Chance Me: Non-residential student targeting UMich

Demographics

  • US domestic (US citizen or permanent resident) or international student: International student (I have been in the US almost my whole life with a Visa).
  • State/Location of residency: (state is important if you apply to any state universities): Michigan
  • Type of high school (current college for transfers): Large competitive public HS
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity (optional): Asian Male
  • Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.): Nothing here

Intended Major(s) Intended major is Electrical and Computer Engineering (Or just electrical where ECE isn’t a thing) with a minor in Business/Management and Philosophy.

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0/4.0
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): school doesn’t do weighted GPA
  • College GPA (for transfers): N/A
  • Class Rank: School does not rank
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1560 (760, 800 math) ; 34 ACT (35 with super score)

Coursework
(AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes, AP/IB scores for high school; also include level of math and foreign language reached and any unusual academic electives; for transfers, describe your college courses and preparation for your intended major(s)):
Freshman Year: H Algebra 2 ; H English ; PLTW engineering ; Spanish 2 ; Biology
Sophomore Year: H Pre-calculus ; H English ; H Chemistry ; AP Psychology ; AP World History (Scored a 5 on both AP exams)
Junior Year: H Physics ; AP Calculus AB ; AP Chemistry ; AP Statistics ; AP Comp Sci Principles ; AP Language ; IB Spanish Year 1 (AP Scores not out yet for the 5 exams, but predicting mostly 5’s)
Senior Year: Engineering Intern ; DE Business Math ; AP Economics ; AP Physics C, AP Spanish Language ; H Calculus 2 ; AP Comp Sci ; AP Literature (A total of 8 Exams since Econ and Physics are 2 each, and H calculus 2 is the Calculus BC exam)

Awards:
DECA State finalist and Internationals participant
IB MYP certificate
STEAM fair most creative award
District education board recognition for an organization
99% chance of NMSF and NMF
edX engineering course certifications
National Honors Society ; Spanish Honors Society ; Computer Science Honors Society ; Rotary Interact certificate
Honor Roll (Summa Cum Laude next year) ; Perfect Attendance awards

Extracurriculars
(Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)
Helped create a massive tutoring non-profit organization (VP of it). Offer free online tutoring to unprivileged students. Over 2000 successful sessions ($30,000+ saved for families) across 20+ states and 5 countries in a few months ; Many big partnerships and lots of news features. I spend 15 hours a week for it with no breaks.

Co-founder of a school club focused on the circular aspect of using our natural resources. We create events to advocate for our cause. Conducted a shoe drive in partnership with an organization and raised over 2000 shoes ($50,000+ worth of shoes).

Co-founded a club to teach Cricket to students with over 30 members.

VP of a library student organization (lead events and help around the library). Also part of an organization there for summer volunteering and an organization centered around fundraising there. Spent a lot of time at the library volunteering.

Coached a Science Olympiad event at a middle school (Reach for the stars). Students came 1st at their regionals.

JV Bowling team for 2 years (Possible varsity senior yr but unlikely). Varsity Tennis (JV 1st year and Varsity 2nd year probably). Varsity T&F (Did all 4 yrs, Varsity senior year). Big commitment here.

DECA training team member. Pretty self explanatory, its a business related club. Did principles of finance and business services marketing events. (Won regionals all years and was a finalist at states).

Artificial Intelligence club, Science bowl, and math Olympiad member.
Gave a ted talk on social media’s harmful implications.
Indian American student association member.
Built a desk completely from scratch for a personal project (Its harder than it looks lol)

MMSS (program at uofm) over summer. Doing a course on cryptography and number theory.

Essays/LORs/Other
(Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.):
Counselor Letter (7.5/10): She knows me pretty well. I met with her a solid amount and gave her gifts every winter lol.
H Chemistry teacher (8.5/10): Amazing teacher, knows me well from 2 semesters of school. Did well in her class, asked questions, and was a great student overall. She is also the advisor for a club I founded
AP Lang teacher (8.5/10): Great person, extremely smart. Had many great conversations with him and was one of few kids who always kept the cam on. Spoke a lot in class, wrote him letters of appreciation since I loved the class a lot. He also mentored me for an organization I helped create. Note: I got an A+ in his course too.

Cost Constraints / Budget
(High school students: please get a budget from your parents and use the Net Price Calculators on the web sites of colleges of interest.): Since I am not a citizen, I can get no federal aid. We have a budget of around net expenses of 35k/yr.

Schools
(List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below):
Note: I am applying EA everywhere they have it

  • Safety (certain admission and affordability): no worries about these. Michigan State, Wayne State, Michigan Tech
  • Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable): Texas A&M and Purdue
  • Match: University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign ; Umich (somewhat since our school is a feeder)
  • Reach: This is where I need some guidance. Northwestern and Cornell are on the list with an opening. I’m thinking about UPenn as well. One of them will be my ED (Price dependent!)

Note: I would like a humanities touch to my college experience, but I would still want to go forward with engineering. That’s why I’ve been looking at ivies.

If you are here on a visa, rather than as a permanent resident (Green Card), UMich is a reach for you, as are most of the other schools. Since you need financial aid, it becomes more difficult.

However, there are colleges which will accept you and provide financial support based on your accomplishments and stats. While almost all colleges are b=need aware, there are colleges which will provide you with excellent merit funding as an NMF. Even if you are not a permanent resident, you should be eligible for NMF because you are attending an American high school.

So while you are competitive for most of the popular colleges, and it’s worth your while to apply to those popular colleges which have good financial aid, your best chance at an affordable college is through attending a college which provides good merit support for NMFs.

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Thank you so much for your input! Do you know of any well respected colleges that offer good merit aid? I know Texas A&M offers great aid for NMF and is a solid engineering school, so I have been looking into that a lot.

College Kickstart has a list under the title: " Colleges with Great Scholarships for National Merit Finalists".

Look those up, but remember to check whether international students are eligible for this financial aid. As I wrote, you are eligible for NMF status since you attended an American highschool, but these are scholarships which are provided by the colleges, and some may have residency requirements, either at the level of the state or of the USA.

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