Demographics: International student
State/Location of residency: Thailand
Type of high school : International school
Gender/Race/Ethnicity Male, Asian, Thai
Other special factors: None
Intended Major(s): Computer science
My school doesn’t offer very many AP classes and there are no honors classes either since it’s so small, so my coursework and weighted GPA isn’t particularly impressive, but I take the most rigorous classes available.
Awards
Judge’s choice award for an independent AI research program. 4 out of 45 participants selected from 800 applicants. (I can give you link to medium article documenting the project if you want)
Won 1st place with 50000thb prize at a national level hackathon
Won 2nd place at an international level hackathon
NASA Space app 2020 Thailand Global Nominee
World Robot Games AI Self Driving car Gold Award
Online International Math Challenge Gold Award(
Extracurriculars
Paid full time summer internship leading development of AI applications at a startup company.
10 week independent AI research program
Paid JP to EN Manga translations, and the Japanese study that came before it.
Summer internship with a university. Developed an NLP chatbot for their website.
Co-founded an initiative in collaboration with a government agency to give supplemental English lessons to a small government school.
Teaching STEM robotics to government schools in a student-led organization.
School morning radio host and DJ for a year
Online courses: CS50AI, Codestars C++, Pierian data python, Pierian data machine learning, Andrew Ng Deep Learning Specialization
Currently making a document query webapp (in progress rn)
BJJ as a hobby.
Essays/LORs/Other
Common App essay about the philosophy of BJJ and how getting my ass kicked by higher belts changed my perspective on failure as a path to learning in a light and self-aware tone.
Congratulations on all of your accomplishments in high school so far. I think that you have a chance for admission to any college in the U.S. There’s no telling whether you will receive acceptances, but it is certainly quite possible.
Are you looking for merit-based aid on need-based financial aid? With respect to need-based financial aid, approximately how much would you need? Many schools that say they meet 100% of need are need-aware, meaning that a good applicant that only needs $20k/year might be selected over a stronger applicant that needs $50k/year, so that would affect the chancing you might receive. Additionally, some schools have different levels of aid (merit or need-based) from international students than they do for US students. If you could let us know your approximate budget, that would be helpful.
Hi, thanks for replying. I’m looking for about $30k in costs after aid/scholarships, but I’m mainly looking for need-based aid right now as merit scholarships look pretty difficult considering how stiff the international compeitition is.
I believe your costs would be less than $30,000 a year at University of Alabama, University of Arizona, Arizona State, University of New Mexico…which all offer guaranteed merit aid based on stats (and yours are quite good). IIRC, all of these schools offer CS.
If your family qualifies for need based aid, there are some colleges here that do meet full need for all international students AND are need blind for admissions. They are:
I doubt I’m competitive for Ivy level schools at the moment, so right now, I’m looking into good LACs such WUSTL. Are there more choices known to be especially generous for international students? Also, how are my chances looking?
I agree with @AustenNut. You are a strong applicant. WRT the very elite colleges, they are a reach for everyone applying, but you can’t get accepted if you don’t apply. Is there one of the schools (in addition to Bowdoin) in the list I put above that is of interest to you? What about the other colleges I listed where I do believe the costs will be affordable for you.
Actually, Princeton looks pretty interesting to me right now, especially since they offer EA and I’m going to trying for full scholarships at schools outside US. Any specific things they look for in applicants so perhaps I can use these few months to improve my profile slightly?
At first, I was really intimidated looking at the guys on reddit with every olympiad under their belt or multiple papers published lol
Princeton has single choice early action. Not regular early action. There are some restrictions so understand those:
Princeton University’s single-choice early action program is a nonbinding process. You may not apply to an early program at any other private college or university. However, please note the following: You may apply early to any public institution or service academy, as long as the decision is nonbinding.
By category, WUStL places with schools in the Ivy League. Examples of traditional LACs include colleges such as Williams, Amherst, Hamilton, Wesleyan University, Swarthmore, Haverford, Vassar, Skidmore and Washington and Lee. If you would like to consider LACs, then you may want to research schools from this latter group for potential additions to your list.
I am unsure, as I think some of those schools may have different levels of scholarships for international students than for domestic students. But those would definitely be good contenders.