Can you please chance me? Malaysia student requiring FA.

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Can you please chance me for these schools? i am an international applicant from Malaysia and will be requiring FA (almost full - can contribute around 8.5K a year)</p>

<p>Colorado College
Rhodes College
Bates College
Whitman College
Colgate
Colby
Kalamazoo</p>

<p>Test Scores:
SAT 1
1470 (CR+M) 2080 (Total) 690-780-610 (CR/M/W)
SAT 2
Maths 2- 800 Physics- 760 Chinese- 800</p>

<p>Academics:
Predicted final year grade: General Paper (English) A Maths A Physics A Geography A Economics B (No GPA or school rank)
Mid-12th Grade: Maths A Geography A Physics B General Paper(English) C Economics D
11th Grade: Maths B Geography B Physics C General Paper(English) D Economics E
10th Grade GPA 3.57 out of 4.00 (distracted by year-round business research projects)
9th Grade GPA 3.78 out of 4.00</p>

<p>Archery (11th-12th Grade) School Captain
- National Inter-School Archery Championships : 1st Position in Team Standard Recurve, 3rd Position for Men’s Individual Standard Recurve Event
- Pesta Sukan Archery Championships: 2nd Position for Recurve Team Mens ‘D’ Class
- Archery Association of Singapore Under 18: 4th Position in Inter-school for Recurve Boys Team Event
- NJC Invitational Archery Championships: Represented College in Men’s Recurve Event
- Sembawang Open Archery Championships: Represented College in Men’s Recurve Event</p>

<p>Judo (8th-10th Grade)
-Represented school at Inter-school competition
-Bronze for individual event at inter-school competition
Badminton (till 9th Grade)
- Second place for Men's Under 14 doubles in State competition
- Borneo Badminton Cup (top 8 Men's Under 14 Doubles)</p>

<p>Social Service:
- Student volunteer for the disabled archers during training on-and-off for approximately a year.
- had weekly visitations to the nursing home for old folks.
- approx 240 hours of community involvement hours
(i know that the hours shouldn't be the main purpose for the social service, just wanted to show the extent of commitment)</p>

<p>Leadership Involvement:
- School Orientation Group Leader
- Peer support leader</p>

<p>Awards:
- Entered the Finals as a top 6 adult team for a national business competition by a university with teams from India, LA, Singapore. (2007)
- Boston Consultant Group Entrepreneurship Competition, a national level business competition which covered a period of one year. (2007)
- Geography Weather Studies Research Competition, semi-finalist, national competition.</p>

<p>Work Internship:
- Service Auditor at a Consulting Firm for a period of 10weeks.</p>

<p>Recs and Essays:
Pretty good i hope. And my counc is pretty experienced and well know among the deans for some colleges.</p>

<p>Weakness:
- probably my SAT1. my writing section is terrible! (took it three times and 610 was my highest). :(
- My 11th grade scores aren't very nice. probably due to busy involvement in ECs, and my school is extremely competitive.
- dont really have much awards in the academic field, like the many science olympiad winners i've seen on CC. </p>

<p>Extra:
im from an indigenous tribe in Borneo, and a minority group in Malaysia. Didn't grow up in a city, and had a different growing up experience from some of you guys here. i received a government scholarship to study abroad in a foreign country four years ago, and fortunately was exposed to the idea of US education. do help me out over here.</p>

<p>Financial Contribution: 8.5k per year. (=( asking for quite a lot of FA)</p>

<p>I know my circumstances make it very difficult for me to get accepted into Colorado. But the deadline is coming up in a few days and i only have 2 schools to choose to apply. </p>

<p>Do you think i should give CC a shot for generous FA? or if chances are extremely slim, is there any other LACs who may be more generous and more probably for me? </p>

<p>Please help out. pretty urgent. thanks. :)</p>

2

<p>Also, Income is around US$50K. Father is 64, mother is 55 and will be retiring in march 2011. </p>

<p>Please. should i? :)</p>

3

<p>So what are you waiting for? Yes, I think you should give CC a shot for generous financial aid. I cannot say just what your chances are, but you do look like an interesting applicant. And this is for certain: you have zero chance if you do not apply.</p>

4

<p>Colorado college is really at the top of my list. But my only hesitation is about whether i could get sufficient financial aid (because 8k is really the maximum i could possibly afford). And i know it is extremely competitive.</p>

<p>However, i must choose two schools to apply to before 15th January. and right now these are my choices:</p>

<p>Colorado
Rhodes
Kalamazoo
Colgate</p>

<p>Which two colleges do you think i might have greater chances to get financial aid? </p>

<p>please. any honest opinions will really help.</p>

5

<p>Why can you only choose 2? If the problem is the cost of the application, you could contact admissions about getting the fee waived. Of course, there’s not too much time left so maybe 4 apps is unrealistic in any case.</p>

<p>I doubt you are going to get a reliable answer here about your aid chances. You can review the financial aid data yourself for each school by googling the school name plus “Common Data Set”. Download the CDS document for each school and review section H6 (Aid to Undergraduate Degree-seeking Nonresident Aliens). This will tell you the number of international students who get aid, and the average amount. Unfortunately, it won’t tell you how many international students applied.</p>

<p>The Colorado College pattern seems to be to grant aid to a relatively small number of international students (42 for 2008-2009), but in very large amounts ($41,885 on average). What I can’t tell from the data is whether the small number means that few internationals applied, or that only a small percentage of applicants were awarded aid. If I had to guess, I would say that CC probably gets relatively few international applicants and that they are using large awards to try to attract more. However, I’m not even sure if the 42 is freshmen only, or all undergraduates.</p>

<p>You could telephone/email the financial aid office (or have your Guidance Counselor do so). Explain your situation and discuss your concerns. Maybe just ask them to clarify the number 42 in the CDS (the number of internationals awarded aid). 42 out of how many? Is this all undergrads, or freshmen only? How much of it is need-based and how much is merit-based? If merit-based, is there still money available, or has most of it already been awarded to ED/EA applicants?</p>

<p>Do you see the difficulty? You reach a point in these decisions where you are dealing with a lot of unknowns. You either have to dig hard for information or just take your chances. If Colorado College is at the top of your list, I’d say go ahead and apply unless you find out the aid chances are really low. As you probably realize, it is a little less selective than Colgate but more so than Kalamazoo and Rhodes.</p>