Chance/Match Me: Southeast Asian female for T20/LACs -Data science/environmental science [international; A-level 4 A*, O-level 8 A* 3 A; <$50k/year]

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics

  • international student from Southeast Asia
  • public school in grades 9-11 and international school for grade 12 (received full scholarship for tuition)
  • LGBTQ

Intended Major(s) computational math/data science, environmental science (Which should I put as 1st and 2nd? quite undecided)

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA:** does not calculate GPA (but I guess it will be around 3.85-3.98)
  • Class Rank: new school does not rank. (previous school: about 5~20 over 285)
  • ACT/SAT Scores: will take SAT this august

Coursework
4 A-level subjects(physics, economics, math, further math).
Predicted grades: 4A* (A* is the highest attainable grade)
(Apparently one A-level is equivalent to 2.5AP , but I am not sure about that.)
Grade 11: O-level grades: 8A*, 3A (mixture of STEM and humanities)
grade 10: no grades due to covid
grade 9: straight As (highest attainable grade and number of subjects)
Proficient in 4 languages

Awards

  1. UKMT Senior maths challenge - Gold award
  2. British Physics Olympiad senior physics challenge- Gold
  3. An int’l science competition - overall top3 (individual round=gold/top1)
  4. some int’l level math competitions/olympiads (but not IMO level) - Gold
  5. Climate science olympiad
  6. an int’l writing competition related to conservation(env science)- Top 10 globally

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

  1. school prefect (Prefect board is something like Student council) for 3 years

  2. environmental club - pioneer.

  • expanded from 2 to 10 committee members. I initiated and devised many programs, competition, gave speeches, liaised with many school staff/heads.
  1. STEM organization- Communications lead.
  • manage team members, propose and devise collabs with other orgs, reach out to people(judges, seminar speakers, etc), recruit members, post stuff on social media like advertising team. Have more than 2000 followers on Instagram; international outreach(collabs and recruiting); very active.

  1. climate change AI summer school

  2. AI course during summer: train, modify NLP models .

  3. national training camp for IOL.

  • national top 4, joined Asia Pacific Linguistics Olympiad

  1. national training camp for International Economics Olympiad

  2. math club: team leader in a math competition (global finalist), technical assistant in state-level matches(facilitated the program), volunteered to tutor peers (3 years)

  3. fully-funded math olympiad training (received Gold award in an int’l competition to qualify)

  4. editorial leader : yearbook production, marketing committee for school (designed yearbook, poster, posts for school’s social media)

  5. music: plays the violin and piano(diploma standard).
    -performed in a decent number of piano recitals, won an int’l music related award

  6. drama club: film director

  7. family responsibilities:

  • take care of ailing grandparent with dementia( have to monitor her in case she forgets to eat/leave the house and get lost since she can’t remember the way home)
  • do house chores (wash dishes/ cook/ laundry)
  • tutor siblings’ homework

  1. created an Instagram page for English vocabulary: design and post interesting lexicons. (in video / image form) ( maybe can relate to linguistics a little? since I included the history of the words)

  2. probably joining this year:

  • Youth Climate Forum(national delegation) , and Regional Conference of Youth for Asia and the Pacific (including Pre COP28 conference)

  • creating videos related to environmental science/climate change/sustainability (will submit to competitions and see if i get any awards)

  1. Hobbies: horse riding, photography, philosophy enthusiast (these will probably appear somewhere in my essays)

  2. volunteered to refurbish elderly home, distribute food

Essays/LORs/Other
(Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.)
Essays:

  • CA essay: not sure yet.
  • school -specific essays: 8/10 maybe

LOR:
English teacher: 9/10 . will sound really enthusiastic
math teacher: does not really know me, but will talk about my math ability. maybe 8/10 but not in a super enthusiastic manner I guess (British teachers tend to be more serious/proper/professional, so i guess that’s a disadvantage there)
physics teacher: mid , maybe 6/10? (he previously wrote me one)

Cost Constraints / Budget
(High school students: please get a budget from your parents and use the Net Price Calculators on the web sites of colleges of interest.)
Hopefully colleges that offer aid/scholarships to international students.
Budget around 220k for 4 years in TOTAL.
(one of my sibling is going to college too )

Schools
MATCH ME AND CHANCE ME PLEASE!!

Do I have a chance for Wellesley/williams/ barnard/ amherst/pomona? (I know how unpromising it is, but still… )

Can you suggest colleges that would be ok for me? (sort by: safety, likely, match, reach)

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I cannot chance you but I will say you don’t need a teacher to talk about your school abilities. Your grades and test should do that. They can touch upon it but you want to find a teacher than can talk about you as a person - your characteristics, your passion, your human strengths, your ability to contribute.

The reason I cannot chance you is that I don’t understand the grades or significance if your portfolio, which seem impressive.

I do know that you cannot get in if you don’t apply.

Your boarding school may have placed into US universities and can guide you better.

If you were a US public school student with a 3.85, I’d say if you have Barnard, add Columbia.

If you have Barnard and Wellesley, look at Smith, Mount Holyoke, Bryn Mawr to see if the curriculums meet your needs. They are all women but less selective than Wellesley. Bryn Mawr is in a grouping with Swarthmore and Haverford - fine school.

One last thing - and it’s actually the first thing.

Since you went public 3 years and then on full scholarship, can you afford these ? If you are a full pay student (run the net price calculator), the answer is no - not at $55k a year which is your budget. If you google the school name + net price calculator, you can fill the form get an estimate.

In general you need safeties. As an international, moreso. So you need to add schools - and not just schools but schools that cost $45k or less - so schools with merit aid. Why $45k ? To account for annual school inflation. This can be publics (Arizona, Alabama, many many more) or lesser ranked but excellent LACs like Kalamazoo, Depauw, Allegheny, and many more. etc.

Some schools give aid (merit or need) to international. Some don’t.

Hope that helps.

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The following colleges are BOTH need blind for admissions and meet full need for all international accepted students:

Amherst College Harvard University
Bowdoin College Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Brown University

*(beginning in 2025)|Princeton University|
|Dartmouth College|Yale University|

The colleges on your list are need aware for international students. That you don’t need a full free ride might be helpful, but your financial need might be a consideration when these schools review your application for admission.

At the $250,000 for four years, I would suggest you look at the SUNY colleges.

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As suggestions, consider these colleges:

Hamilton. Unlike some of the schools on your tentative list, offers a major in data science. Excellent for environmental studies.

Wesleyan University. Offers a cross-disciplinary quantitative analysis center. Notably LGBTQ friendly based on survey data in the Princeton Review.

Macalester. Offers a data science major. Excellent for environmental studies. Appears on the same PR list as Wesleyan.

Denison. Offers a data analytics major. 17% international students.

Davidson. Offers a data science minor. I’m not sure about its social climate.

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Purdue would be in budget and is strong for your areas of interest.

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Essentially a “straight-A student”, with many grades A+.
And four A-Level subjects is more rigorous than many.

In 1st decile in (previous) public school.

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Got it. Thanks!!!

Well ultimately - and the student seemed impressive as noted.

OP has $220K - so $55K a year sans inflation and is looking at schools in the $90K range and that offer no merit. OP noted themselves less than $50K a year.

So step one is figuring out - can she afford these - by filling out the NPCs.

The list might have to change drastically…or not.

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Hi, thanks for replying!
I checked the net price calculator for Grinnell college and if I were to receive aid from them as stated, I will be paying 27k a year.

Also, I don’t think I’ll be studying in the US if I don’t get to a top school as I will most likely have other options (Canada, Singapore, Australia, China)

Regarding the LOR, my physics and math teachers are from my grade 12 school, so I don’t know them that long as compared to my other classmates.
(I did the A level course in one year instead of the regular two years, so I don’t appear as friendly/close to the teachers as those who did the course in two years)
I joined “year 13” after year 11.

The reason why I did not ask LORs from my grade 10/11 teachers is because my public school kinda changes our schedule and teachers a lot(few months or a year), and also because of COVID, I didn’t interact much in the 100-people online classes. I’ve actually asked them for LOR once and they were really busy and suggested that I write on my own on behalf of them.(Public schools in my country don’t receive much funding , and educational resources are scarce.)

As for my GPA conversion, I would say that all my national/international exams, I achieved the maximum except for the O level one, where I got 8A+, 3A Instead of 11A+ (maximum number of subjects that can be taken in my school, the minimum is 8)

Thank you very much!

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Hi thank you so much!
frankly speaking , I’m the math + CS +philosophy + artsy type of person.

Actually I’m thinking of doing a math+CS major, but because I feel that my awards and activities don’t really stand out among other math, CS applicants, I chose the “easier” way(data science and environmental science) because my activities seem to fit these majors! So that can be clear storyline.

My activities are kinda messy because I didn’t plan out a storyline and just did whatever that interests me.
I don’t think I like environmental science as much as CS/math, so I will most probably switch majors once admitted into college.

I joined these environmental activities solely because I felt bad for the environment and disappointed that people don’t care about climate change.

LGBTQ wise: sometimes I just feel like I’m “questioning” so it doesn’t really play an important role in my life, thus definitely won’t be a college decision factor.

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The schools that you have listed in the USA are small ones. I have some familiarity with ones in the northeast because we looked at a few (eg, we toured Bowdoin twice a few years back – many years ago I took a couple of classes at Wellesley College when I was a student at MIT). However, if you are interested in small schools in Canada, we have toured several of them and one daughter got her bachelor’s degree at a small “primarily undergraduate” university in eastern Canada. She liked it a lot, did very well, and got a good job back here in the northeast of the US quite quickly after graduating. We have toured several of the small universities in eastern Canada.

Some very good small primarily undergraduate universities in eastern Canada include Acadia, Bishop’s, Mount Alison, and St Francis Xavier. We did not look as closely at U.PEI or UNB. Mount Alison is excellent but I do not think that it has computer science as a major. Acadia does and is also very good overall. It also has an excellent environmental science major (which is separate from its environmental studies major). It is also a reasonable drive from the Halifax airport which would make it easier to get to. Otherwise I think that all of these are worth considering and at least the last time that I looked all would fit your budget.

We did not look at universities in Canada further west than Montreal (Canada is very, very large). We did tour the two English language universities in Montreal, and I have some familiarity with a small number of the larger universities in the west (eg, multiple family members attended UBC). Let us know if you want any more information.

Regarding the top LACs in the US, I agree with others that you need to run the NPCs and see whether they fit your budget. Our NPC results were discouraging for the highest ranked ones in the northeast but your results might be different.

Regarding applications to schools in the US, other than cost, my other concern is that your list of activities is so long. Did you really participate in a major way in all of them? I would be inclined to emphasize whatever activities you put the most time and effort into.

I would not be concerned about the fact that your activities do not match your intended major. Activities do not need to match your major. My recommendation is that you apply for the major that you are most likely to want to stick with. At most schools either your intended major will not impact your chances of admissions, or there are some restrictions regarding changing majors.

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Hi thank you so much!
I actually don’t mind the size of school that much. The reason I learnt about and wanted to apply to LAC is because of the generous amount of aid. Apparently Wellesley gives large amount of aid even to internationals, just that they are need aware and I’m afraid I may not be good enough. I like Wellesley for its spirit, atmosphere, grad school prospect(not sure if I’m doing grad school) and also the fact that I can cross register at MIT!

There are other top schools that I’m interested as well like Columbia(my top 1 dream school), brown, Cornell.

Sadly I don’t think I’m good enough for HYPSM, though I would want to apply to these need-blind schools (for internationals). (Not STEM enough for MIT and not humanities-based enough for Yale)

  • I will be applying for financial aid for all of colleges I apply to(except stanford if I actually apply).

For Canada, I’m looking at UofT. Is the grade deflation really that bad? I actually thought of transferring from UTSC to Barnard/Columbia/ brown/UPenn/northwestern/ cornell /amherst (normally prioritizes students from community colleges) but I’m worried that my GPA will be too low as compared to the other applicants (normally 4.0 GPA). If I apply as a transfer, it will be much more difficult if I apply for aid, some will not even give aid to international transfer students.

UTSC is about USD25k for me as I got a scholarship, but I’m afraid I can’t switch from math coop to cs coop(I applied for math co op program).

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The OP is an international student so NPCs are not going to be accurate.

In addition, the net price calculators likely won’t be updated until all the FAFSA changes have been finalized for the upcoming academic year. @Mwfan1921

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If you don’t apply for need based aid at Stanford, how will you afford the cost to attend?

If you need aid to attend…apply for aid. Otherwise an acceptance might as well be a rejection.

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What does UTSC stand for!

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University of Toronto, Scarborough (one of the three campuses of UofT) . This campus mainly focuses on “work while study” programs (co op). Hence there are little to no research, so it’ll be quite hard to stand out among transfer applicants who will most likely have research( or assistants) and great LOR.

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Also there are organizations in my country that sponsors students to caltech, HYPSM, Cornell, UPenn, Columbia, JHU, Uchicago, UCLA , and UC berkeley.

Just that we are bonded and have to work for selected companies after we graduate from these top universities.

So I’m trying to see if I should apply for aid or without aid for the above listed schools sponsored. (It’s not a guarantee that I will get the sponsorship but the chance is really really high since we rarely get into those top schools. )

Also I feel like I don’t have a sports that stand out. Will this put me at a disadvantage? Especially when there is this stereotype that Asians can’t play sports. ( I have scoliosis actually , and horse riding helped )

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If you don’t apply for aid and get in and don’t get sponsorship - well that’s a big risk.

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Actually, I think your UNWEIGHTED grades and academics are very competitive for colleges like Amherst, Barnard, etc. I would say you have as “good” a chance as anyone - which of course means, a >90% of not being admitted, just like other exceptional students like yourself.

However, while you come across as a strong candidate for Barnard, needing financial aid could make admission more difficult.

Indeed, at some colleges, acceptance rates for first-year’s are lower than transfer applications.

However, speaking for Barnard, regardless of international vs. domestic, transfer admissions are need aware (or, no need is offered at all - depending fall vs. spring semester).

So, yes, your best bet will be schools that cover full need, and are not need aware, for international students.

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NOT in the least!

Being an exceptional, nationally ranked athlete, could be an advantage - but otherwise, doing no or little sports is completely irrelevant.

Also, you seem to have good achievements with your musical talent?

It’s okay to have broad interests, and it’s actually refreshing when someone is not strategic about it!

But it is important to highlight activities/interests that you pursued for several years to show “commitment” to a few themes. And among those them is having cared for a family member, as you had done!

Anything where you showed genuine personal initiative/leadership is helpful - such as Student Council for several years.

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UCLA and UCB offer no need based financial aid to International students and little highly competitive merit aid. Assume you will be full pay at $72K/year if admitted.

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