I want someone to weigh my chances at certain schools I’m looking forward to applying this August!
Ethnicity: Indian
Residency: India
Gender:Male
SAT I: 1560/1600 Essay:6,5,5
SAT II: Math-800 Physics-800 Chem-790
Class Rank-1/60
Field of Interest:-Computer Science and Physics
Co-curriculars in last two years:
Theater(won 1st place at a Shakespeare dramatization),
Mock Parliament(won Best Delegate),
Group Discussion competition(survived till semi-finals:national-level),
numerous debate competitions
and science quiz competitions and inter-school programming competitions.
I also have a certificate for a introdctory college course in Genetics(another field of interest) and have been engaged in online coding platforms like Codefights and Codewars etc.
I have also learnt French in highschool and Japanese from an outside institution for two year and have a certificate of distinction for Level N3(N5 being the lowest and N1 being the highest) and am applying for N2 certification in December.
I do not presently have work experience or volunteer experience outside school organized events.
I have participated in Mathematical Olympiads and am planning to appear for a Physics olympiad this November.
I can speak 4 languages as of now and am hoping to learn Korean in the following years!
I am also familiar with algorithmic programming and am involved in online judge competitions.
Someone rate my chances for these colleges or suggest some others!:
Dream) Harvard,
MIT,
Stanford
Reach)Cornell,
Dartmouth,
WashUSTL,
UC Berkeley
Safe)
UT Austin,
UCSD
honestly dude, you’re boring. Thats gonna be your biggest issue. To Ivy leagues they want super interesting people, and you have to write masterful essays why you are above and beyond the stereotypical Indian CS guy. Your stats are great (im assuming 1/60 means you have close to a 4.0 UW GPA in the states, and so your W GPA would be high as well), but your EC’s are pretty typical/non-extraordinary. Also, with the state of UT Austin heavily favoring in state (for CS less than 15% acceptance rate for out of state, and worse for international students I believe) and UCSD with the whole UC system capping international students now, they are not safeties anymore. I would say you would probably get one “safety” (probably UCSD) and one reach (Cal or WUSTL, most likely WUSTL) but thats it
Oh thanks! I’ll take that into consideration for sure
Can your parents afford to pay $60,000 per year, and are they willing to?
Have you run the NPC on your “safeties”?
If not, then they aren’t really safeties.
DadTwoGirls, most of those schools will cost an international student $75k/year.
You can look up the number of grants awarded to internationals, and the average amounts, in each school’s CDS, section H6. I believe all the private schools on the OP’s list do grant FA to internationals. The average amounts tend to be quite high, $30K-$50K or more in some cases (but look them up for each of these schools to be sure). One can expect the competition for admission among internationals to be very intense. Very high stats may not be enough.
According to its CDS, Berkeley does not grant financial aid to international students.
UT Austin does, but the average grant was only $7,076 according to its 2015 CDS.
UCSD also does, but the average grants (and the number of awards) have been even smaller.
For international students awarded aid, Cornell’s and Stanford’s average awards have been over $50K according to recent CDS reports.
In granting need-based aid, MIT and Harvard apparently treat international students the same as domestic students That is, they apparently are need-blind in admissions and claim to meet 100% of determined need for all enrolled students. Many other private schools, even the so-called “full need” colleges with high average awards to internationals, apparently are not need-blind in international admissions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need-blind_admission
Thanks! I know the competition will be tough. I hope my essay will communicate my mindset!
I looked at your list and at the US News list of national universities, and you have three top 10 schools, four top 20 schools, and two schools in the 40s and 50s that may be difficult to get into for the reasons mentioned above. So you have seven reaches and two schools that are not really safeties.
It’s fine to aim high, but I’d suggest cutting out a few of your top seven, and adding two or three schools that would be in the US News 30s through 50s range and may be strong in science. Schools like Rochester, Georgia Tech, RPI, Lehigh, Illinois-UC, and others. I don’t know which of these would be particularly strong in what you’re interested in, or which ones are more likely to admit international students with high stats, but you can investigate that.
I also don’t know what you can afford. One advantage of state schools is that they might cost more like $55,000 than the $70,000 of a private school. If you need aid, you’ll need to look carefully for which schools have merit-based with your stats, or need-based for international.
And you should probably find at least one real safety that’s a sure thing in admissions and cost.
Good luck!
CMU is the best chance you have for a good CompSci school which doesn’t need good extra curriculars; they look at SAT mainly.
RPI is an excellent school as a second choice for CompSci.