Chance me for Ivys, Stanford, MIT & more

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Hey, I’m an international applicant from India. I applied REA to Harvard and got rejected.
Below are my stats and a slight glimpse of what my application looks like.
And yes, I am applying for financial aid, as my family’s annual income is $28,000.
Do let me know about my chances at these Universities : MIT, Stanford, other Ivys, Reed, Vassar, Colgate

A quick context; the schools in my region don’t have anything called ‘clubs’, nor do we have Olympiads (I’ve been requesting them since class 10th to conduct them, but no progress). EC opportunities are limited and we get lots of written work after which you can’t even get time to revise the syllabus. Even the few ECs I’ve managed to do were done on a condition that I’ll have to keep submit all the written work on time and also keep my grades as they are, school will not allow me to do the ECs if I fail to do any one of that :upside_down_face:

Intended major : BS in Physics [I’d decided it many years back :wink: ]

SAT/ACT : Not submitted (not taken)

ECs : school-level achievements in debate, made a refrigerator using the Peltier cooling effect, represented my school in regional competitions of debate and science quiz, also I help a lot at my home to my parents, siblings and elders.

Grades :

  1. Class 9th - 96%
  2. Class 10th - 97%
  3. Class 11th - 78% [we’ve a really tough curriculum for class 11th along with a hard marking scheme]
    All these years, I was the top among 125,109 and 62 students respectively, and I belong to the top 1% in my national examination of class 10th

Personal Essay : This is something which I feel my application is incomplete without it

So basically, my family has been through financial crisis since I was 7-8, and the conditions are starting to become good for the past 2-3 years only. Our family can’t afford the fee for me and got kicked out of school in mid-terms in 6th and 7th grade due to non-payment of fee, along with completely at home in class 3rd and 5th, and have studied all by myself from the books.
I got to know about a thing called internet in 2017 when my father bought the first smartphone in our family, and got to access it 2hrs. a day from his mobile. Finally, I got WiFi at home and a personal laptop in November 2019.
All these times, I understood the meaning of responsibilities, as I took care of my siblings and helped my mother in house-work at our adverse times, while still managing to study at home by myself
And in those times, I used to imagine a lot, and that is something that made the foundations for my excellent visualization abilities, as I visualize concepts very imaginatively in my mind. Also, I learned never to give up and at last hard work pays off, as I’ve established myself a name in my school and the nearby schools too, and surely will make it to the world and help others, making the world a better place to live for everyone.

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Hi there, I think you should remove the essay portion on your post. This forum advises that no essays be posted in order to protect your original work.

I messaged you also.

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Take down the essay. Posting it can cause plagiarism flags to be raised.

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The schools you applied to are high reaches. Full rides are very hard to come by in the US. Hopefully you have affordable options in your own country.

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Deleted essay

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I like the essay and appreciate you taking the risk of sharing it. Even though clever to have been about yourself… and then say it was you, I would tell your story in a more traditional college essay. The clever part is actually the worst part to me. It cheapens your unbelievable story and amazing accomplishments…

11th grade will hurt you, and I say that with a basic understanding of school in India. Do you have a reasonable explanation? I also know that your 97/6% in prior years may mean more than what that would mean in the US.

I would also be interested in having @parentologist share thoughts.

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sorry I didn’t knew about that, thnx for removing it.
I may now post a really short version of it just to give context

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Thanks to ski for removing the essay. Here is a thread with people on CC that have been vetted to review essays: Consolidated List of Essay Readers on CC - #1229 by dianawallis Use an experienced parent and not a student/peer.

I agree with the others that all of these schools are reaches, and for internationals with a high level of need, no US college is a safety. Do you have an affordable safety in your country? EU?

Thoughts @myos1634 ?

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Keep in mind that the application deadline has passed or is fast approaching. Feedback on essays at this juncture is rather pointless and will only increase the angst of the OP. It is what it is.

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True, although OP does have until Mid Jan for a few of their schools, including Reed and Colgate.

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OP - I read the essay before it was taken down. If you have time to do an edit I’d encourage you to spend less time describing the hardships and more time focusing on the student it has made you today, along with what your unique experience will bring to a college campus. College want to know why you are a fit for their campus and how you will enrich life there.

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yeah, I’ve talked about that info in the other sections of my application and also in the Additional Essay on Common App.
Just in short, I don’t want anyone to go through the same situations as I’ve been through, and since I’ve seen a lot, really a lot of different people and places, I want to do something good to change the scene of education, and make students aware of real education, real knowledge, which is not rote-learning or memorizing theorems, but rather just a more clear understanding of everyday world around them.
I wanna change the perception of education being a burden on many students, and want that everyone should enjoy it while they can.
I wanna be a physicist and contribute to some ground-breaking researches, but along with that also want to help make this world a better place to live, for EVERYONE.

I can summarize this aim of mine as : “It’s easy to teach a 90% student and get him to 95%, but the main challenge is to empower a failed student (who sees study as burden) through knowledge so he gets the spark of curiosity, after which he may forget you but the spark always keeps alive in them”

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You have to make clear that your position advocating for all students’ right to be educated is looked down upon in your educational system and a cultural clash (because that idea is pretty much a given in the US, not something especially novel or innovative - but it’s not in many Indian school systems.)

Since your family’s income is 28K a year, you’d qualify for application fee waivers. You’d have to check the “fee waiver/under the US income limit” in your common app general application. Your GC would have to verify this too. This allows you to apply to more colleges, since internationals applying to universities in the US may have to apply to 10 to get even one acceptance.

Your most interesting EC is “building a fridge”, I think. How did you come up with the idea? The parts? Did you need one or did you donate it afterwards?

Are you applying anywhere in Europe?

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so, yeah I knew about the waiver and have got it on almost all my applications. The fridge I made was not a full-scale model, but you can have 2 bottles of 1litre in it and they’ll be cold enough in about an hour. It uses the direct conversion of electricity to temperature difference making one end hot and the other one cold, just a little briefing of its work.
Also, for the thing, there is no guidance given here in my schools and also the ones in the nearby region, about applying abroad. So, I’ve figured out all by myself by the internet from October of 2020, and asked my school and teachers for the requested materials. since short of time and also a lot of written work and syllabus, I was only able to get through the process of US colleges, and my dream school is Princeton.

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We all benefit from understanding the essay needs to show the more recent you. They’re looking at you for college, college life and the present. Not the history of challenges.

It’s true that challenges form us. But adcoms are looking for the individual you’ve become. “Show, not just tell.” That includes examples from the present that show you surpassed, evolved, and offer various strengths to this college community. That goes beyond academics.

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Show your essays to the dedicated readers.

If you don’t have a GC, does the teacher or person taking care of the school profile, your transcripts, and your recommendation know what to do?

I still think “building your own mini fridge” is cool. :slight_smile:

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