<p>I'd like to know what my chances of getting into Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Amherst and Dartmouth are. I cannot afford to have any safeties because I'm an international student and need full financial aid. A basic overview of my stats is below:</p>
<ol>
<li>SAT Reasoning- 2320</li>
<li><p>SAT Subject tests:
World History- 730
Biology(Molecular)- 790</p></li>
<li><p>I will be appearing for a five AP exams this may and I'm well prepared to score above 4 in all of them. I have taken many courses on Udacity, Coursera and edX. I will also be appearing for 5 exams from the National Institute of Open Schooling(NIOS), a government-organisation in India for homeschoolers. My GPA is 3.8 and I will work hard to bump it up to 4.0 by the time I finish 12th grade(No mommy evaluated courses. All external examination bodies)</p></li>
<li><p>The most important factor is that I am a homeschooler. I have homeschooled myself in the last two years of high school to focus on research in psychology. Will being an international homeschooler have an adverse impact on my application?</p></li>
<li><p>My extracurriculars include:
*Winner, Intel IRIS(The Indian science fair that selects students who will represent the country at Intel ISEF). My research project was the best in the country in the 'behavioral sciences category. I narrowly missed out on going to ISEF(Out of the 9 National winners from different categories, 6 made the final cut. I didn't. But I still ended up best in my category).
*Founder of a start-up publishing company that bridges the gap between self, traditional and vanity publishing.
*Founder editor of my high school newspaper(This was during the first two years of high school. I am a homeschooler now)
*Won lots of quizzes, debates and other related competitions, not only at the high school level but also at the university level.
*I am ranked 681 in the world in Scrabble(Rated by WESPA, the body that governs competitive scrabble across the world)
*I am a freelance journalist and have published articles in some of the most popular mainstream publications of India including The Bangalore Mirror, The Hindu and others.</p></li>
<li><p>I need 100% financial aid as my total family income is <$5000. I'm a first generation college student</p></li>
<li><p>I hope to major in Psychology/Neurobiology and minor in Molecular Biology.</p></li>
<li><p>What do I do about teacher and counselor recommendations and the international supplement? I can get teachers who taught me before I opted for homeschooling to write recommendations for me. I can also get a LOR from the professor who is mentoring my research in psychology. Since I attended regular high school for 2 years, I will also be sending transcripts from my time there. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>I think you’d be a unique applicant and will be reviewed appropriately by the adcoms. I know of a few other homeschoolers in my country, China who applied to HYMPS but didn’t get into any of them because they didn’t have ECs even nearly as strong as yours. Your reasons for choosing homeschooling are also quite convincing. I’d say you’d get into at least one of the schools you have mentioned. Best of luck</p>
<p>Hi!
After reading all of the information you posted, I have to agree with above. You’re a thoroughly unique case:homeschooled in India,income bracket of less than $5000usd, intel champion,business starter, good sat, a fair amount of APs. Your story should make a fairly interesting personal statement as well! :]
The only thing that may hurt you is the gpa a bit. I’m not quite sure how you can pull a 3.8
up to a 4.0? Does that mean retaking the class(es) you didn’t do as well in? Maybe this point is just ignorance on my part.
Either way, best of luck to you!
-Daniel</p>
<p>@Danielyangg- First of all, thanks for replying. In India, GPAs are calculated on a scale of 100. My GPA is somewhere in the range of 93-95. I don’t know the exact equivalent of this on a scale of 4.0.</p>
<p>To be honest, I wish it were higher, but you are such an unique case, and top-end universities are always telling us they want “characters” and “unique human beings.”</p>
<p>Depending on the school! You can google it for your specific universities. For ucs it is a-4.0 b-3.0 c-2.0. There is no different scoring for a- or b+, etc. (:<br>
To calculate you take the numerical value assigned to each grade, add them all up, and divide by the total number of classes you have. (:</p>
<p>Wow. I think any school you mentioned will be very impressed with your accomplishments despite your financial struggles. I would recommend applying to more reaches and you should get into one of them. Good luck!</p>
<p>You have extremely strong stats and a unique situation especially in terms of financial struggles and homeschooling. You should get your recommendations to mention these struggles to help you out in the admission review process… I would like to say that you should get into, at the worst, one of them. Good luck.</p>
<p>All I can say is, “Wow!” I have never seen such an intriguing resume, especially for a homeschooler! You’re unique, obviously very intelligent, and I think you’ll probably get into the majority of the schools to which you apply, regardless of where that happens to be. Columbia gives great aid to international students (really anyone in need). If I were you, I would apply to every single top school in your desired major (provided they are in an area you wouldn’t mind living/studying). If you like NYC, definitely apply to Columbia. Apply everywhere and request fee waivers! Application fees add up very quickly, as I’m sure you know. You shouldn’t have a problem getting in almost anywhere! Best of luck!!</p>
<p>Thank you IPasha 3 for such encouraging words. While Columbia is definitely one of the schools I’d love to go to, I didn’t know they offer financial aid to international applicants. Thanks to you, I now know. Best of luck with your transfer app.</p>
<p>I spent all day searching the net for international financial aid. I found a number of universities other than HYMPAD that offer financial aid for intl. students. These universities aren’t however, need-blind. I’d appreciate insight into the whole process and how competititve non need-blind FA is for intl. students. Thanks</p>