Chances of a non traditional international student

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hey all and thank you for dedicating your time to help me:). please tell me what you really think , if you think applying to a certain school will be a waste of time and money I would appreciate you being honest</p>

<p>So here are my details</p>

<p>Gender: Male
Age: 23.5 ,this will be my age when ill submit admission
nationality: Israeli
financial aid: required
Major: computer science , computer engineering
Letters of recommendation: good ones also a supplement from my army commander
Essays: I think they will be good and itersting, and I have friends that I count on to check them for me</p>

<p>Tests: </p>

<p>TOEFL IBT- 102 (23 reading, 29 listening, 26 speaking , 24 writing)</p>

<p>SAT- my first time 2010
CR :( 580- don't know what want wrong , on practice I always scored around 640
Math- 760
Writing-670 (essay 9)</p>

<p>according to CB my scores are in the following percentage
CR- 75%
Math-98%
Writing-93%</p>

<p>I don't think I can score more then (if ill take it again)
CR 640. M 770-780 .Wr- 660-670</p>

<p>Subjects:
Math 2 -770
US history- 620 (took it more in order to know about the country I want to study at)
Physics, modern Hebrew-didn't take it yet
chemistry- did not take and not sure ill take.</p>

<p>High school
average 106 out of 113
there is no rank in my school , but I was at a science class that only 20 out of 240 student in my class were admitted</p>

<p>I took beside the mandatory classes<br>
3 years in the highest level of Israel of physics (87/100) ,chemistry (97/100) , Math (96/100)
one year of biology (100) and computer (100/100)
two years I work on a thesis about the affect of waxing and pesticides on melons, I did my research with associate of the Israeli department of agriculture, and the result affected the way Israel shiped melons to Europe (got 100/100 on that project)</p>

<p>I got a merit at the end of my high school from the department of education on high grades .</p>

<p>After the high school (finished at 18.5) I was recruited to the IDF (at age of 19)</p>

<p>Army:
was at a top unit that only 1% each year of all the soldiers in the army get into
Got 6 merits during my service (boot camp (one out of 35), basic training (one out of 40) commander course (one out of 25), section merit (1 out of 35) , unit merit (1 out of 300) and general merit that only 10 out of 5000.</p>

<p>I was a commander of 7-10 soldiers and the head of a QA team in the computer section. I served during war and got a war badge, and finished my service with honor as a staff sergeant</p>

<p>during the army I studied by myself and got certified CCSA by "check point", which stand for security administrator of firewalls.</p>

<p>After service:
work for 6 months in a start-up company in the mobile phones area as the head of QA
I spent two months in the state (one in NH enjoying Yale life style) and decided to apply to study at the state. When I came back I started the test and meanwhile I am working at Comverse ltd. as a tester (mostly automatic tests) on Unix systems at a QA team, and I am responsible for QA methodology in my group ( I am also the youngest person ever was accepted in this group) </p>

<p>Extra curricular
during school ( I can elaborate more)
2 years at a youth center
2 years at the public library
editor of year book
1 year at amnesty international (the club got closed at my school)
1 year at practicing law ( was a one year program)</p>

<p>During army I volunteered at a disabled institution, in addition to environmental projects at my unit </p>

<p>At comverse I am active in the environmental forum, and volunteer at a project that called young entrepreneur in which I teach 16 years old how to build up a company , we design and create a product and sell it and they get to save the money and participate in contests in that project . this year we created a product in Hong Kong and were the only group that worked with business outside Israel</p>

<p>thank you for reading:)
my college list (kind of long, so thanks again)</p>

<p>please remember that I need financial aid, and in addition I can apply in ED/EA to one place if you think it will help </p>

<p>Stanford
Yale
Georgetown
Caltech
Dartmouth
Brown
Cornell
Duke
Harvard
Princeton
Penn
Middlebury
Williams
MIT
Columbia
Washington univ in st Louis
Amherst
Tufts</p>

<p>and again thank you very very much</p>

2

<p>bump
please, I will appreciate any help</p>

3

<p>You certainly have an impressive background. I don’t think there’s any school you should hesitate to apply to. Whether you get in or not is another subject. In the end it will really come down to whether there are better applicants from Israel as each school will be looking for one or two. How much aid you need will also dramatically effect outcome, international aid is getting even harder to get at most of them.</p>

<p>I would really look at raising the CR score. No matter where you’re from, having any score with a 5 in front of it is a real problem.</p>

<p>As far as your list goes the only thing that seems to tie these schools together is prestige. I don’t have a problem with that as many here do, but most of these school are weak in your prospective major. And many are the type of school where a non traditional student might have trouble socially because it will be hard to find a peer group.</p>

<p>Personally I wouldn’t want to go to Dartmouth, Duke, Williams, Amherst or Middlebury as a 23 year old who has been in the army. These are school with 18 year old guided social scenes and/or are so small anyone with world experience, who’s not into typical teen-aged activities, has a good chance of not being happy.</p>

<p>If you’re serious about going to school in the US, I would add a few schools that are not quite as elite and are stronger in engineering.</p>

4

<p>hmom5 thank you for your insights , most of those schools are capable of helping me with the payment. I don’t look for prestige , but for a vivid environment in which i can study the most at my field of interest.</p>

<p>If you have any suggestions I would love to here them:) I think Ill be able to save up 50K$, I have a very problematic financial background and I kind of built myself without no help from my father and with a little help from my mother.</p>

<p>Please tell me more about other colleges, and I will certainly think about retaking the SAT for a 6+ CR score </p>

<p>Thank you</p>

5

<p>While those schools are capable of helping to pay, the fact is the vast majority have very little money for international students and heavily consider ability to pay when deciding whether to accept you. An international needing a lot of aid has a much lower chance of getting in than do other students.</p>

<p>You should read the boards here on the different colleges to get a feel for them.</p>

6

<p>OK:) thank you for your help:)</p>