Chance an Asian CS Applicant

Demographics

  • Location: International Student
  • Type of high school: Magnet School (usually sends 5-10 students to T10s)
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity (optional): Asian Male
  • Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.): N/A

Intended Major(s)
CS/EE, Math, Economics

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 96/100

  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): No weighted GPA given but have taken 8 APs so far.

  • Class Rank: Not Given; approximately top 10%

  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1570 SAT

Coursework
8 AP Scores by the time I apply; likely to be all 5s.
Including AP CSA, AP Calc BC, AP Physics C, AP Econ, and more.
Have taken 3 years of Spanish (max offered)

Awards

  1. USAMO Qualification
  2. IChO National Team
  3. International History Olympiad Qualification
  4. National Math Olympiad (for my country) Qualification
  5. USACO Platinum

Extracurriculars
(Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)

  1. Math Club Exec + Math Team

  2. Business Club Exec (DECA ICDC Top 20 Award)

  3. MUN Club and Team Exec

  4. History Club Exec

  5. Physics Research at a Local University (National Science Fair Silver)

  6. Varsity Baseball

  7. Volunteering for an Allergy Research and Awareness nonprofit

  8. Finance internship at a Bank

Essays/LORs/Other

Essays likely to be decent (above average) but nothing extraordinary.
LORs likely to be the same.

Cost Constraints / Budget
Can pay up to 40k USD, which is right about where the NPC puts me at.

Schools

Will only apply to reaches in the US as I am guaranteed a spot at many local universities.

Reaches
HYPSM
UPenn
Caltech
UChicago

Might apply to Oxford/Cambridge

Please feel free to suggest more.

May as well add CMU to your list of reaches if you are wanting to study CS.

2 Likes

There’s a technology school in Massachusetts that’s supposed to have a pretty good CS program.

Another on in California, in the Palo Alto area.

I’d put all three suggestions here above most of those you listed. Is “HYPSM” on your list just due to overall reputation?

I’ve considered CMU but I don’t believe they offer Financial Aid so that alone will likely take it off the list for me.

Assuming you’re referring to MIT and Stanford, doesn’t HYPSM already include those schools??
To answer your question, yes, a good reason why HYPSM is on my list is due to reputation as well as the opportunities provided there.
Otherwise, I am happy to stay in my home country and attend a good university (where I could potentially even get a scholarship).

You are correct that CMU doesn’t offer aid to international applicants. My apologies, I missed that piece of your post.

You will find it difficult to study in the US if you need aid - not impossible but difficult.

You need to add some lesser schools. If you only apply to those mentioned, you could possibly get shut out.

A school like Washington & Lee has the Johnson scholarship and international is eligible - so it might be worth looking into. It’s not easy - but it gives you a shot at full coverage based on merit.

Heard the story, so I’m just curious. Are you one of the Chinese student who trained with your national math Olympiad team, could not make the team, so came here to try to qualify for the US team? And your school is located at Princeton, NJ?

Do you have any sure things? These are all reaches…and especially for international students. Some are also need aware meaning your level of need will be considered when your application for admission is reviewed.

What does the rest of your application list look like???

Not me. My school isn’t in the US nor China.

I will apply to local universities in my country, where I am almost guaranteed a spot (as they only look at grades and if you meet the cutoff, you’re almost certainly accepted.

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