Demographics (location, residency, HS type, legacy, US or Int’l, gender, etc)
-Asian male - born and live in London,UK
-Attend an underperforming school, I get reduced offers at some top UK universities due to attending a well below average school (I dont know if anyone from here has ever applied to US universities)
Intended Major(s)
Maths,Economics or Computer Science
UW GPA, Rank, and Test Scores (also weighted GPA for systems like UC/CSU)
GCSEs: These happened during covid, so were teacher predicted grads(not too accurate)
-Mathematics 8
-Biology 8
-Chemistry 8
-Physics 7
-History 7
-English literature 7
-Computer Science 6
-English language 6
-French 5
Never taken the SAT, however I’ve looked at some past papers and think I’d be able to get 1550+
My school does not rank.
Awards
One of the runner ups in very prestigious UK economics competition.
Extracurriculars (incl. summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)
-Was selected to intern at PwC as part of their program for students from “disadvantaged” backgrounds
-Self taught myself python and coded an algorithmic trading bot using amazon web services and neural networks
-Coded a python program that uses machine learning to predict the probability of a overtake happening in an F1 race
-Read “the man who solved the stock market” & “more money than god”
-Love hiking; completed the most challenging level of hiking in uk hiking organisation
-Love runnning; can run a 10k in around 40mins
-Spent several years volunteering at local library and charity shop(1hr per week)
-My school didnt really offer any clubs
Essays/LORs/Other
-Never written a US style college letter
-I think my LORs will be very good
Cost Constraints / Budget
-Need a full ride
Schools including Safety, Match, Reach (include ED/EA when applicable)
-Not sure, but these are the things I would want:
-In an area where there are actually things to do
-Has a good campus culture
-I dont mind working hard as long as there is a good social/party life as well, basically work hard play hard
International = v v tough (roughly 8-12% of accepted students will be international, so do the math wrt overall acceptance rates)
Need full ride = v v v tough, esp for international- there are very few schools that promise to “meet full need” for international students, and they tend to be the most selective schools
IOW, there is no such thing as a ‘safety’ or probably even a ‘match’ for you (maybe Colgate? but it is not exactly ‘an area where there are actually things to do’ ). Assume that everything is a reach.
Your predictions are excellent (interesting that you went from a 6 in CompSci at GCSE to an A*)- and should get you into top UK schools (Oxbridge & Imperial, being the most unknowable, b/c of entry tests and/or interviews), which are affordable. With such great options at home, and the high odds against you as an international student who is looking for a US university to gift them ~ $350,000 of an education I suggest you think pretty hard about what you want from a US university (besides ‘I want to get out of here’!). US universities will want to know why you want to go to their university, and a compelling story is particularly important for an international student.
There are seven unis that are need blind and meet full need:
That means that admissions won’t know that you need aid until after they decide whether or not to make an offer.
There are many more unis that will meet your full need IF they decide to accept you.
In general, ‘public’ universities (typically, but not always “University of” -UPenn being the most famous exception- or “…State University” do NOT give good financial aid to anybody who is not a resident of that state (so all the University of California campuses are out for you).
ps, saying “I don’t mind working hard” when asking about getting a free college education doesn’t scan well!
For the gcse at trade 6, it was basically a lottery, we didn’t have a proper teacher, (that’s why I taught myself python) so there wasn’t really anyone to predict my grades.
As for the work hard part,I think I just phrased it wrong, what I mean to say is that I want to work hard and learn, but at the same time I want to work hard with a good group of friends if that makes any sense lol
One thing I really like about us schools is that in the first year, you can take classes in whatever you want, and then choose in the 2nd year, whereas in the uk it’s much more rigid.
I am definitely thinking that everything is a reach after I looked at acceptance rates and previous applicants😭, but I don’t really lose anything by applying
Thanks for the reply
The Scottish universities are more flexible than the English ones (but are 4 years, not the usual 3).
Your predictions are strong enough for you to consider some of the reach schools that would be affordable and worth the difference- but you need to do some hard thinking about which and why.
Start with what you want from your uni degree: what kind of path do you see for yourself after uni, and what sort of uni will help you best to get started on it?
Try looking at a sample of unis known for good aid to international students. As examples Colgate, Haverford, Skidmore, Washington & Lee, Wesleyan and Wellesley (if you are female) on the LAC end, and Columbia, Cornell & Duke on the large uni end. They are all very strong academically, and range from medium to extreme selectivity- and they are also very, very different unis, in terms of size, campus culture, location, vibe, etc. For example, based on your post, I would guess that for you, Duke > Columbia- but maybe you may see the Columbia ‘Core’ as exactly what you want from uni- who knows? So, take some time to figure it out. The better the fit between you and the uni(s) you apply to the better the (still terrible!) odds of a positive outcome.
Finally, remember that US colleges/universities are campus-centric in a very different way than most UK unis. Most people live on/adjacent to campus, and even unis that appear to be in the back of beyond typically have a lot happening both on and off campus.
There are only a handful of US colleges which are need blind to internationals (Harvard, Yale, Princeton and maybe a few others). But the rest are need-aware, which means they take into account your financial need when deciding admission.
Although you come from an under-performing school, being Asian male doesn’t help. There are plenty of full pay international asians. So the chances of you finding a college that provides full financial aid in the US is going to be low.
You could try applying early to one of the need blind universities, but their admission rates are all incredibly low. Having spectacular ECs will certainly help, but it is very late in the game to start now. Having 3 predicted A levels of A* is quite impressive, so that should get some attention.
