<p>My case is a funny one, so do bear with the slightly long write-up!</p>
<p>I am currently a second year student of Electronics and Communications Engineering from Kolkata, India. My interest however lies in the field of Physics, and I wish to transfer into an institution in the US to pursue a BS in Physics. At the very start I must mention my aid requirements are quite high which, as is obvious for international transfers, is a big hurdle. Hopefully, my Co-curricular and Extra-curricular activities will help negate that difficulty. What I will be banking on is that I am, since the end of my first year of college, a research student at one of the country's biggest national labs, in High Energy Physics. My work is under one of the pre-eminent physicists in that field, in the country (I won't mention his name for the sake of confidentiality) who is also the leader of one of India's delegations to CERN. </p>
<p>I had initially applied to several colleges in the US, after high school. My aid requirements were a big impediment at the time, in conjunction with me applying to extremely selective places without exceptional marks in the last two years of school (my EC's however were, relative to friends who got placed at Ivies, quite good and were at a national level). I applied to places like Williams, Swarthmore, Harvard (Early app), UPenn, Grinnell, Bates, Brown, et al. In hindsight, I was more than naive with my selection of colleges and I was eventually waitlisted at Grinnell and Bates, and was a deferred early applicant at Harvard, and finally got rejected.</p>
<p>However, I plan to re-apply to some colleges (a slightly more pragmatic list this time!) :
CornellU, TuftsU, BrandeisU, Lawrence University, Carleton College, Oberlin, Reed, College of Wooster, DePauw Uni, DrexelU.</p>
<p>I would like to hear from any international transfer students who've received aid. Apart from that do chance me, based on my stats as listed below, and let me know if there are any other colleges with good physics programs that may match my interests in Physics:</p>
<p>SAT I : 2150 (M-710,CR-710,Writing-730)
SAT II: Math2: 800, Physics:770, Chem: 770</p>
<p>College Stats:
Cumulative GPA: 3.5
February 2014: Accepted as a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, for the Summer Research Fellowship Programme 2014, to continue current research work and complete a further research project in High Energy Physics under the aforementioned professor. (this is a really prestigious and old national level fellowship and should hopefully carry some weight!)
June 2013 - present: Research-student (without the national fellowship), with view to publish work in peer reviewed literature, at a Governmental Department of Atomic Energy Centre in Kolkata.
August 2013: Co-founder of the Literary Society of my college.
January 2013: Accepted as one of very few undergraduate delegates to the 100th Indian National Science Congress symposium.
May-June 2012: Accepted as a summer student at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Sciences.
In addition I am also a member of the college Quiz and Debate teams.</p>
<p>School Stats:
Indian School Certificate Examination (ISC) 2012:
Mean Percentage calculated with Best Four subjects: 93% </p>
<p>Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) 2010:
Mean Percentage calculated with Best Five subjects: 94.2% </p>
<p>April 2011: Bishop’s Medal for Academic Excellence for performance in ICSE
August 2008: Winner – East Zone, of the National Essay Competition for “Children’s Awareness on Nutrition”, organised by a US & India based NGO - Nutrition Vista.
School-level Olympiads (Organised by the Science Olympiad Foundation, New Delhi):
14th National Science Olympiad (2011): State Rank – 3 rd , International Rank – 81 st
5th International Mathematics Olympiad (2011): State Rank – 12 th , International Rank – 323 rd
11th National Cyber Olympiad (2011): State Rank – 24 th , International Rank – 420 th</p>
<p>Music (Certified by the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, London):
Theory of Music - Grade 5 (2009): Passed with Distinction
Piano (Instrumental) – Grade 5 (2007): Passed with Merit</p>
<p>I was also the vice-president of both the Debate and quiz clubs of the school, along with a whole host of quizzes and debates won (national/regional/city level), which I'm not mentioning since they're not an integral part of what I do in my college life.</p>
<p>Do chance me. I know it's a bit of a strange one and that I've been vague in certain sections of this write-up, but that was only to maintain confidentiality. I look forward to your advice and constructive criticisms, if any. :) </p>