Namaste I am from India and wanted to know the chances of me getting into Princeton, UChicago, Yale, Northwestern or similar college’s for Economics Major. (I am planning to apply as early action decision this year)
My academic and extracurriculars achievements are as follows :-
I won gold medal for India at International Economics Olympiad held in Moscow.
My essay got published in the Harvard Economic Review as I won HUEA/HER International Essay Competition
Won the World Economics Cup held in Shanghai, China
I won couple of national economics olympiads organized by top universities of my country.
I have scored 98% in my grade 12 All India CBSE board examination, and consistently performed good in school from grade 9 to 12 and converting it to US GPA system would be 4.0, Indian schools don’t offer AP Exams still I took them and am AP Scholar with Distinction with having 5’s on 5 AP exams namely Calculus AB, Calculus BC, Statistics, Microeconomics and Macroeconomics.
My standardised test scores are as follows :-
SAT - 1580/1600
SAT Subject Test Math 2 - 800/800
TOEFL - 110/120
As I come from a very small school in India, our school didn’t had any clubs so I initiated and started a club about Economics and Finance where we weekly discussed Stock Markets and other financial awareness topics, and solved Economics Olympiad questions and organized quizzes. I also worked with an NGO called Zero Gravity in their ‘Happy School Project’ where we tried to imporve the deteriorating condition of Government schools in India through holistic infrastructural makeovers.
I will try to highlight all this in good way when I write my college essays, do you think these achievements would make me a worthy candidate to get admission to these prestigious universities.
Your profile looks very good. The competition from the subcontinent is very high, and you will be competing against lots of other students with similarly high stats.
The interest in economics is impressive. You seem to have done a great job in international recognition. Your marks and test scores look fine.
Do you need financial aid? Only Princeton and Yale are need blind for internationals
Yes I do need financial aid as I am from a very middle class family, although most of the colleges are not need blind, UChicago and Dartmouth in past have offered Indian students 100% scholarship for their Econ Major, I am attaching their LinkedIn profiles
I think if not less I share the same level of achievements that these guys have, excluding that they studied in some elite and expensive schools and I didn’t. I also have an acceptance offer from Higher School of Economics & University of London’s dual degree program what do you think about it?
Thats nice. The students that you linked look very well accomplished. Note that UChicago’s financial aid is need-based. So there are not any merit based scholarships (that I’m aware of). I know of many international students who are studying at Chicago, and many of them have financial aid.
But the point I’m making is that many of the colleges are need-blind for domestic US students, but not internationals. This just means that they pay a little more attention to financial need when admitting internationals. Doesn’t mean they don’t accept them, but just that they are more scrutinizing. So overall this is a long way of saying that your chances as an international are lower for a need-aware college like UChicago.
Princeton and Yale on the other hand are need blind, even for internationals.
Sorry but I don’t know much of HSE, never heard of it.
I had no idea about how should one go about applying to US colleges so after my grade 12 I gave all exams like AP’s TOEFL, SAT and SAT subject tests, I also helped the committees of the Olympiad I won in making new question sets and training students who would represent my country at the Olympiad next year.
You certainly have targeted the right schools for the study of economics in the US.
Your resume shows:
Won the gold medal for India at International Economics Olympiad held in Moscow, Russia.
Won the World Economics Cup held in Shanghai, China.
Published in Harvard Economic Review as winner of the HUEA/HER international essay competition.
Were these three efforts / competitions won by you as an individual or as part of a team ?
Regardless, combined with your standardized test scores, you are a very strong candidate for admission to all of your targeted schools. Nevertheless, the competition for admission is intense.
Sure thanks for sharing the links I will surely take them into consideration, what I am afraid about is that a lot of schools won’t provide me with any scholarships and the only need blind school’s like Princeton are very hard to get into and I am already feeling demotivated by seeing the profiles of students here that I don’t think MIT or Harvard would even consider my application.
You may need to revisit your understanding of financial assistance. Most “top” U.S. private colleges offer to meet the full, demonstrated financial need of all accepted applicants, irrespective of country of origin. If you seek only “need-blind” schools, you will counterproductively limit yourself.
However, I believe that this was either an honest mistake, or an understandable means of concealing identity.
Be that as it may, your qualifications are IMPECCABLE. You have an excellent chance of getting into at least one of the top schools, with full need met. You need to apply to every school that meets full need for international students, that has the academic department for what you want to study. Best of luck to you.
I am from India and wanted to know the chances of me getting into Princeton, UChicago, Yale, Northwestern or similar college’s for Economics Major. (I am planning to apply as early action decision this year)
