Unless your grades and scores radically change, you have virtually zero chance at Caltech or any of the Ivies. You are very unlikely to get significant merit scholarships either. It is unlikely you will be able to afford OOS tuition at public universities outside of Maine.
Your best bet: University of Maine. Major in physics and take astro and geoscience electives, or major in Earth & Climate Science and take astro & physics electives.
As a reach, consider University of Massachusetts at Amherst. They have a phenomenal astro program and they have a tuition agreement for Maine residents for certain majors… I checked and Astronomy is on the list, so you wouldn’t be charged full OOS tuition.
Other options are Mt. Holyoke College, Smith College and Hampshire College. They are part of the 5-college consortium (along with Amherst College and UMass)… so you would be able to take many of the astro options at UMass.
@harvardandberkeley I would prefer to go to a private college although there are 2 public schools on my list. I would be able to get more need-based aid at a private school than as OOS at a public school.
I don’t think you can count on any aid at McGill, and the Faculty of Science is deregulated, so tuition and fees for internationals is 38K Canadian dollars.
https://www.mcgill.ca/student-accounts/tuition-charges/fallwinter-term-tuition-and-fees/undergraduate-fees
Unless you are a Canadian citizen?
@ShrimpBurrito I have Canada-US dual citizenship and have family currently living in Quebec.
Okay, that makes sense then. Just be sure you are aware of the academic requirements. Admission is solely stats-based, and the Faculty of Science is rather competitive. This is the bare minimum to be considered for acceptance:
http://www.mcgill.ca/applying/requirements/minima/usa
@frazzledazzle
Arizona announced new automatic scholarship amounts which are more generous than last year’s if you test well
http://financialaid.arizona.edu/types-aid/scholarships/scholarships-0
@AroundHere Thank you for remembering this post from a year ago when seeing that Arizona has new scholarship amounts. Sadly, I am no longer considering U of A in my college search. After looking into the school more and thinking about it for a few months, I figured that school wouldn’t be a good fit for me. Thank you, though!
I took the SAT in April and got a 1370 (700 R/W and 670 M). I’m retaking the SAT in November. I also took some SAT Subject Tests and didn’t score as high as I would have liked, so I’m taking the ACT next month and retaking some of the Subject Tests in Deccember.
Last summer I went to a highly selective (~10% acceptance rate) summer program in astrophysics that’s affiliated with Caltech and MIT, so I’m applying to those schools and others that I think would be good fits and that I would have some chance of getting accepted.
If any of you seeing this are interested in knowing my full college list, PM me. I don’t want to get grilled on here for my list of colleges.