College options for a PERFECT SCORER

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I am currently in 11th std. (term ended in college) and want to apply for Undergrad Business or Economics (I can't decide - please help).</p>

<p>I am an international student and have good academic records and extracurricular activities.</p>

<p>My prospective batch would be the one of Fall 2006.</p>

<p>What could be my ideal selection of colleges ?, keeping in mind,</p>

<p>My priority #1 Superb financial assistance (I'd appreciate a waiver)
#2 Programme ranking
#3 Placements
#4 College life</p>

<p>I have absolutely no craze of getting into ivies, without Fin Aid.</p>

<p>--</p>

<p>Here's more about me</p>

<p>I. Academic Achievements :</p>

<p>Sat I - Perfect score of 1600 (800M, 800V) - Percentile > 99</p>

<p>10th std. - SSC State board - 80.00% (percentile > 94 -- of ~2,50,000 students)
- Maths 87%
- Science 89%</p>

<p>-</p>

<p>11th std. - 1st term in College - 85 percentile - of 1,013 students
- French 98%</p>

<h2> - Economics 88%</h2>

<p>II. Extracurricular Activities :</p>

<p>Completed Alliance Francais French Course and also passed the level 1 exam</p>

<p>Completed the Bombay Stock Exchange's course on Stock Markets and passed its exam</p>

<p>Working as a dedicated Community service student volunteer in
- Junior Red Cross
- CRY
- Bombay Natural History Society</p>

<p>Participated in the inter-school Bournvita Quiz Contest</p>

<p>Member of the "Council for Handling and Organising Inter College Events (CHOICE)" organization committee</p>

<p>Member of the Junior College Student's Council</p>

<p>Projects: Simulations on - Stock Market, Soccer, Intelligence Games</p>

<p>Represent my college in essay writing, poetry writing, public debates (3rd prize), elocution</p>

<p>Won the table-tennis tournament on Sports Day in my school</p>

<p>--</p>

<p>And Finally, I CAN'T do without substantial amount of Financial Assistance</p>

<p>Thanks in advance</p>

2

<p>Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Dartmouth
Columbia
Brown
Cornell
UPenn
Stanford
MIT
Duke</p>

<p>...isn't this obvious...? Keep in mind the average fin. aid package at any of these schools is ~$20,000, with nearly 40-50% of students receiving aid. People can get nearly full rides if family situation qualifies.</p>

3

<p>USC will give you lots and lots of aid. they''ll literally try to buy you with that score. and youre international, usc loves internationals. your screen name is akshay, im guessing you are indian? there are alot of indian students at usc as well as a good organization calles AIS, i forgot what it stands for , but it seems like a social club for indian students. ive played cricket with indian guys in the middle of the campus. theyplay cricket a lot on campus. the campus is really nice too. </p>

<p>1- USC will give you lots of aid and even an admissions apllication waiver. financial assistance will be superb.
2- USC's marshall school of business is top ranked in california, probably like #3, and #20 nationally. you would probably excell in this program, making you look better than your peers which is good for financial aid, grad school, and jobs. speaking of jobs, the trojan family (alumni connections) is a huge help for graduating students looking for jobs and the big-boy firms recruit at 'SC (goldman sachs, houlihan lockey, lockheed martin, delloitte, etc). this is what usc is mostly known for.
3- im not sure what you mean by placement? job placemnt? grad school placement? both are great.
4- college life is great, i cant say enough. i have yet to meet a truly unhappy student. the school is in LA, which is really really really fun. really. and the women, oh the women. but if you dont want to party you can always find a group of friends to kick it with and study, or do soemthing low key. youll always have a buddy for any situation. and dont judge usc by it immediate surroundings in LA. if you think its bad, chek out yale, columbia, nyu, uchicago, bu, mit, ucberkely. and youll be glad you chose SC. and be sure to check out Parkside International Residential College. i would recommend living there, its probably the nicest place to live. and its brand new and looks amazing.</p>

<p>other than that uhhh...i dont know. UC Berkley has a good business progrma but theyre stingy with fin aid. stanford is better but i dont know how they are with aid. over there, you will meet students of the same calibur, making you an average student at stanford. which isnt really bad, just more competitve. stanford is everything usc is but better, except in sports and the attractiveness of its students. i dont know how they are with finaid but i would expect it to be competive. ucla is good, but expensive for an international student, and they dont give much aid. theymight give a lot to you, though. im not really an expert on fin aid.</p>

<p>and you cant decide on biz or economics? i would personally recommend biz b/c i think it affords better job oppurtunities, but econ is good as well. why not double major? or minor in one and major in the other? that looks real good to grad schools and employers. i major in biz with a minor in econ at 'SC, its pretty easy to do so. </p>

<p>any more questions?</p>

4

<p>oh ya almots forgot, your indian so i recommend sticking to warmer climates, thats why i only told you about schools in california.</p>

5

<p>Just don't forget that ALL the top schools turn down students with so-called perfect scores all the time (I call them "so-called" because since the 1995 re-centering, you can get a lot more wrong and still get a "perfect" score!). Look at the stats and read some adcom books. People are always stunned that students with lower scores get in, and the Harvard and other top schools routinely turn down those "dialing toll-free" (800/800).</p>

<p>Perfect scores are NOT enough.</p>

<p>(from a former Ivy interviewer with many friends and colleagues in the adcom business)</p>

6

<p>Leaving aside the issue of perfect scores and that I have no craze to get into ivies or top ranked programmes, are my ECs lagging ?</p>

7

<p>nope, your ecs are just fine. if not really good. there some pretty interesting stuff you do.</p>

8

<p>Alright,
so what should be my ideal selection from the top 50 colleges ? (yup, and not only top 20 for want of maximum financial aid)</p>

<p>Which undergrad business programmes (top 50), do you think, could award me a full tuition waiver ?
at top 50 undergrad business programmes</p>

9

<p>as if i wasnt trying to be obvious: USC, bhai saab. just my opinion. check it out for yourself : <a href="http://www.usc.edu%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.usc.edu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>uchicago, stanford, rice, ucla, georgetown, U of Virginia, Berkeley, MIT, caltech, nyu blah blah blah take your pick, buddy. even the ivy leaues. my opinion is that the top 20 would probably take you. i dont know if theyll buy you, though, like usc. and what else do you want? big school or small school? urban or suburban environment? large student body or small student body? small liberal arts college or large research university? public or private? more international students that you can relate with? is weather important (it was to me)? these will help define your search.</p>

10

<p>MrTrojan, to how many Intl students does USC offer aid...any examples you know....their SATs , background etc..?</p>

11

<p>Thanks MrTrojan,
My family can afford only about $10,000 a year for my education,
which will barely fund my living in the U.S. only.
I'll need a full tuition waiver or something for my dream to materialise. Hence, I am ready to compromise to a top 50 or even top 75 school !
Any colleges in your mind ?</p>

12

<p>USC doesn't offer 'financial aid' to international students, per se. It offers about 100-120 merit-based full-tuition scholarships to internationals a year (or does that number include US citizens? I don't know). Apparently SAT scores are a very important consideration for these scholarships so I'm sure you stand a fabulous chance (this is definitely not true for admission into Ivies). I'm worried my 690 verbal's gonna kiss my chance at a scholarship goodbye, but I'm hoping for the best anyway!</p>

<p>Hey MrTrojanMan, what about the women? Tell me more about the women! =D</p>

13

<p>By the way, Akshay, do you know that many good schools meet full demonstrated need for international students (or at least claim to), though most of them don't have a need-blind admission policy? Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Williams and Middlebury are the only 6 schools (as far as I'm aware) that are need-blind AND meet full demonstrated need; Amherst and Oberlin (and I think Swarthmore) are among those that aren't need-blind but meet full demonstrated need of admitted international students; some schools like Cornell and Grinnell are need-blind but don't guarantee to meet full need, which is a good thing if you just want to get a place and are looking for other sources of funding, eg. scholarships from companies in India (if there are any?), but if you're really banking on financial aid, you have a significant chance of being admitted without any or sufficient aid. Goodness knows why they do that.</p>

14

<p>I'm perplexed</p>

15

<p>I liked USC's website and I think I'll apply to USC for sure.
Besides, its ranked #9 in top undergrad business programmes on USNEWS
MrTrojan, Are you from USC (or atleast applying there) ?</p>

16

<p>i go to usc right now. why dont you email them? they are good with answering all kinds of questions. tell them your sat scores too.</p>

<p>make sure you write them a letter when you apply, detailing your financial situation.</p>

<p>the girls? wanna hear more about the girls eh? let me say this: its in LA. throw a rock in any direction and youll hit like three hotties. for example, one time i was just walking around checking out the campus when school started. and there was a sorority recruitment event going on in some building. anyways, im walking along the curb all and of a sudden, VRRRROOOMMM, a black ferrari just pulls up. the new one too, 360 modena spyder. black on black. two fiiine girls hop out. ones blonde the other looked persian. the persian was driving. i was like, ohhhh nice car. shes like, thanks. im like, can i drive it? shes like, can you drive stick? im like, heeelll ya. and shes like maybe...winks at me, and walks away into the same building where they were having recruitment. and im like, dammmnnn. anyways i found out she was the vp of recruitment of her sorority, and that car was her dads. not to mention that all the girls at the event were waayyy hot. anywyas, back on topic,</p>

<p>any more questions?</p>

17

<p>oh , did i mention we are good at sports? i should have, shame on me. we have the #1 football team in the nation right now. you might think, who cares? right? wrong. the team brings in a revenue to the tune of 20-30 million a yr. think about what that does for a private school: more money for aid, research, new buildings and faclities, well paid and happy faculty/administration, etc. not to mention school spirit and proud students. fight on, biotches.</p>

18

<p>Did you participate in the National Merit program?? While the word "national" would of course seem to imply that it is for US residents only, if by chance you are a National Merit Finalist, some schools, such as the University of Florida, will offer substantial packages that are virtually a free ride.</p>

19

<p>So in other words, Mr Trojan, the girls are hot but mostly unavailable? ;-)</p>

<p>By the way, are you a US citizen or an international? What are you majoring in? The USC viewbook says they encourage us to double major and stuff, do we have to apply to both majors as our first and second choice, or can we just pick up another major along the way? I'm interested in computer science, music (piano performance) and cinema (production), for example, and am thinking of double majoring in two of the three. Within the college of letters, arts and sciences, am I right to say that, like other liberal arts colleges, we need only to declare our major at the end of our sophomore year? If that's the case, how does our choice of majors affect anything? (The website says, if we aren't admitted to our first or second choice, we'll automatically be considered under the open (still deciding) option.)</p>

20

<p>Akshay, what are you perplexed about? Is it the 'need-blind' stuff? I'm sorry I didn't explain - need-blind means financial need isn't a factor in considering you for admission, as opposed to need-aware, which means that the less you can afford to pay, the smaller your chances of getting in. I guess 'meeting full demonstrated need' is self-explanatory.</p>