Chance/ Match Me: Rising HS Senior - International (Canada) 3.91/1540, CS/ME major for MIT, Stanford, Georgia Tech, UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon

Demographics:

  • Black Male
  • International Student: Canada
  • 1st Year Applicant
  • Public Highschool (1900+ Students)

Major(s): Mechanical Engineering OR Computer Science

Scores/ Classes:

  • SAT: 1540
  • UW GPA: 4.91/5.0
  • W GPA: 5.4/5.0
  • Rank: NA (Top 5%)
  • AP Offered VS Taken: 5 Out of 7
  • AP Scores: NA Yet

ECs: (In no Particular Order)

  • Taekwondo (12 Yrs)
    • 200+ Hours Volunteer French Immersion
      Coach (4 Yrs)
    • Black Belt Club - Senior Member (3 Yrs)
    • Regional Champion
  • Global Awareness Club - Co-President (3
    Yrs)
    • Raised Over $4K with 600+ Participants
    • Led 20+ Members
  • Math Club - Vice-President (2 Yrs)
    • Tutored 10+ Middle Schoolers
    • 3rd in Canada Purple Contest
  • Robotics Club - Vice-President (3 Yrs)
    • 2x Finalist AstroPi Competition (Top
      200/5000 Teams)
    • Regional VEX Spin-Up Finalist
  • Debate Team - Captain (3 Yrs)
    • Provincial Competitor/ Regional Champion
  • Fairfield Inn & Suites - Senior Breakfast
    Attendant (3 Yrs)
    • Trained in 4+ departments (ALL)
    • Certificate of Recognition

Essays/LORs/Other: Solid (Put in lots of time)

Schools I need chancing for:

  • MIT (EA)
  • Stanford (RD)
  • Princeton (EA)
  • Georgia Tech (EA)
  • UC Berkeley (RD)
  • Cornell (EA)
  • Carnegie Mellon (EA)

NOTE: Pls be brutally honest and ass precise as possible, it’ll really help me out. Also, if you have any other school recommendations I should apply to (especially target or safeties) pls recommend them. Lastly, any sort of advice to increase my chances would be much appreciated (I’m a rising senior so I still have a bit of time to add EC’s, etc.).

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You are a competitive candidate. Congratulations on your accomplishments!

Two questions:

  1. What is your budget? i.e. how much can your family comfortably afford to pay each year?
  2. Do you have a school in Canada you’d be happy attending if (worst case) you didn’t get admitted to any of these schools? While you are a strong candidate, acceptance rates are extremely low for the schools you’ve listed so they are reaches for pretty much everyone.
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Hey, thanks for the extremely prompt reply.

  1. I’ve personally saved up 20,000 and my parents are also giving me about 10,000. I’m planning on doing the rest through scholarships or financial aid since these schools are typically generous. Also, Internships throughout my studies should help cover quite a bit.

  2. In terms of Canadian schools, I’d definitely settle for University of Toronto or University of Waterloo if I’m rejected from all these spaces as they also have cheap and excellent programs.

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Is this per year or total?

You will need to eliminate UC Berkeley and Georgia Tech as you’ll get neither financial aid nor merit aid to cover the gap in cost of attendance.

From your list, only MIT are Princeton need blind in admissions and meet the full demonstrated need of international students. The rest are need aware for international students, and none provide merit scholarships.

Internships will not provide sufficient income to cover the cost of your education.

As an international student, you will need to show you have sufficient funds to cover all 4 years of your education. Else you will not get a student visa.
And you have to show money you already have - cannot rely on future expected income from internships, etc.

Tagging @tsbna44 to see if he has suggestions for schools that will come within budget.

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Sure - off the top of my head, Alabama offers the same merit to international as domestic - so you’d be under $25K a year. B4 you say - I’m talking about MIT- realize that the school has more national merit scholars than any in America and they buy kids in. My kid had 5 offers by xmas and works with kids from Purdue, Michigan and more. For MechE you want to ensure ABET - and frankly, you do have an affordability issue.

Now if MIT or Princeton come through - you’re golden - if and only if they determine that you have need. That your parents will give you $10000 per year doesn’t mean that’s all they can afford.

You will have to provide proof of being able to pay I believe and @DadOfJerseyGirl is spot on - with - internships won’t provide full cover and one is unlikely after first year.

I say - you shoot for your dreams - but find a safety just in case. Or take your Canadian option.

You really need to check the NPCs everywhere.

An Arizona would be $40K-ish after merit.

There are likely others - but you’ll need to have this:

So your plan, short of qualifying for need based aid, won’t work.

I’m sure there are other relatively lower cost schools available but I’d first run the NPCs of the schools that you have interest in to ensure you’re even in the ballpark.

“Immigration regulations require us to verify that you have enough funds to cover the cost of tuition and fees, living expenses, health insurance and (if applicable) dependent expenses before issuing an I-20 or DS-2019.”

Best of luck.

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You definitely need to find schools that meet full need for international students. GT and Berkeley need to come off the list.

And you need to pay close attention to the details for each of your schools and the rules for applying ED/REA/EA/RD. A lot of your list is incorrect with respect to that(Cornell and CMU are ED schools). And you can’t apply to all of those EA as they are private. You can only apply to one ED/REA school and the rest would have to be RD(or ED2 if deferred). Read the rules for each school.

For now, you need to do some homework on schools that will work for your budget and EFC(expected family contribution). Your list may change radically.

Good luck!

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Toronto and Waterloo are excellent universities. I might also think about Queen’s and/or McGill in your situation (depending upon where you want to live for four years), but any of these schools would be excellent and I expect that you might be accepted to all of them. Also, graduate programs in the US do know how strong these excellent Canadian universities are. Would these Canadian schools be affordable for you?

Given how strong these top Canadian universities are, and assuming they are affordable, I do not see the point in attending university in the US unless you both get accepted to a very top school, and get significant financial aid (which would have to be need based at most of them).

This does not actually go all that far in paying for universities in the US. For universities in the US, you probably need to focus on schools that meet full need for international students. You might want to run the NPC for the schools on your list, but as others have said only after removing UC Berkeley and GT from the list. I do not think that Carnegie Mellon offers any financial aid for international students, so you might want to check this and then probably drop it from your list also.

Also, be aware that after graduating from university in the US you will be required to return home to Canada (although in some cases one year of some sort of practical experience might be possible). At least in my experience, which was a long time ago, Canadian employers seem to prefer to hire from the excellent universities in Canada rather than from top schools in the US (even at the MIT, Stanford level). Thus to me it is not clear whether there is much reason for a Canadian to attend university in the US unless need based financial aid makes them less expensive than the top Canadian schools.

Finally, when you interview for a student visa to study in the US if you indicate an interest in staying in the US after graduation, this might be a reason to deny the student visa. Be careful about this.

If you Google “applying sideways MIT admissions” it will take you to a blog that is worth reading. As I understand it, the recommendation is that you do what is right for you, and you do it very, very well. It looks like this is exactly what you have already done. I think that you are doing very well and are likely to continue to do well wherever you end up (as long as you keep the budget in mind when you decide where to attend).

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You are correct:

An undergraduate, International Student is ineligible to receive any federal or state student financial aid. Additionally, Carnegie Mellon does not award any institutional financial aid funds to undergraduate International Students.

We don’t yet know if OP qualifies for any need based aid.

OP, congrats on your achievements.

Please run the Net Price Calculators at the schools on your list…they aren’t set up for international students, but if your family’s finances are straightforward, it may give a ballpark estimate. Make sure the NPC has 2024-25 projected costs, if not, increase the costs they do show by 4%-5% per year. If your parents are divorced, own a business, or own real estate beyond a primary home the NPCs may not be accurate…are any of those the case for you?

I agree with the others that GT and UCB won’t get close to your budget. Run the NPCs at the others to see if you will get need based at those schools, and how much.

MIT’s NPC: Net Price Calculator

It’s great that you have the Canadian schools as options!

ETA: Cornell and CMU do not have EA, you will have to apply RD there.

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Technically, he can apply ED to one of those schools, along with EA to MIT. But given his uncertain financial situation I wouldn’t recommend it.

True, I had assumed OP was applying SCEA to Princeton. Hopefully OP clarifies.

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To summarize what everyone has already said:
Scratch out GT, UCs, and CMU
Apply early to MIT/Princeton (odds are under 5% but you can try because you’re definitely competitive at that level)
Stanford, Cornell why not
UT, Waterloo, McGill in Canada

In the US, run the NPC on
Case Western Reserve
Olin
Northwestern
Columbia Engineering
Union
WPI
Marist (CS only)
UMD (CS only and would only be affordable if you get major scholarships but you could qualify)
Boston University
Georgetown (CS -excellent networking in the DC area)

Just wanted to note that Gtown doesn’t guarantee to meet full need for internationals. When I checked the website to verify that, I noticed Gtown is need blind for internationals, which I think is new?

From the website:

International Students

Georgetown University is Need-Blind for all applicants.

Admitted students who have requested financial aid and are not U.S. citizens or permanent residents will be considered for a very limited number of need-based scholarships. To be considered for one of these scholarships, the student/applicant will need to indicate their intent to apply for financial aid on the Application for Undergraduate Admission and should submit a CSS/Financial Aid Profile online. For further details, please see the Office of Student Financial Services website.

Whether admitted either under our Early Action or Regular Decision review periods, all candidates for financial aid will be notified about their eligibility for aid, their financial aid awards or about missing documents during the first week of April.

Please note that we are now using the CSS/Financial Aid Profile in place of the International Student Financial Aid form.

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Yes you can. Not recommending this to OP, but just answering the question.

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Boston University does not offer need based aid to international students.

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Late to this thread but it appeared at the bottom of another post I was reading and caught my eye, since a young relative of mine went through the process of applying to US Engineering schools from Canada a couple of years ago. Some information from that process that will hopefully be useful to you:

MIT accepts only 3 Canadian students per year. (They used to accept more but now accept roughly 125 international students a year, to keep international admission need blind, and 3 slots go to Canadians. You can find the numbers for any country here: Statistics | ISO . In 2022, there were 13 Canadian undergrads total across 4 years and this was true for the last 3 years. Before that it was 6 per year.) So the odds are not 5%; nor are the odds 2%, which is MIT’s published admit rate for internationals. Instead the odds for Canadians are essentially zero. This is not the place to EA. If you want to apply to MIT, do it RD since there is no advantage in EA for MIT.

Instead EA to Princeton, or ED to Cornell or Columbia. Princeton is a top Ivy with excellent engineering that is need blind to internationals and accepts close to 30 Canadians a year. (Ten times more than MIT!) Applying EA to Princeton increases acceptance rates from 4.4% to 15.5%.

Cornell is another Ivy, arguably slightly less prestigious overall than Princeton but with a larger, better-known Engineering program. Acceptance rates to Cornell Engineering are only 4.4% according to the data on their website and only 9% are internationals, compared to 15% for Princeton, so it is tougher for internationals.

Another great option is Columbia in NYC. They have a great engineering school that is among the top Ivies for placement in top tech companies and engineering companies in the US. (See this link and scroll down for tech and engineering ranks: Reddit - Dive into anything) They are need blind for internationals, and 18% of the admitted class is international, the largest proportion among all the Ivy+ schools. It is tough to get into (11% ED, 3.9% RD) but admit rates are a bit higher for its School of Engineering than for Columbia College, its liberal arts school.

These schools are different and you want to consider where you’d be happy. Columbia is a large, urban school without much hand-holding, so a bit more like a Canadian university, but with spectacular buildings and quadrangle in a fantastic city. Princeton is smaller, has the semi-secluded grassy campus, beautiful architecture, attentive administrators etc. that people associate with Ivies. Cornell is a large university, like Columbia, but is rural and secluded; nonetheless it very driveable from southern Ontario (and is also the best known of these 3 by the average Canadian).

Since you’re Canadian, you should consider applying for the Loran and Schulich scholarships. They fully fund your studies ($120,000 over 4 years for Schulich Engineering, $100,000 for Loran), provide guaranteed lab positions, networking with faculty, summer internships, and a ton of prestige at Canadian universities. You could take one to Waterloo, U of T, McGill, UBC if you were selected and have a great experience.

Finally, Waterloo engineering is not a back-up unless you have a 95+ average, and even then… (see probability of getting an offer as a function of your average here: https://uwaterloo.ca/engineering/undergraduate-students/application-process/admission-averages).

Good luck!

Edited to reflect MomofThree24 comment below

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This won’t work from an application standpoint. Princeton is single choice early action, which won’t allow you to ED to Cornell. Always check with individual schools about their admission policies. And the ED and EA rates for highly rejective schools includes athletes which are typically close to 100% admits so the admissions statistics are skewed.

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Ah, I assumed since they didn’t call it REA that it was like MIT’s. I will correct that above.

Regarding admission stats, yes there is a debate as to whether the difference in admission rates is driven entirely by EA pool of applicants with its higher proportion of legacies and athletes. However, given that early action exists in part to allow universities to increase their yield (Princeton saw their yield drop 10 points when it briefly stopped EA), logically it makes sense to offer a candidate who seems to be a likely admit a place in the early round since it is mutually beneficial: the student is admitted and the university has a very high probability that the student will accept. In the RD round, the attraction of an identically qualified candidate is inherently reduced by some proportion because it is not clear if the attraction is mutual. Therefore a difference in admit rates between EA and RD for identically qualified candidates near the threshold should exist. It would not account for the wide gap between EA and RD, but should contribute some part of it.

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