Hi,
I’m an international applying from India. My ED was NYUAD. For the RD choices, I was thinking, why not Ivy? I qualified for college application fee waivers, so thought I should try sending my app into a couple of Ivies. Based on my scores and SAT’s, which Ivies should I apply to ?
Rigor of secondary school record : Extremely rigorous
Academic GPA 4.0UW
Class rank–If your school doesn’t rank give us an idea like top 5% : 2/50
Recommendations: 10/10 for both school teachers, got an essay from the Director of Education at a US university where I attended summer classes 10/10 I hope
Standardized test scores 1960 SAT 1340 CR+M Retaking this Jan
Essays Global outlook, political rifes 9/5/10
Interview-NIL
Extracurricular activities-
->Attended 9 National/International MUN conferences. Won most of them.
->Started the first MUN society in my state.I train students from sixth grade and upwards and help them fund and achieve their conference expenses and requirements
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Hosted and chaired the first school MUN conference in my state zone.
Attended Summer academy in the US (Elon Academy by Elon University, NC (MERIT))
School Captain for 2014-15. Organized two international events. Several national events.
Was in charge of the team in charge of interaction with the President of India.
Took classes and helped in sports management.
Official rep of school football team.
Participated in more than 25 literary events, debates, poetry recitals. Won about 90% of them (National/State/Local)
Led my team in more than 400+hrs of community service over 3 years with affiliation and support from Rotary club international. Undertook a string of ‘firsts’, from tribal aid to innovative initiatives.
12 documented and published new community service initiatives
Won award from Rotary intl for exemplary service (Rotary Youth Leadership Award)
Published papers in National science congress
Best science student of my school
Gold medal winner from Indian Space Research organization for original research paper on space science(published)(One of the youngest recipients)
Published several articles, poetic pieces and news reports in national daily newspapers
Recognized by the HRD minister of India for perfect scores in high school junior year (documented)
Presented research papers at an Indian national science congress on automobile engineering, applied mathematics, civil engineering and biology.
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Volunteer work : 450+ hours over 3 years and 14 projects. Rotary grant and financial support. Rotary youth leadership award for community service.
Work experience: N/A
First generation college student No
Level of Applicant’s Interest-- I’ve been contacted by these schools. DOes that mean anything?
Financial Aid – Income bracket <35000
If institutional financial aid is available for undergraduate degree-seeking nonresident aliens, provide the number of undergraduate degree-seeking nonresident aliens who were awarded need-based or non-need-based aid: 102
(There are about 3600 NRA undergraduate students at NYU.)
Average dollar amount of institutional financial aid awarded to undergraduate degree-seeking nonresident aliens: $7,820
You talk about “applying to a few Ivies.” Stats and EC’s aside (EC’s are great, GPA competitive, stats low - I don’t think we can tell you anything you don’t already know) - you should be thinking about the “Ivies” and other schools that are the best FIT for you, not the most prestigious. All 8 Ivy leagues offer very different experiences and there’s no guarantee they’re all somewhere you would want to live for the next 4 years.
Start with something like location. If you like nature and don’t mind being in the middle of nowhere, think Dartmouth or Cornell. If you want a more suburban small-city experience, think Brown or Princeton. And if you want to be in the middle of a city, think Yale, Harvard, Penn or Columbia.
What other characteristics are you looking for in a school? Do you want small (Dartmouth), medium (all Ivies besides Penn/Cornell), or large (Penn & Cornell)? Do you want heavy core curriculum (Columbia) or none at all (Brown)? A good greek scene (Penn, Cornell, Dartmouth) or something else to replace greek life (residential colleges @ Yale, eating clubs @ Princeton)?
So to answer your earlier question for what Ivies you have a chance at, I think it’s more important for you to think about which ones you truly want to go to. Then come back and ask CC about your chances at those. You can even start looking at other top schools in the USA besides Ivies to match the criteria you come up with - there are lots of academically rigorous American places that are not as hard to get into as Ivies yet can offer just as good of an experience. Good luck, you’re going to go somewhere great!
Thank you @ffina23. That kind of comparison is exactly what I wanted. I’ve undergone summer academy at NC and I’ve visited most colleges in NC, DC and MA. Amongst those, location and size didn’t seem to be much of a determining factor, but rather the curriculum matters more to me.
I’m thinking of going ahead with Brown because they have a very flexible and open curriculum (as far as I’ve heard). I’m also looking at a couple of test optional schools with decent merit aid. Any thoughts on that ?
Chance back done
@NickFlynn Thanks for the input. My primary choice is NYUAD and I’ve applied ED1 with them. What do you think about the rest of my application?
My other colleges are :
Wake Forest (Applied, visited, summer academy)
American University
Bates
Bowdoin
SLC
Trinity
Are there any good test optional colleges other than these which I can apply for ? I need aid, merit or otherwise, so what do you suggest? Thanks
Wake Forest doesn’t give need-based aid to international students. (And, you are not going to be a viable candidate for merit aid at that school.)
I wish I had a good answer for you off the top of my head, but I really don’t. You need to look at the Common Data Sets for the schools you are interested in - the responses to the H6 set of questions will tell you what aid is available for international students. Given your family income and your good-but-not-great stats, you are going to require substantial need-based aid to cover the costs.
@NickFlynn I don’t qualify for merit aid at WFU? Oh, I know it’s quite selective but then again I’ve got a reccomender who used to teach at WFU and taught me as well. In addition, I thought my leadership and community service could help.
Well too bad then
If you look at the CDS, it is divided into sections - Section H is the one about financial aid, and the questions under subsection 6 are about international students.
Google " Common Data Set" - most of them are PDFs, a minority are either web based or spreadsheets.
Half my team in Silicon Valley is Indian, and half is chinese. Everyone has a masters degree they achieved in the us, and a bs they achieved in their home countries. Their masters were paid for by the schools. My suggestion to you would be to do the same. Your chances of getting enough financial aid for a bs are low. International applicants are really strong with wealthy parents. Good luck, but why not go to school in India, then come over for a masters.
