Chance Me! International Student

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hey guys, I'm an Indian student studying in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Here are the components of my application:</p>

<p>Intended Major: Mechanical Engineering</p>

<p>Colleges applying to: Early Action - Yale. Regular- MIT, Brown, Northwestern, Princeton, Cornell, UPenn, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Caltech, Duke, Cooper Union, Harvey Mudd. (Maybe a couple more)</p>

<p>SAT 1: 2180 and 2170. Superscore 2280 (CR 690, M 790, W 800)
SAT2: Writing on Oct.6 (Practice papers show 2370-2400 Math 2, Physics and Chem)
TOEFL: Writing Oct 13 (Only to sending to a few universities) - Will it compensate for my low CR score?</p>

<p>Essays: Common App essay is a sort of innovative narrative. Yale supplement is about effect of crime fiction on me.</p>

<p>GPA: I study at a highly competitive Indian school, consistently ranked as the best Indian school outside India. My school marks students on a scale of 100 but a conversion to a scale of 4.0, makes my GPA approx. 3.95/4.00 . For my 12th grade projected scores, I have been assured a 95+ or a 100 on every subject.</p>

<p>Class Rank: Top 1% (class of approx. 350)</p>

<p>Extracurriculars: President- Editorial Board (12th grade)
Editor- Yearbook (12th)
Editor- Almanac (12th)
Editor- Webzine (that's the school magazine) (12th)
House Prefect (11th)
Inter House Football - Part of winning team (played in starting 11) (Soccer is called football here)
Inter House Badminton - 3rd place
Attended over 650 hours of extensive math, physics and chemistry courses at Career Launcher. (Career Launcher is an institute which prepares us with high level physics, math and chemistry courses, beyond the scope of the school curriculum, suited for the highly competitive entrance exam for the IITs in India, which famously have an acceptance rate of just about 1% out of a pool of 600,000 candidates).</p>

<p>Interests- I am a proficient blogger, currently hosting two websites. The combined views on my websites are over 12,000. I have also won a blogging award - The Liebster Blog Award.
Moreover, I run a math help website (although that hasn't really taken off)
My write up are diverse. They talk about modern issues and historical precedents but also contain philosophical highlights and attempts a humor. I have also written a few melancholic poems. Moreover, I have been published 3 times in a local automobile magazine and won a Blackberry for one of these publications.
I am also interested in photography and run a competition hash tag on Instagram, which has about 65000 pictures tagged in just 2 months.</p>

<p>Competitive Examinations: National Talent Search Examination (it is a competition in which thousands of Indians living in India and abroad take part) - Gold Medallist (x2) - Mathematics (10th and 11th)
Runner up in the Manipal University,Dubai - Technovanza Technical Quiz(12th)
University of New South Wales- Macmillan Examination - Gold medallist -> Mathematics - placed in top 1% in the Middle East region (10th) -> English - Country topper for United Arab Emirates and gold medallist, also placed in top 1% in region.
Participating in Mathematics competitions since the 5th grade. Won the Aryabhatta Mathematics Competition and was runner up in Ramanujam Mathematics Competition (both are major national competitions in India)
Topped the Math Talent Exam in grade 9.
Topped the Career Launcher entrance examination out of about 1500 entrants.
Scholar badge holder at my school ever since I joined. Received high distinction in grade 10 for scoring a perfect 10 in the Board Examinations.
Have also received several subject topper awards from the schools I have attended.</p>

<p>Volunteer work: Volunteered at the Pakistan Floor Relief Association in Dubai for 8 hours. Participated in 3 Clean Up Dubai Drives to clean up the beaches of Dubai.
Regular contributor to Dubai Charity
Canvassed house-to-house to sell Dubai Cares coupons, proceeds of which went to hungry African kids. (My school collected about $15000 this way. The total donation which our school foundation gave was over $30,000,000).</p>

<p>Recommendations: Chemistry teacher for 4 years of high school and Math teacher for two years of high school. They have assured me that they will write glowing reviews. Counsellor should write good review too.</p>

<p>Musical Intruments played- Keyboard, Guitar (not proficient in either)</p>

<p>Languages- Very fluent- English, Hindi. Fluent in text but not conversation- French, Arabic</p>

<p>Sports played- Football (soccer), badminton, squash, table tennis, basketball, cricket.
(won certificates in soccer and badminton. Received professional training in cricket from an ex-professional player when I used to live in New Delhi, India).</p>

<p>I will be applying for financial aid. Yale, MIT and Harvard provide 'need blind' financial aid to International Students while the other colleges provide 'need based' aid.</p>

<p>Guys, do tell me how you think my application stacks up because according to me, the low point is the CR 690, but apart from that I don't know.</p>

<p>Thanks for having a look if you have popped by! Your feedback will be appreciated!</p>

2

<p>There is no such thing as need blind aid. There is need-blind admissions, meaning the university will not take your ability to pay as a factor in admissions. So they may admit you, but not give you enough aid to attend. </p>

<p>Yes, your CR score is a bit low, but otherwise your record looks good. The Ivies you’re applying to are a ‘reach’ for everybody, they turn down plenty of international applicants with perfect scores and impressive achievements. The other schools are highly competitive as well, especially among students needing financial aid. </p>

<p>In order to assess your odds at these schools, you have to compare yourself to the very top students in Dubai/middle east. Also, take a look at the Harvard, Princeton, (etc.) threads on this forum. Many admitted/rejected students post their stats there, so you can see the caliber of people who do - but mostly don’t - get in.</p>

3

<p>Hey katliamom, I guess the CR score is a bit low, I have identified a few competitors from the middle east, they have scores and achievements like me, but aren’t applying for aid. The advantage I think I have is that I’m applying EA while most others are applying RD, so I can benefit from the high EA acceptance rate. Moreover, Harvard is on my list too, although I forgot to mention it, I’m not applying to Stanford, but I will probably apply to Princeton.</p>