Chance me to colleges in the states

Chance Me / Match Me!
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*sorry for the long post I’m a junior moving into senior year next month. ( Class of 2023 )

-DEMOGRAPHICS:

South Asian ( south Indian ), Bangalore.
Gender: Male
Income bracket: I’m poor asf ( < 10000)
EFC : < 1000 ( need at least full tuition )
Type of School : Private , competitive.

  • INTENDED MAJORS:
    Econ/Business with a double major in International relations/ CS/Politics/Product Design

-ACADEMICS:
GPA: 9th - 91(ICSE)
10th-92.4(grade deflation)(ICSE)
11th- 94 (HSC)
12th- 96 ( predicted )(HSC)

CLASSES :
9th and 10th :
English literature , English grammar, Geography , History and Civics, biology , physics , chemistry, Computer science with Java , Kannada( language), Mathematics. ( All subjects are core requirements )

11th and 12th: English (literature and grammar), Kannada( language ) , Business studies , Economics ( Indian economics and statistics for economics in 11th , Marco and Micro economics in 12th ), Accountancy ( managerial and financial ) , Computer Science with C++ and spreadsheets and HTML .
( Again all subjects are core requirements as I’m in the management/commerce stream except computer science )

of honours , AP , IB etc : none offered by school .

-STANDARDIZED TESTING:
SAT :Based on practice tests - 1480-1500

-EXTRACURRICULARS/ACTIVITIES:

  1. Cultural head of school - Organised 50+ school events and shows. 9th , 10th - present .
  2. Independent Research paper : Poverty alleviation programs in India - why is it failing ? ( Yet to be published ) .9th , 10th .
  3. President of Art and Dance clubs in school - 10th
  4. Photography ( will submit supplements )
  5. Dance - self taught dancer, know 10 styles and will submit supplements
  6. Debate - won many inter and intra school debate contests .
  7. Working on a book - Commentatory on Indian Politics and Elections. 9th to present .
  8. Dance and Music performances for elders and children at elderly centres and orphanages. 6th - present .
  9. Human rights activist- spreading awareness of human rights in rural India and motivating youth from rural India to stand up for their rights . 8th - present .
  10. environmental activism - arranged rallies and organised events in rural India on global warming and how we can play our parts to reduce it .
  11. Internship? (IDK what you call this) : worked with a local restaurant owner and created a business strategy to gain more customers . Also taught him how to maintain books of accounts (double entry system ).
  12. Teaching assistant - worked with teachers from government schools and found innovative ways to make the syllabus clear to the students .
  13. Family responsibilities - personal.
    14)Owner of OZ paints - I sell paintings and with the profit buy kids in government schools their school supplies .
    15)Accepted to Stanford deliberate centre of democracy ( idk the name ) and rustic pathways -global leaders fellowship for the fall 2022 .
  14. Badminton - playing badminton since I was 10. Won many school championships . Noting state or national.
  15. Internship - interning at a local business in the marketing team.
  16. Starting a podcast on mental health of teenagers .

AWARDS / HONOUR :

  1. School achiever award - given to the best student every year who had excelled in academics and ECs - 9th grade
  2. Indian open memory championship 2019 - 15th overall , 5th in junior category out of 600+ students from all over the world , won medals in two disciplines out of 10
  3. Most likely to change the world award - 10th grade graduation ( so proud of it )
  4. Best participant and winner in Inter school debate championship - 9th and 10th grade .

Schools I’m planning to apply to -
-DUKE ( yeah it’s impossible )(dream)
-USC (dream)
-pomona
-UPENN
-Dartmouth
-Brown
-WUSTL
-NU
-vandy
-unc
-cmc
-rice
-emory
-drexel
-syracuse
-denison
-uw- madison

Please suggest to me schools I have a good chance at and any possible safeties( although there aren’t any cuz I need aid) .

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Hey just letting you know to be considered for admission to USC as an international student you have to show proof of funding for at least 1 year (~81000 US dollars) even if you are applying by the Dec 1 deadline to be considered for scholarships

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Congratulations on all of your accomplishments! Your extracurriculars tell a very interesting story that could be quite compelling when creating your admissions packets. There’s an image of someone trying for societal improvements through business/economics and activism while also having multi-faceted interests.

Admissions for international students who need at least full tuition if not a full ride is extraordinarily difficult to get in the U.S., but not impossible. Many (most?) universities do not give financial aid to international students. And most universities do not meet 100% of someone’s need (whether domestic or international). And then schools are often need-aware, meaning that how much money a student needs can impact their chance for admission. And there are schools that are need-blind for domestic applicants, but not international ones. But, not all hope is lost!

First, make sure you apply to schools (in your home country or in a different one) that you are extremely likely to be admitted to and will be able to afford. That way, if nothing else works out the way you want it to, you will still have college options available.

For some extremely likely/guaranteed options, I would look at this post that was written for a student from India who essentially needed at least tuition as well: Match me - Intl student from India in need of advice (lib arts interests) - #69 by AustenNut

Then, I would take a good luck at these six universities as they are exactly what you need financially. They are need-blind (how much someone’s need is does not impact whether or not they are admitted) and meet 100% of the need, including for international students. They are all extremely difficult to get into for any student, but they’re going to be reading every application and you do have a compelling story, in my opinion. You only need one to say yes, and they would cover your full need without loans.

  • Amherst
  • Dartmouth
  • Harvard
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Princeton
  • Yale

Have you gone through your list to see what kind of aid (if any) they offer to international students? Once you verify they all give aid, please let us know. One source is to use the College Board’s site and under the financial section toggle “on” the option for aid for international students. That will clear out more than half of the universities right there. (Here’s a link with that already done.) Make sure to pay attention to whether they include loans or no loans, especially for students from low income families (this would usually be found on each school’s website).

UNC meets full-need for in-state and out-of-state students…double check if they do it for international students as well. Instead of Wisconsin, I’d look at U. of Virginia as that one will meet full need for domestic students, but double-check that’s true for international students. Wisconsin does not meet full need for domestic students, so is unlikely to do so for internationals.

Once we find out the status of international aid at most of the universities on your list, then we can see in what categories they would fall (though just glancing, most of them are less likely for all students because there are so many more qualified applicants than there are spots).

And for your browsing pleasure…

Some universities I saw listed elsewhere as being very good with respect to corporate social responsibility were:

  • Yale
  • Fordham
  • Boston University
  • U. of Pittsburgh
  • Carnegie Mellon
  • George Washington

This link describes some universities with social entrepreneurship programs. And here are two links that discuss socially conscious universities which might be more likely to provide a big financial aid package even if they are need-aware:

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This thread has several posts about different full-ride options: Help me find a full ride. I would look to see which of those are open to international students, as well.

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Hey , thanks a lot for the reply .
UNC has Morehead Cain and Robertson scholars programs/Scholarship to which international students can apply as well .
Yes I’m aware that getting a full tution and getting into the need blind schools is very competitive. I have safeties in my country and in others.
I didn’t add the need blind schools to my list because I think I don’t have a chance of getting accepted(because my profile isn’t that competitive).
And thanks for all the links(especially the “colleges for students who want to change the world”)
It would be a great help if you could help me improve my profile .

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The post above by @AustenNut was spot on. The only other thing I can think which might help your chances are:

  1. Applying in the early round, preferably early decision (binding) over early action (non-binding).
  2. Applying to colleges where Indians are under-represented. You might be lucky and find a college that is willing to give you lots of aid. Look into historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) and smaller liberal arts colleges.

Best of luck

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