5

Have you visited Caltech? I don’t understand how you can love a school that you haven’t visited or lived at.

Caltech is very tiny and is in the city of Pasadena. The costs of living are very expensive in that suburb of Los Angeles. If you need financial aid, they don’t provide merit aid. They guarantee need based aid for US residents, but internationals are a different story.

6

Yes, I visited CalTech last year. One of the few schools I was able to visit. I know about the aid factor but I also know a few seniors who got decent aid (but eventually went to HYSP). If ultimately it comes down a situation where I’ll have to take loans or something, I will, I suppose. I just can’t bear the super-restrictive Indian education system.
Actually, I prefer small-mid sized schools, which is probably the only reason I’m not applying to , for instance, Cornell despite the quality of their engineering programs.