Indian student, need FA, interested in math; will my grades kill me?

College Search & Selection
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I’m a 12th-grader attending a school in Kolkata (top-15 or so nationally in almost every ranking you can find, which admittedly doesn’t mean much anyway, but it might clear up some the next part). I want to study math abroad, basically anywhere that can let me take advanced courses as an undergrad. (Advanced = grad-level, like the 700-level courses I see on the MIT OCW website.)

I’d highly appreciate any answers to a few questions.

My grades are pretty low. ~85% in 9th grade, 95.8% on the ICSE (10th grade public exams), and a 79.6% in 11th grade, which is most probably a deal-breaker for most people. It probably bears saying, though, that I came third in my class, where the guy who came first scored 2% more. Our exams are ridiculously rigorous, and these numbers are what teachers say they see every year. My teachers expect a >97% in the ISC. (12th grade exams). (We don’t have a guidance counselor, sadly.)

  1. Am I done for?

I haven’t taken the SAT / ACT yet. I planned to take the SAT in June, but I registered too late and all the test centers were completely booked. (Because of the new SAT, half the test centers actually decided not to host the tests until September for some reason.) So I can’t take either till September. I plan to take one of the two, plus either SAT IIs or APs.

  1. Should I take the ACT instead of the SAT? I've noticed a sudden trend among the batch of students a year older than me to sit for the ACT instead of the SAT, apparently because it's "easier".
  2. Should I take APs? I'd look at Calc BC and Physics C (the E&M one), if that helps. I believe AP exams are harder than the SAT subject tests, so do they count for more?

Lastly, I’d appreciate a few college recommendations. If it helps, I’m a prolific (?) quizzer (30 or so awards won for my school, including a few nationally) and develop in my spare time, which includes an in-house file backup system I’m developing for my school (I have a pretty extensive GitHub profile, although there’s not much special on there aside from a graphical assembly language emulator and some Haskell/Rust work which is sorta-unusual).

My main focus is math, however. I study late-undergrad and early grad-level math on my own, with guidance from a professor. I was invited to HCSSiM last year but couldn’t attend because the financial aid wasn’t sufficient.
I’m attending Canada/USA Mathcamp this year (one of two from India, please don’t ID me if you happen to know me!) on a full ride, including a travel allowance. (It’s not need-blind for internationals, if that counts.)

  1. Could you tell me about a few colleges, not necessarily in the US (but I suspect it'll come down to that) with a strong math program that I have a reasonable chance of getting into, considering that I'll need financial aid?

[I’ve posted here before under a different name, so if you remember the thread I posted in, it’d be great if you didn’t directly link to it.]

2

Bump.

3

You’d qualify for admission to many American colleges, but probably would have a hard time finding adequate financial aid at a school with the courses you want. How much aid do you need?

The schools with the most generous FA for international students tend to be highly selective. Many of them are small liberal arts colleges that lack a wide variety of very advanced math courses. The richest most selective universities (the ones with the best aid) generally expect more than good test scores. Since you haven’t taken the SAT/ACT yet, it’s that much harder to assess your chances.

Consider New Mexico Tech. It’s a good STEM school where you probably could get in. It offered institutional non-need-based scholarship or grant aid to only 3 degree-seeking international students last year, averaging $12,104 per student. Would that be enough?

Some of the following schools make big merit scholarships available to qualified international students:
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
Not all of them will offer a rich variety of very advanced math courses, though.

4

[QUOTE=""]

Since you haven’t taken the SAT/ACT yet
I’m going to, in September. Would good scores make up for the poor grades in 9th and 11th grade, if only partially?

Would that be enough?
I don’t think so. I’ll probably need a full ride wherever I go, or at least something close.

[/QUOTE]

Do you have any advice about what tests I should take?

5

I doubt it will make much difference whether you take the SAT or the ACT.
The convenience of the testing location and date may be as good a basis as any to pick one or the other.

Good scores can’t hurt. If your grades are considered the equivalent of a cumulative 3.0 GPA in the American system, then you might have a shot at a full ride scholarship at Louisiana Tech. Have a look at that school’s math course selection to see if it would meet your needs.

To qualify for a full ride merit scholarship at most other schools that offer them (http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/), and that offer many advanced math classes, you’d probably need the equivalent of at least a 3.5 GPA in the American grading system.