Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.): Nothing Special here
Intended Major(s) : Computer Science
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0
Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): n/a
Class Rank: 1
ACT/SAT Scores: 1500 (780 Math, 720 Eng)
Coursework
AP Calculus BC 5, AP CS A : 4, AP Physics: 4, AP Chem - 4
Awards
Consecutive National Ranks in International Earth Science Olympiads for 2 years
(AIR 11 and AIR 8)
Extracurriculars
Internship at Reliance, A food sharing application using Ionic, 3-4 Environmental Campaign Medals (I feel Admissions Officers may consider vague)
Essays/LORs/Other
My brother is writing a very personal LOR for me, for schools that accept one from family
My teacher wrote a âmost-disciplined-child-iâve-taught-LORâ
My principal wrote a cheesy, heartwarming âWe-are-passing-to-you-our-gemâ essay
Cost Constraints / Budget
My parents could pay atmost $10k per year
Schools
Safety - Drexel (Global Scholars), Bringham Young Univ (Russel M. Nelson Schol.) , Brandeis University (Wien scholarship)
Match - Colgate University, Purdue WL (EA), Quinnipiac University, Reed College (EA), Babson College, Georgia Tech, Lehigh, University of Cincinnati (EA), Trinity College (EA), UIUC
Reach - Brown University (ED), Cornell University (Tata Schol), Washington University of St. Louis (ED2), Amherst College, Duke, Dartmouth
Do you think it is aiming too high to apply ED at Brown? If anyone has any prior experiences or recommendations, please let me know. Ideally, would like to keep the total colleges to 10 - 3 Reach, 4 Match, and 3 Safety.
I wish you the best but as an Indian student needing significant aid I donât think any US college can be regarded as a safety (or even a match). Be sure to have some backups in your home country.
Brown ED sounds like a logical choice. Glad to see that you have some realistic options listed. All of them will be tough, but hopefully you can find at least one college willing to give you enough aid.
LOR from your brother sounds risky to me. I didnât know there were colleges that allowed this.
I think many of the schools on your list are at least one more classification level more difficult that your estimates. For example, the Wien scholarship at Brandeis has had 71 Indian students in 60 years, meaning you would have to be one of the top 2 applicants from your country to get it. The Weissman scholarship at Babson is given to fewer than 5 students every year, with currently 19 students enrolled across all years. Fewer than 10% of students at Colgate are International and with no application fee for foreign students, the acceptance rate is much more brutal than the 17% overall rate of last year.
You can call any school a âsafetyâ or âmatchâ that you want but the reality is as a student from India who needs financial aid should classify just about every school on your list as a reach. Competition for the limited spots is just too fierce.
As @thumper1 mentioned, not every school on your list meets 100% of financial need for international students. ED is a binding agreement that you will attend if they accept you. Telling a school thatâs your plan is a bad idea if you have no way to pay for it. The school most likely to accept you and the school that will be the most affordable for you may not be the same. In addition to what a school expects you to pay, you also have to budget for travel to the US and mandatory US health insurance, which can exceed $3K US and is not covered by financial aid.
Iâm not going to guess where you have the best chance. My point was simply that assuming you would get a competitive scholarship, and that they made a school a âsafetyâ or âmatchâ was overly optimistic.
Since you need significant financial aid, apply for the most competitive major, and are from an overrepresented country, your odds are very very low to quasi nil regardless of qualifictions (which re very high). None are safeties or matches.
Your strength seems related to Earth Science, Sustainability⊠Why arenât you applying for the Earth Science or Environmental Science major? Itâd increase your odds on that one variable you can control.
Have you carefully looked into the very religious nature of BYU - because your ability to âfitâ at a LDS university would matter a lot to them when deciding on scholarships. The fact a lot of your other colleges (Colgate, Lehigh, Duke, Dartmouth) are known for hard partying makes me wonder how much you know about the BYU culture, LDS faith, and its requirements.
Apply to UAlabama and UA HUntsville (Tech campus). U Utah (Eccles), Miami Ohio.
Purdue, Georgia Tech, UIUC do not have any financial aid for internationals and basically no merit.
Quinnipiac and Babson unlikely to offer sufficient aid.
Brown is need-aware so not sure itâs the best pick for ED. Why do you like it best? Lehigh, Colgate, Duke and Dartmouth would indicate a very different fit from Brown or Reed and one totally opposite to BYU.
If you want to limit yourself to 10, Iâd sayâŠ
UAlabama, UAH, Miami OH, UCincinnati, Brandeis, Lehigh, Trinity, Cornell, Brown, WashU
You are not a match for Georgia Tech as an international student. As for Purdue, you may want to look at the interactive Data Digest on the Purdue website and use it to gauge your chances. Additionally, you might want to look at Section C of the Common Data Sets for the schools you are interested in attending; there is information there on admission criteria and how it is weighted, the number of persons who applied/were accepted/actually attended for a given academic year, and other objective information on students who matriculated.
If you are going to need significant financial aid, you might look at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, as well as Temple University, which are schools that give merit scholarship money to international students:
SIU-Carbondale offers a tuition rate equal to universities in certain foreign countries, based on a Memorandum of Understanding, here: Scholarships | Center for International Education | SIU (âQualified students may also be able to receive our alternative tuition rate through some of our partner universities. We have agreements with other colleges all around the world to give scholarships equaling the resident-rate of tuition to their students.â) and here: Memoranda of Understanding | Center for International Education | SIU
(For the latter option, I donât know whether tuition rates based on the MOU with the listed schools from India would get you where you need to be financially; but it might be worth a look.)
Despite your obvious accomplishments and intelligence, your list seems a little wonky to me, sorry to say.
Your assessment of Georgia Tech is way off. Itâs surely a reach for you (or anyone, especially not an in-stater). Your stats are great but the school is just too competitive to be classified as a non-reach.
Brandeis is not a safety. How that ended up on the safety list and Quinnipiac on the match list is a mystery to me. There are a few others that seem off too.
Hey, yeah that makes sense. Iâd like to clarify that most of the details I get is from researching stuff here and there. I have not done this before, and have little idea about colleges myself, hence the wrong estimations. Iâll look into the universities you advised, thank you.
Look at rankings from USNWR, with groupings: Top 10, Top 30, Top 50, Top 125 for National Universities and National LACs â all are solid universities (remember that there are 3,700 universities in the US so top 375 is pretty good).
Universities that give merit aid should also be investigated (such as the ones named above).
Hereâs a list of interest:
But arenât all colleges need aware for international applicants? I am still thinking about applying for Environmental Engineering at Cornell CALS for ED instead of Brown. Your list sounds somewhat similar to what I was thinking, thanks. Didnât know prior to getting into this being an international student would be so much more difficult
Practically zero chance for your reaches and âmatchesâ since you need significant aid as an Indian intâl applicant. Low tests scores (SAT + AP) + âweakâ awards/extracurriculars will put you at a disadvantage because many Indian students applying to these schools will have 1600s + numerous medals in International Olympiads (IOI/IMO/etcâŠ)
No, thatâs not true. There are some colleges (but very few; notably Harvard, Yale, MIT, Amherst, Princeton) that are need-blind for intâl students. However, AOâs can tell if you require aid based on your zip/area code + type of school/etcâŠ
Oh, I do have a bunch of SOF medals. I donât feel like they matter more than top 10 AIRs in IESO. Regarding the SATs (Superscore 1540, not really that competitive) and AP (the ones not with 5), I was thinking of not sending them in colleges that say they arenât check SATs/ACTs (if I end up applying Env E. at Cornell CALS, for example.)
The universities in the US are targeted to domestic students. International students are guests of the schools and the country. Your issue is not so much being âInternationalâ but needing full funding. Coupled with being over-represented from your country, and targeting a major that is competitive and impacted at a lot of universities, your chances are diminished. Also, being admitted to a university in the US means you get a âstudent visaâ to attend school. It doesnât mean you get to stay after you graduate. You are expected to return to your country after your education.
If you could pay full fees, you would have more options, but that doesnât necessarily translate to the top schools. Those schools are competitive for everyone.
