Match me safeties, target, reach

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics – Asian (Indian), Male
SAT - 1480 (680 reading, I am giving one in august)
IB marks- 40/42 predicted 43,44/45 7 In physics, chemistry and math AA Hl and 7 in eco and Spanish
Extracurriculars-
a) Played tennis at district level
b) Part of a poetry club
c) Attempted IMUN twice got best delegate in both
d) Internships-

  1. An internship with a Singapore based company to learn more about bringing 3d printing in India and further more implementing it in our school
  2. An internship with a transport company, basically insights and helping in building their websites and stuff
  3. A half-completed project of building a website for women menstruation and sanitation problems (lack of fund) will continue tho…
  4. A social venture in encouraging people to get vaccinated in a particular state
  5. A career internship with a company based in Singapore
    e) Worked at an entrepreneurship hub (business incubator) and volunteered
    f) Voluntary
  6. Formed a club with friends where we help others almost every month (orphanages, animal shelter…)
  7. Part of red cross
    g) Teaching English to underprivileged girls in Uganda
    h) Awards and Honours-
  8. Awarded by the president and the prime minister of India in the field of academics for representing India in various Olympiads
  9. IJSO Finalist- Covid happened so couldn’t go to berlin
  10. 10-15 other certificates
    Letters of Rec. 1 - Physics teacher from IB (It will be definitely strong cause I have completed the course a lot earlier and I have also did a bit or research and experiments with him
    Letters of Rec 2- Not finalized (From the entrepreneurship cell or from the coordinator)
    Dream School-Princeton or mit is it even possible ???
    Major- Mechanical and aerospace engineering, Data Science, Statistics
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if possible also tell me what could i do to improve my chances

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It sounds like you are an international applicant applying from India? Can you confirm?

Which ones specifically, and did you win at the competitions? Or is the award only for participation/representation?

Most schools will ask for 2 LoRs from teachers. You need to identify a 2nd teacher who will write you a strong LoR, possibly a humanities/social science teacher since you already have one from a science teacher.

Maybe, but highly unlikely for the vast majority of applicants.

Before we can suggest any safeties, targets and other reaches: what is your budget? How much are you comfortably able to pay?

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yes india
and the letter of recommendation will be strong it will be from either the maths/economics teacher
Singapore asian math olympiad- won 2 times for india gold medal it was held in singapore
ijso- junior science olympiad top 30 there was no further exam no thanks to covid so we were technicallly the winners and i scored the highest in the first round also,
besides that there are like more than 100 olympiads(regional, national, international) and the award was based on quantity so yeah…
Payment-financial aid definitely i mean hoping for a full ride but can pay upto maximum around 20,000 dollars a year

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i am thinking of applying single choice early action in princeton

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As an international student who needs substantial financial aid, there are no safeties or targets for you in the USA. To begin with, you would only be able to afford a college which is either full-need-met for international students, or has a lot of financial aid for international students.

Of the full-need-met colleges, only 7 are need-blind for international students, and these have extremely low acceptance rates, and you are applying from a region from which these colleges get a large number of applications.

So, for the need-blind colleges (which include Princeton and MIT) acceptance rates from India for unhooked applicants like you is only around 1%. That means that you would have to be in the top 1% of all the applicants, and applicants from India for these colleges are in the higher levels of achievement, relative to other students from India.

So it would be very challenging. for these colleges.

For the 100+ full-need met colleges which are not need-blind for international students, you would need to be substantially better than applicants who can afford to pay all or most of the cost of attendance.

So admission to these colleges would be very challenging, as well.

As for merit aid, most of these scholarships, at least the ones that pay for enough that it would be affordable for you, are public universities, meaning that the money is rarely available for international students.

I would recommend that you do a search for colleges which provide good financial aid an merit aid for international students, and see which provide enough, and at which, your profile would place you in the top top percentiles of admitted students. It is not enough to be “above average”, if you want them to pay lots of money for you to attend, you need to be in the top 5% or better.

All will still be reches, but far more in your reach than Princeton or MIT.

What is your unweighted GPA from 4.0?

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4 unweighted gpa

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class rank 1

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also can u define unhooked applicants for me and gosh do i even have a chance

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Unhooked means that none of the following apply to you:

  1. a parent graduated from that school
  2. a parent teaches at that school
  3. you are African-American or Hispanic
  4. you are a recruited athlete
  5. you are royalty
  6. you are a household name
  7. your parent or grandparent donated $10M+ USD to the school
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yup mine

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one more:

  • you’re the first in your family to go to college

And lesser hooks that provide some boost at some colleges:

  • you come from a US state or country that typically does not send students to that college
  • you have low socioeconomic status

Note: most hooks really only apply to American applicants. International applicants are typically all in one pool (except perhaps those providing geographic diversity)

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Is that your real name? If so, change it to something not identifiable.

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i do have low socioeconomic status parents widowed and no active source of income

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Unfortunately, as I said these considerations apply to US applicants. You are applying as an international student requiring aid.

Given what you said in the post above, won’t this create financial distress for your family?

—————

If you want to give MIT and Princeton a shot, go ahead but given the extremely low chance of acceptance (for pretty much anyone), consider @MWolf’s suggestions in post #6 above. And have a solid affordable backup plan for college in India. It may be easier for you to apply for graduate studies in the US after completing your bachelor’s degree in India.

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Reaches for all.

What are your more likely choices? You need them.

Also, numbers 1-5 above…please please don’t exaggerate your involvement. I’m having trouble figuring out how you did anything substantial with all of those things.

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You sound like a hardworking, involved student and a 1480 SAT is excellent! However, your dream schools are among the most selective in the US and going to be a reach for you, especially with your financial situation. You need to look for more target schools that provide merit scholarships to international students. Dickinson College, Amherst College, Occidental College, and Fordham are a few that you may want to look at.
My child is very happy with her decision to attend Dickinson, and there is a large international student population because of the merit scholarships provided. I also know that Dickinson has a Data Analytics major, which may be of interest to you. Best of luck with your search. I know the process may seem intimidating but you can do this!

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@zebralover10

From Amherst College…they give zero merit awards.

“Amherst has been committed to a strictly need-based financial aid program from the college’s beginnings early in the 19th century. Need is the only criterion for receiving financial aid from Amherst.”

And to add…MIT and Princeton are need blind for international students and meet full need for them so the financial situation won’t impact this student. BUT…admission is very competitive to both of these colleges.

Actually, getting the cost to $20,000 a year could be the challenge. This would mean at least a full tuition award either merit or need based.

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@Kamala_Mishra

If this screen name is your real name, please change it.

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My apologies for the misinformation about Amherst! I should have double checked the policies at the schools mentioned above before posting them - just going off memory.