Recommend some colleges based on the details given below, that gives need based financial aid, and where i am a good fit,
SAT : 1220 EBRW: 530 MATH: 690
SAT Math II : 790 (surprising but true)
SAT Physics : 800
TOEFL : 89 (not sending to all, as my school teaches English)
Grade: IX = 9.4 CGPA out of 10
X = 10 CGPA out of 10 (INR 5,000 scholarship)
XI = 80% (highest was around 86%)
XII = coming soon!
These are my grades and scores, I do have 2 LOR’s. Being the first student to apply in the US in my school’s history, it was hard time making my teachers understand what LOR is. They would put it in the envelope, along with transcripts and send to the institutions themselves.
Applying to:
Purdue University
Columbia University
Harvard University
Stanford University
University of Pennsylvania
Yale University
California Institute of Technology (O_O)
MIT (what?)
These are the institutes with need blind admissions except some, with the best Physics and Astronautics Programs.
Would replace some of them with these to the list if needed : Boston Univ, NYU, OSU, USC, Cornell. (Can’t apply to infinite no. of universities :(( )
P.S. I am from India, financial aid needed as our income is smaller than equal to 11,000 USD per year. Please do understand , I may not be as competitive as others, but being from Government school due to money constraints, neither APs are offered in my school nor there is any educational counselor. This whole admissions process, passports and all paperwork is done by solely me
I think your TOEFL results will be required if your standard classes are not taught in English.
In any case, you need to make yourself fully aware of the SAT middle-ranges for the schools you have listed. For most of them, your score lands at least 150 points below their 25th percentile marks. Your SAT 2 scores could indeed help you at some schools, but they’d be insufficient by themselves to gain you admission to the highly selective ones you have listed.
First, congratulations on your success and hard work! I wish you the best in being the first student from your school to study in the U.S. If you want it badly enough, it will happen.
Others here will warn you how hard it is for foreign students applying to U.S. colleges–the competition is immense and there are few international spots to go around. You’ve put some of the very top schools on your list and the odds for anyone, no matter their background, is remarkably poor. Most of those have relatively small classes–think of this: roughly two million American students enter college every year. Harvard accepts about 2,000–that’s one-tenth of one percent, and those are the brightest, highest achievers. And maybe eighty to eighty-five percent of those will be American kids. The same is true for almost all the others on your list (CalTech has a class of around just 250 students TOTAL; some of the others are slightly bigger, but the same basic idea holds true).
I’ll let others give you more info on that as those odds are not in my experience. Instead, I’d like to shift this discussion slightly. I assume you’ve never visited the U.S., and don’t know much about these schools other than their reputations. You may experience some culture shock when you come here. To me, the most important thing is that you find a school where you are comfortable, where you feel you belong, where you don’t feel out of place. That will, in turn, increase the chances of being successful. There are literally thousands of colleges and universities in the U.S., and you will get a terrific education at several hundred of them. Ask yourself if you prefer a large school or a small school? In a city, or out in the country or suburbs? Do you want a school with a large Indian population, which could help serve as a support team for you? What about the weather–have you been in really, really cold weather before? Do you think it would be a hardship? Do you care at all what part of the country you are in? Maybe near a particular city with a large Indian population?
I think once you answer those sorts of questions, we can be more help. Please don’t be discouraged. You will find a college that is right for you, and you will get in. I just think you may need more guidance figuring out where you may have the best shot. Purdue and OSU may be the best options from he schools you list, but again, others will have more experience with them than i do.
Till Xth grade we had our Hindi classes in Hindi language, rather than Hindi, everything was done in English. After Xth grade, we have no more Hindi, so all our classes are in English.
So… as you may already know, your test scores (SAT1220) is way too low for the very top schools. Given your math & physics subject tests, I’m kind of surprised that your SAT Math is so low. If you could retake the SAT and get that math score and English over 700, you’d boost your chances of finding a US school that could work for you. But right now, MIT, Harvard, Caltech, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, UPenn, and Stanford are completely out of reach.
Even if you get your test scores up, you don’t mention any activities out side of school – even for international students, these schools want to see some kind of accomplishments beyond the classroom, whatever is available in your community. I agree that OSU and Purdue are going to be the best shots for admissions, but neither will meet your financial need.
If you can raise your SAT scores, you might be able to get some scholarships at schools like University of Alabama - Huntsville, for example. Or maybe have a shot at schools that don’t guarantee to meet need for internationals, but will take a chance on a few students with high stats.
Somehow or the other way, my parents have prepared me for the worst situations (they did it unintentionally, probably) I have had enough experience with culture shock, my dad’s job was transferable and we had to leave places and accept new ones, every city is different as per Indian diversity. Homesickness, panic attacks and all these factors won’t affect me considering the harsh family moments and situatons in which I grew up.
My motto is to get in a good physics or aerospace program in the US. No indians? no problem. I have had Russian, Malaysian, Israeli and Greek friends ( coin exchanges ) .
Sometimes I feel like thanking my parents, that they brought me up in hard situations. Raymanta, I don’t think the cold weather and no indians would be a problem. :O)
I probably saw my life’s most friendly answer regarding my college admission Raymanta >:D<
Without ECs, can’t say. The risk of a gap year is that you still might not get in. Many, many international students go to college in their home country, so very well, and come to funded PhD positions in the US. My kid is a physics PhD student in the US, and more than half her cohort of fellow students are foreign students. It is a very feasible approach.
You have a very interesting story behind you and you will have success, don’t worry. Again, your situation is beyond my experience, so I defer to everyone else. However, I wonder if you may have the best luck at some of the larger universities, like the University of Texas, Arizona State, and University of Illinois. Ohio State would be in that category, too. Your background is pretty unusual, and so perhaps you should think about targeting schools that have a reputation of admitting the most international students. I did a quick internet search and I found this:
Purdue is #3. OSU is #15. There are a bunch of other similar lists, and I didn’t check to see if the schools are the same…
My recommendation would probably be to use this list (and other similar lists) as a starting point. Your low-ish English test scores aren’t that important, I don’t think, as a foreign student, as long as you can demonstrate you have a strong enough grasp of the language to succeed (which it seems like you will be able to do in your essays). So I’d focus on finding schools from that list where your math scores fall at or above the 75th percentile of their data, since as a foreign student the pool of applicants will be slightly different. I think all these large schools will have credible physics programs, at least on the undergraduate level.
You can find that info by searching on the “common data set” for each school.
As you say, financial aid is another part of the equation, but I find that if a school really wants you there, they will find a way for you to attend. You need to find a way to convince them how and why you will be a positive addition to their campus community, and how your experiences are so different and unique than other students that you will enrich them. If you can do that in your essays, I think everything will work out for you.
Congratulations on your fine academic record. As a nonnative English speaker, its very hard to score well on the
verbal SAT, so do not be discouraged.
Please try to Repeat the TOEFL exam. Can you study for that, as I think almost all the schools you list, except for Purdue, require a score of 100 or higher. Its very hard for international students to win financial aid in the USA. Please look for schools and scholarships in India as well. Many of the schools you list do offer financial aid to international students, but they may not like your TOEFL score or SAT score.
Purdue is larger and easier for admission than the others on your list,
, while still being a very top engineering college.
Purdue is very large, and it likes the math and physics scores you have, but its a public school and may not offer you enough financial aid.
MIT requires the TOEFL and two subject exam tests, so if you can get your TOEFL higher, maybe MIT is an option but its very competitive from India and only 9%-10% of the freshman class is allowed to be international students.
I am afraid you have missed many deadlines for scholarships, like Georgia Tech is Oct 15 deadline, for instance, so I don’t know if its better to wait a year, and get your test scores up, but i would try to attend college in India, if thats possible,to study English intensively, and continue your progress on math and physics, while you study for TOEFL and SAT tests again.
Look at U of Alabama Tuscaloosa, and Wichita State in Kansas for aerospace engineering.
U of Alabama is also strong in physics, way less expensive and may give you merit based awards or financial aid –
Serious question: are you applying to local schools like IIT?
I agree with one of the posters above that grad school may be a better goal.
If you do take a gap year, colleges will want to see that you have used it constructively.
Indian institute or Illinois institute which one you are asking?, Former yes, Latter no. Getting in us as undergrad is harder I believe, so, I would apply to Indian institute of technology - Physics program.
