Indian Guy in Math/CS, excellent stats; bad ECAs

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Demographics
Indian student
Private High School (Ranked 2nd in the country)
Religious Minority but it doesn’t affect American Unis according to me
No other hooks

Intended Major(s)
Computer Science, Mathematics (ideally both)
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: N/A
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): N/A
  • College GPA (for transfers):N/A
  • Class Rank: 1
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 36/36

Coursework
(AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes, AP/IB scores for high school; also include level of math and foreign language reached and any unusual academic electives; for transfers, describe your college courses and preparation for your intended major(s))

→ ICSE(the curriculum I studied till 10th grade) 99.2% aggregate with rank-4 out of 200k students [Rank 2 at my school]
Full scores in English literature, Hindi, Geography, Biology and CS
I’ve also stood 1st/2nd in my grade (130 students) constantly
->IB Score: 45/45
->Special Features: All rigorous subjects with 4 HLs-MAA HL, Economics HL, Physics HL, Computer Science IA

->2 SAT 2s: Math II and Chemistry (800/800)
->3 APs: English Language, Statistics, CS A (all 5s)
[All self-taught]

Awards
->AMC 12 : Missed cutoff by 0.5 marks, this year it will happen in November and I’m sure I’ll
crack it this time
->CEMC :
Euclid, Hypatia, Fermat: Distinction with intl. honor roll
->SASMO: qualified for SIMOC with All India Rank 15
->Ongoing Research with the 1st-ranked Indian University for STEM
->One Research Item published in the IOSR Journal of Economics and Finance

Extracurriculars

→ Internship at a startup under a Stanford Alum (who has already built and successfully sold 1 company); here I’m working on front-end development, SEO, content and a bit of automation (for e.g. I recently made an algorithm which reads the customer pincode and generates area and state name[something they were doing manually for 1000s of names])
→ Project TweetBot: It livestreams tweets and detects suicidal tweets (It was adopted by 2 mental health institutions in my city and the Govt. of my state has also implemented it)
→ President of Financial Literacy club where we have and continue to hold biweekly sessions with lower grades explaining different modules in each session. Post the summer break we intend to bring on guests.
→ Best Delegate of a local MUN [UNSC], then Chair and Sec. Gen at the same MUN; Honorable Mention at a National MUN; Co-chair at another National MUN; participant in other National MUNS
→ I’m also doing multivariable calculus and Fourier/Laplace in my EE and IA
→ 5th and 4th prize at local robotics competitions (around 175 participants) [at 3 competitions]
→ Won (as a team of 3) at Infinity 2020-An international math competition, wherein 140 teams( 3 members each) from all over India and the world participated. It consisted of 2 rounds which eliminated about 2/3rds of all participants. The final round consisted of 3 teams and was conducted by Dr. James Tanton, of the MAA.
→ Completed 5 grades of the Trinity Guildhall Examination (London) for Speech and Drama with Distinction (since people might recognize it; it’s relatively prestigious)
->Member of the 6-member editorial club at my school
->I’m building a desktop application (right from scratch for my IB CS IA to track investments and some more trading related stuff, it should be quite good since it’s graded)
→ Semi-finalist among 50 students at a local hackathon
→ Certifications:

  • Core+Advanced Python
  • Robotics with Embedded C
  • Mechanics for Robotics
  • Electric Circuitry for Robotics
  • Core+Advanced Java
  • Java GUI with Swing
  • Python Certification, Python Institute [Tentative]

→ I’ve volunteered 150 hours with Code for India
->I’ve prepared study material for rural kids in Hindi (a language I’ve been pursuing for 15 years now, even in the IB)-for this I received an award of best volunteer out of 150 candidates
→ I don’t know if this is relevant but I speak 3 languages -English, Hindi and a regional language
->I’ve had a 1.5 year long stint with a NGO working to provide a stable and enjoyable childhood for underprivileged kids by providing them with toys (check it out- Toybank) where I worked on the content and communication
→ I’m also current pursuing a project teaching my apartment watchman’s son for his final exams (right now there is predicted to be a 10% increase in his result from last year)
→ Received the Bronze Medal in the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition
→ Was awarded the ‘A’ grade by the Government of my State for a state-level art contest
→ I also have about 30k views on my Quora answers regarding study tips
→ I can code Java, Swing, Python, Embedded C (all with SQL and SQLlite connectivity)

(I’ve not added the following- courses and small scale competitions (around 30 participants))
Essays/LORs/Other
->Essays: My school has a brilliant essay guide who works with every student individually that coupled with my above average/good story-telling and English skills should definitely land me decent essays
→ LOR: My school has 3 subject teachers of your choice write you a letter, I have a brilliant rapport with all 3 (CS, Math and English)
→ I’ll get 1 LOR from my counselor
[All of the people mentioned above have a genuine and extremely beautiful relationship with me+ they’ve been writing letters for years now]
→ I’ll also get 1 letter from the Stanford Alum who is a friend of my father’s, so there will be no communication gap
→ Once again, I’m not sure how relevant this is: I’ve struggled with my weight and extreme obesity all my life and in these last 8 months I’ve manage to lose 15 kilograms to end up at a ‘normal’ weight

Cost Constraints / Budget
Fortunately, there are no monetary restrictions (provided that I get into a top program)

Schools
Not adding any for now, hopefully experienced/helpful people will give me some names. To that end, I thank all of you in advance for investing your valuable time in helping out a stranger

  • Safety
  • Likely
  • Match
  • Reach
2

I find extracurricular activities difficult to evaluate. It looks to me as if you have done what you wanted to do and done it well. IMHO this is exactly the correct approach to ECs.

There are almost too many universities to know what to suggest. If you can tell us more about what you are looking for that might help to narrow things down.

The top universities in the US such as MIT and Stanford are of course reaches. Being an international student from India will not help your chances.

However you are competitive for any university. I think that it is worth sending in a couple of applications to top schools. If you get accepted then MIT has a “Math with computer science” major (18C) which would be worth looking at (I would have majored in this if they had it when I was there). Of course you can study a similar set of courses at a very wide range of universities.

I think that you should very seriously consider applying to some of the top universities in Canada. Waterloo would be an obvious choice. Toronto, McGill, and UBC are also ones to consider. There are many others of course. These might be matches (?). They have been getting more competitive for international students in recent years. However you are a very strong candidate and admissions in Canada is largely stats based which should help you.

My guess is that you should look for safeties in your own country. However, somewhere such as U.Mass Amherst is quite good and something that you could consider.

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Thanks a lot. I think I will add the following point:
I don’t mind declaring alternative majors and shifting after 1 semester. I do not intend to apply to Canada due to a few experiences I’m aware of and the general sentiment of my advisors.

4

Also I understand that MIT, Stanford, Caltech are definitely out of reach (I’m very realistic that way). However the following unis also have brilliant programs which I may have the tiniest shot at (so in no way am I saying that these unis are better/worse ; just based on my research I feel I may have 0.000001% chance of getting in especially if I do ED/EA):
Cornell, CMU, UCB
(maybe Brown)

5

If there is no monetary restriction, have you thought about the Maths/CS program at Oxford? My son just completed his four years there reading that and loved it.

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Maybe ED to Cornell. You can also EA to UMichigan and Georgia Tech at the same time, and other top public universities. Both Cornell and UMich are in locations with very cold winters. Since financial need is not an issue, you have a lot of options for matches for CS: Univ of Maryland, UMass -Amherst (already mentioned), UIUC, Univ of Wisconsin- Madison . CS majors are impacted at all top universities, so it is more competitive than the general admission rate. And EA is a must for all these state schools, for CS.

This Non-STEM EC stood out to me: I’ve prepared study material for rural kids in Hindi (a language I’ve been pursuing for 15 years now, even in the IB)-for this I received an award of best volunteer out of 150 candidates
If Hindi is not your native language, this could be a good thing to emphasize in your essays . Many college applications have supplemental essays about community. You could also weave it into your common app essay. You mention you are in a religious minority - while I don’t think it has any effect on admissions per se, it may help in crafting your common app essay - one of the prompts is about identity - ask the essay guru at your school . I am just looking at stuff that would distinguish you from the other tons of privileged, top scoring Indian applicants, all wanting to study CS at a reach school in the US.

Since you attend a very elite high school in India, you should have some past data about where others were accepted .

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Ma’am that was the exact reply I was waiting for. Yes, in fact the past 6 months I was focusing on OxBridge and finally settled at Oxford as I wanted to dual major. I’ve been doing MAT prep for a while now. I feel I have a much greater chance there than at most US unis. And because I knew that the US process was not a best fit for me I was initially thinking of not applying to the US. My plan was to get a good job post b-school. For that any top Uni would suffice. However, in the past 6 months I have a newfound ambition to explore starting up (unlike most ppl I was not inspired by movies/TV series I thought about it for 2 months and concluded I could afford to invest 4-5 years of my life in it, w/o long term impact). And in that regard i.e. exploring new avenues the US ranks higher than the UK. In fact it costs lesser than an American degree

8

What do you feel about emphasizing on my teaching of my apartment watchman’s son (Kamal is his name)? There I have tangible progress and I’ve played with the guy and hung out with him since I was like 7 so it is quite an emotional bond.

9

Not sure - it comes off to me as “rich Indian guy trying to look sensitive to the needs of the poor” sort of thing. But I am biased - I spent part of my childhood in a very privileged household in India before immigrating into the US with my parents eons ago. Not sure an admissions officer would be swayed by it either, albeit for other reasons. But, ask your essay person. Who knows - maybe it might work.

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While I’m certainly privileged (I mean I’m paying full fees) it’s a considerable part of our family’s net worth
I grew up middle class hence not many ECAs (cause as a family we never thought we could’ve afforded this )
And I live in Central Mumbai in a 4 story building so not exactly the guy you’re imagining
this expenditure is quite significant to us ( hence full fees only for top programs)

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Ok. I understand. However, an adcom reading that will assume something along the lines that I did. And they dont have time to parse where you stand in the wealth totem pole. Even in the US, very few can afford to pay full tuition. You may be able to weave the story as part of some bigger picture, but I dont know. The essays are all about creating an impression, and you dont want to reinforce someone’s biases.

Btw, you dont need extraordinary or expensive EC’s but you need to show long term commitment to a few activitie, which I think you have.

12

They are reaches. I am not sure that I would understand why they are out of reach.

For example:
“Private High School (Ranked 2nd in the country)”
“Class Rank: 1”
“Ongoing Research”
“One Research Item published”

I would not count on getting accepted to MIT or Stanford. If you get accepted understand they are going to be a lot of work, and you will suddenly be average the day that you arrive on campus.

However, the students at MIT and Stanford are just normal (although very smart and accomplished) people. They have faults. They put on their pants one leg at a time. I think that you are a competitive applicant at any university.

13

I think I forgot to mention a few crucial details. Thanks to the people who replied for making me realize this.
→ I’ve been pursuing Speech and Drama for 8 years straight
->All 3 of my languages are birth fluency
->rank 4 in 200,000 students is considered quite prestigious as the curriculum is considered the most rigorous in the country till the 10th grade
->I’ve been pursuing robotics and programming for 6 years now but I had to leave robotics briefly due
to a very specific skin condition

14

Is living permanently in the US your goal?
Since you stated that your parents are willing to pay for a top school (using 3/4 of their annual income) how are you going to start up a company with no funds?
Living in the US is expensive; investing in start ups requires huge amounts of money, time and patience (with US licensing hurdles).

Staying in the US (beyond a short period for OPT) is essentially not an option for an international student -even in engineering or CS- because to hire you a company has to make the case that they cannot find any US citizens/legal residents to do the job, which is expensive and time-consuming.

If you don’t get into a university in the United States, Canada may be your only option since:
-You are from India, an over-represented country.
-You are only applying to the same U.S. schools that all the other thousands of Indian students feel are their only options.
-You are applying for a STEM major that is extremely competitive. Some schools do not allow you to just switch into the major after a semester or year in another major because the majors are impacted (not enough seats for all the students who want to study various STEMs, e.g.-CS, engineering, or physics). Say you get into an alternate major. Some schools will not even allow you to register for required freshman courses in the major you want.

Dismissing Canada, on hearsay, will be a mistake.

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I intend to return to India post my Undergrad for an MBA
I stated a significant amount not 3/4 or anything
Rest assured that I’ve taken into account all those factors into account
The idea is not to start up in the US the idea is to absorb mew stuff apart from your major while studying

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Take a look at UChicago. They have a great math program. Also they have ED2. In case you don’t get into your top choice ED1, you can apply in the 2nd ED round. You can also apply EA to Chicago and convert to ED2 in case you don’t get in during EA.

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