Ivy League and other Top Colleges Chances. [INTERNATIONAL STUDENT]

There are HUNDREDS of American universities where this is the case AND you have a chance of getting admitted into. Don’t just focus on the very small handful that you can’t get into.

@soze But with better ACT scores and a good essay i have the same chances as everyone else trying don’t I? And because i’m Indian i need good financial aid and only the best of the colleges offer financial aid that will fund me enough and I’ve also slowly fallen in love with Cornell ,So I don’t think i can let Big Red go xD

If by everyone else, you mean the total applicant pool, then no because it’s a much, much higher bar for international applicants.

Why don’t you try for something like this? (NB: If you look at the stats for this program, over the past 50 years, students from India represent the largest single delegation).

http://www.brandeis.edu/isso/alumni/wien/
(full-ride, if you qualify, which is a big, big “if”).

Depends on what you mean by “best.” You’re focusing on 0.1% of American universities and the handful that you’re focusing on are going to be unobtainable for you.

Frankly unless there is something ultra-specific about the Cornell program that you require, whatever it is that you “love” about Cornell likely would apply to many other schools. You just need to do your homework and research them.

bump

This is going to make competition even more fierce for you. Internationals who can be full pay have an advatage over those who need financial aid.

@austinmshauri How so? Arent most of the colleges need-blind?

No, only 6 schools in the US are need blind to internationals.
Harvard, Yale, Amherst, Dartmouth, Princeton, MIT.

All other schools in the US like Cornell, Vanderbilt, Rice, Brown are need aware

And the OP is not a viable candidate for these.

@soze other than my ACT scores what limits me from being a viable candidate? where can I improve?

@nikshep: The fact that you keep dwelling on these handful of schools indicates to me a few things:

  1. You really don’t understand how the holistic admissions process at most American universities works.
  2. You don’t understand how competitive these schools are for domestic applicants let alone international applications. By way of comparison if you were an American applicant with a 4.0 (perfect) GPA and a 36 ACT, you would still be a long-shot for these schools.
  3. Are you literally one of the ten best students in all of India? Are you even in the top hundred? Top thousand? I suspect the answer is no to all of these and there is nothing you can do to improve this situation.
  4. There are dozens and dozens of other opportunities for study in the US that you can pursue. For example did you look into this as I suggested? http://www.brandeis.edu/isso/alumni/wien/
  5. Dwelling on this very minute handful of schools is counter-productive – no reasonable domestic applicant does this.