-Indian
-Financial Aid required
-10.0/10.0 GPA
-36 ACT
-800 SAT 2 Physics
-790 SAT 2 Chemistry
-800 SAT 2 Maths
-Founded Economics and Finance Club at school
-Founded Engineering Club at School
-Founded Physics Club at School
-Founded Social Justice Club at School
-Teach underprivileged kids
-Table Tennis 3rd in State
-Football team 1st in state
-Play the Guitar
-Play Drums
-3 of my immediate relations are Harvard Alumni, but only 1 of Harvard College.
Should I apply to Harvard or MIT? Are there other schools I should target?
I think you have a pretty good shot of getting in
I will also have great letters of recommendation, and my essays should be at least passable by HYPSM standards and pretty good otherwise.
I am under the impression from your 10/10 GPA and your user name that you are an international student.
Your stats are fairly typical of international applicants for Harvard and MIT – that is to say truly excellent. As such I doubt that your chances are much different than the average international applicant. Either Harvard or MIT would be a long shot but your stats and ECs are typical of students who attend both schools and as such you certainly do have a chance for any of “HYPSM”.
@DadTwoGirls , could you suggest some top universities where these stats could be considered above average? My only source of US universities is rankings and people tell me they aren’t accurate.
@GuyWantsToGoToUSForStudies You have great stats but so do thousands of others applying to the top US schools. Your chances are good but keep in mind that Harvard and MIT reject hundreds of kids with perfect stats every year. Unless you have a major national or international award in addition to top grades and scores, admission to either of these two is practically a lottery for the very qualified students who are not prodigies or insanely impressive. Especially coming from India the competition will be very intense.
I would first suggest choosing 2-3 of the HYPSM schools, then choosing 2-3 other ivies or ivy-equivalents (such as Columbia,Penn, Brown, UChicago, Dartmouth, Duke, Cornell etc). These will be a little bit more attainable than HYPSM but still reaches. Then you have to identify some targets and safeties. I think WUSTL, Emory ,Gtown, Tufts, UMich, UCLA, UVa, NYU could be matches for you.
@GuyWantsToGoToUSForStudies Keep in mind that Harvard typically enrolls http://www.hio.harvard.edu/statistics about 5 freshman from India each year… There isn’t any published data from H indicating how many apply, but most estimates I’ve seen start at 500 and go up from there. Numbers for the rest of HYPMS are probably roughly comparable. So you’re looking at somewhere around 30 possible spots. How many go to the children of Billionaires, Celebrities, Senior Gov’t officials? How many spots go to those who have placed highly at international STEM Olympiads or Science Fairs? No one knows. Personally, I’d guess that leaves less than 20 spots total at HYPMS for ordinary, great students like you. Not great odds, but better than the odds of not applying at all.
“could you suggest some top universities where these stats could be considered above average?”
It depends upon your financial situation. If you can afford to be full pay, then some very good state schools such as Rutgers or UMass Amherst would be pretty much safeties, and you would have a decent chance at top state schools such as U.Michigan or UVA. However, financial aid might be unlikely at these schools – they are funded by taxpayers of a single state mostly to support strong students from that state (whose parents have been paying state taxes for years). If you could afford a bit over US $25,000 per year for four years plus the cost of travel plus the cost of a strong winter coat and boots then some very good Canadian schools such as Dalhousie might also be almost a safety. The very top ranked Canadian schools such as McGill and Toronto would be more expensive than Dal but possibly a bit less than most US schools.
There are a few very good LACs (Liberal Arts Colleges) in the US which don’t draw in as many international students partly due to being less well known and also in some cases possibly due to being in more northern locations. Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa is one example of a school that is very strong academically but not as well known outside the US. You might want to check on the availability of financial aid there and also on whether they have the majors that you might be interested in. Winter in Iowa is likely to be colder than you even knew was possible, but with proper clothing you could probably get used to it.
Folks on CC should be able to recommend other options. However, how much you can afford to pay is likely to matter quite a bit.
Your ECs are a huge red flag. No one can start that many clubs and do them justice. I see no real leadership. That would be an officer position in an existing club. An AO will see right through the fluff.
@Eeyore123 I don’t quite get you…
Watch this video
https://youtu.be/96XL8vBBB7o
It shows how an AO may react to your EC’s. The amount of time it takes to make 1 club successful is a lot of time. To do it four times, and be successful is nearly impossible. It looks like you started clubs for the sole purpose of putting on your college app.
bump
I thought the same thing about the extracurriculars, for the record, so maybe try to talk about them in additional info to show that you actually care about and dedicate a lot of time to all of them. Other than that, you have high grades, near perfect/perfect test scores.The only thing is that these schools don’t accept that many international applicants, so it’s impossible to tell you if you’ll get in because obviously you’re qualified, so you have a shot, but the admissions process is about more than test scores and grades. So to give yourself an even better chance, make sure you have outstanding essays, and maybe have your teachers/counselor talk about your ECs in your recommendations. Also, as others suggested, apply to schools other than Harvard/MIT. That will maximize your chances of getting into at least one “top” school in the US.
I think you have a pretty good shot of getting in
I’d suggest some other strong tech schools with higher acceptance rates such as Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Case Western Reserve University, Purdue University, and Virginia Tech. Of course, this is only feasible if you have the resources to pay.