Chance me, above average (?) international Female Asian

Student Lounge International Students
1

Demographics: Female, Vietnamese, top specialized school in Vietnam, English Honors, no hook, need financial aid (family contribution ~25k)

Intended Major: Chemistry (General)

GPA (UW, school doesn’t do W):

9th grade: 9.2/10

10th grade: 9.1/10

11th grade: 9.4/10

SAT I: 1560 composite (Math 800, Verbal 760)

SAT II: Math II 800, Chem 800, I’m taking Bio this August and I expect over 700

No APs

Awards: I’m in English Honors so I only have English awards, 2 Municipal 2nd prizes in 9th, one 2nd prize in 11th grade

ECs:

Leadership:

Head of organization - Volunteering project (soon): we’re going to an orphanage to donate hand sanitizers (for Covid-19) and make Moon Cakes with the children

Tutor: Private tutor for Primary and Secondary students English for over 1 year & this summer for fundraising projects

Research Experience: Research assistant for a chemistry teacher at school (1 project is about an environmentally friendly material, I’m expecting to do another one on food preservation)

Internship: at a natural cosmetics lab, I mostly helped with the packaging and observed the chemists.

School activity: I was in the Finance and Logistic departments of the school’s talent show’s organization, brought in $20,000 of sponsorship for 4 events

Volunteer:

  • Going to a severely underdeveloped area in Vietnam for a week to teach the girls basic computer skills (Word, Excel, etc.) and raised funds to buy computers for them
  • Small project: Asked for the remaining soap bars from hotels and rebatched them to donate to an orphanage (Covid-19)
  • Fundraising projects: raise funds to remove unexploded mines from the Vietnam War
  • I also have a small online bakery where I sell cookies and sweet gruels to raise funds for the projects that I do

Essays/LORs: (5/10 being average and 10/10 is exceptional)

Essay: about how I was treated unfairly in my own home because my father wanted a son, not a daughter and how that affected my personal growth (acted boyish and was uncomfortable with behaving like a normal girl)

6-6.5/10, I’m not finished with this yet

LORs: Chem teacher and History teacher: they highlighted my proactiveness, creative thinking skills and inquisitiveness

6-6.5/10

Schools:

ED1: Vanderbilt (dream school) or URochester/ my counselor recommends LACs because they’re generally more generous towards internationals (such as Colgate or Colby)

RD: Colgate, Vassar, Bowdoin, Williams, Dartmouth and Cornell, Oberlin, I want to apply to some more NUs though

Safeties: Lawrence Uni, Miami Uni, Depauw

2

Its going to be a tough year for internationals. Mainly because of financial aid. Since your aid need is quite high, make sure you apply to lots of match and safety schools. Good luck.

3

Thanks a lot :slight_smile: btw, of all the schools i mentioned, which one do you think would be a match?

4

There’s a large element of luck involved when a college admits 10 or 20 or maybe 40 international financial aid recipients out of more than 1,000 international financial aid applicants. It may be misleading to think of any international need-based financial aid application as a “match.”.

There’s more uncertainty now than ever. Many colleges are struggling to financially survive amid declining tuition revenues. Who knows how that’ll affect their admission policies and preferences for next year.

Normally I would suggest universities with guaranteed merit scholarships based on your SAT score as a match/safety. But even that may not be an option this year. Since the SAT has been unavailable since the spring, many universities are SAT-optional for admission this year and may decide not to offer test-based merit scholarships.

I wish you all the best and I hope that your US college plans work out in the way that you envision, but I urge you to make a solid back-up plan in another country as well.

5

Match schools would be those where your scores/grades are at the top (75th percentile +). Schools farther down in the rankings, and looking to diversify their classes would like someone like you.

I would focus on small liberal arts colleges outside of major metro areas. Especially those outside of the top 30+. You might get a few colleges willing to give you money.

Good luck

6

If you would like, you can search “15 Best Value Small Colleges for a Chemistry Degree,” in which generally top-level schools such as Colby, Union (in NY, not KY), Swarthmore, Hamilton, Bowdoin, Caltech, Barnard and Wooster are mentioned. However, if you’re not inclined toward colleges of this type, I don’t recommend them. They bear little resemblance to Vanderbilt.

7

For international applicants who need aid, there are no matches, just reaches.

Your only safeties in the US are the places that offer automatic admission and guarantee automatic aid for students with your stats. Look for threads on automatic aid, and then check those institutions to see if they extend that to international applicants.