I find it extremely strange that people from India apply to schools like Harvard and get rejected and then decide to settle for IIT branch X, completely oblivious to the fact that many other schools in the US can offer a similar education as that at Harvard. Like, have you seen IIT students use physics textbooks written by professors at obscure colleges like Reed? Not to mention flock to get their autographs?
And I’m pretty sure your point is redundant because I did say it IS rare nationally, but it certainly is NOT unpopular, especially at the level of Harvard, Yale, etc. At this level you would be competing with the best of the best-- and there are SOOOO many of them. Note that even a tiny school like Grinnell attracts over 200 qualified Indian applicants, of which only 10-20 are admitted.
I highly recommend that you take the SAT and then come back here for advice.
Harvey Mudd is better than Harvard, Yale or Princeton for cs. Imho only MIT, Stanford, and CMU offer better opportunities in that field. Considering your purported interest in entrepreneurship, your offhand dismissal of a Mudd-mcKenna degree is puzzling.
Indian applicants are among the most over represented with Chinese and Korean students. In addition, they tend to have the same profile : interest in stem, typically computer science bad engineering , perfect or near - perfect test scores, subject tests exclusively in mathematics and science.
Your achievements are superb but you could very well be shut out. there’s a poster here, ranked under 1000 for JEET and EC’s as impressive as yours. he didn’t get into any of the universities on your list, only UIUC and Georgia Tech.
Harvey Mudd is by no means an easy admit. There was an Indian Comp Sci applicant profiled in the New York Times Choice blog who was admitted to Cornell as a Tata scholar, admitted to CMU, wait listed at Cal Tech, but denied by Mudd.
I’m guessing many of the Indian nationals attending elite prep schools in the US, UK, Europe and Singapore are cognizant of the competition, and have some guidance on how to differentiate themselves from the thousands.
I’d also add UMich , because of the excellent college of engineering and Ross business school . You can major in CS and entrepreneurship. Other excellent schools with relatively high admit rates to consider are UIUC, Purdue, U Waterloo (Canada), U Washington, and U Wisconsin.
Harvard has 22 Indian undergrads. Canada (35 million pop) has 147.
The comments are dead on about the Ivys and country quotas. You should look at alternatives. For instance, members of my family from India attended U Iowa, Berkeley, U Texas, UNC, UMich, U Chicago, Tulane, Columbia etc. They also didn’t follow all follow the “Indian” path - some are lawyers, managers, sailors, architects, artists etc…
@MYOS1634 I’m interested in majoring in CS as well (but I’m American and not Indian/Asian). Can you elaborate further on the strengths of the Mudd program you mentioned? I can understand that it’s better than that of Harvard or Yale but I was under the impression that Princeton had one of the strongest CS programs. Regardless, I’m applying to colleges next year and was interested in adding more strong CS colleges to my list and also to create a more balanced list to maximize my chances of getting into a school I’ll be happy with.
@MYOS1634 I’d also like to know that why Harvey is strong than others.
@arwarw India has such a huge population that even if handful of us attend something in elite schools, it turns out to be ‘many’ attending the elite schools from India.
HarveyMudd is one of the best colleges of engineering in the country AND it’s located in California, a choice location for anything related to CS. With CalTech, it’s the only college in the US that requires calculus to be allowed to apply - in fact, most students have way more than that (and it’s got a math department that caters to kids who are very advanced, 3, 4 o 5 years ahead of their peers.) Its graduates are among the most sought-after in this industry. Their curriculum is super accelerated and they require a strong foundation in humanities, art, and social sciences, making them what Americans call “liberally educated” (rather than only technically educated). In addition, they’re part of a “college” system (think like Corpus Christi, Trinity, etc. at Cambridge) so they have small classes with personal attention and close relationship with professors and classmates, but also the choice of taking classes in other areas of interest on a larger campus of about 7,000 students (with McKenna and Pitzer having the most distinctive academic profiles.)
@MYOS1634 I didn’t know that much about Harvery! And used to think of it like ‘ok-college’. Well, with those words of yours, I’m definitely shortlisting Harvery Mudd.
Someone said in this thread earlier that “US has many great colleges and not just ivies” …and later suggested me to use google. So I’d like to tell that guy that I used google and it didn’t helped much. And this is why I started this thread so that the native people of US can give me a better scenario that how the colleges really are; and now i feel, they’re more great than what ‘google’ said.
So, with that, I’ve shortlisted many colleges and I’m 100% sure to apply in: Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Harvey Mudd, Carnegie Mellon University, California Institute of Technology, University of California: Berkeley.
And I’ve shifted “yale” to my “maybe-list”.
And for safety colleges, I’ve shortlisted 5-7 Indian colleges apart from IITs.
It’s very very hard to get into Harvey Mudd.
What made you think it is “just ok”? Perhaps because it’s not known at your school or in your town.
Another really good CS program can be found at UWisconsin, plus of course UWA (where cs major admission is selective, in addition to admission to the university, plus Honors College since I assume you’d also apply for that.)
You need to buy yourself a Fiske guide or an Insider’s Guide to the colleges, plus and start reading. https://www.hmc.edu/about-hmc/fast-facts/ https://www.hmc.edu/admission/discover/ http://www.cmc.edu/
First off, totally agree with MYOS1634 that Mudd is an excellent choice (and , yes, difficult one to get into). However, I’m not sure why MYOS1634 used the phrase “Mudd-McKenna degree” or included links to both HMC and CMC as though you would be part of both.
Yes, they are both part of the Claremont Consortium. Yes, you can take classes at any of the 5 schools that are part of the Consortium. Yes, all 5 share resources such as library, security, health, lots of clubs and organizations, dining halls, etc. But CMC and HMC are two different schools when it comes to admissions, financial aid, and “fit”. And if you went to HMC you would get a degree at HMC (not CMC). There is an option amongst the schools to get a degree at another school IF your school doesn’t offer that degree. If we are talking CS, then that wouldn’t be the case.
^Because for a student interested in CS with an entrepreneurial bend, finding classes for a concentration hrough the Claremonts but specifically at McKenna, and using the CMC’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship would be ideal. By “Mudd-McKenna degree” I meant a degree with Mudd CS major, infused with McKenna entrepreneurship classes, clubs, and opportunities.
Thanks for clarifying, I hadn’t realized one might think it’s one college - there are 5 colleges in the Claremont (+ 2 graduate colleges) and each handles their own admissions, have their own graduatin requirements, etc.
Ok. That makes sense…CMC is known for business, so classes there would be a good supplement for his interest in being an entrepreneur. Since the OP didn’t appear to know much about Mudd, I wanted to make sure that the distinction was clear. As my name would imply — I’m a great fan of the consortium. I have two kids – a “Scrippsie” and a “Mudder”, and I’ve found that sometimes an explanation is needed when it comes to what is shared and what is unique among the schools.
^Yes, thank you for clarifying, not only for OP (who doesn’t know much about US colleges yet) and for later readers. Since you know Mudd, perhaps OP will have questions for you!
