ACT (breakdown): 34 (35M 33 E 32 R 34 S)
SAT II (subject, score): Math Level 2 800
Physics 800
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): don’t have GPA system
Weighted GPA:
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): Don’t have ranks either; but mostly top 10%
AP (place score in parentheses):
IB (place score in parentheses): Taking the IB diploma program- Predicted 43/45
Math HL - 7
Physics HL - 7
Chemistry HL -6
Economics SL - 7
Spanish SL - 6
English SL - 7
IELTS – 8.0
AP Calculus BC – 5 (AB subscore 5)
AP Physics C Mechanics - 5
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description):
Varsity Football (soccer) for 4 yrs
Varsity Athletics for 4 yrs ( state level athlete)
(Sprint and cross-country)
Varsity cricket for 3 yrs
Math club
Economics and entrepreneurship Club, 11th and 12th grade ( Organised 2 TED talks by inviting top executive officials for the club)
Model United Nations 11th and 12th grade
Visual arts and music club
Photography and Travel
Can speak 4 languages fluently
Also played the Violin for 7 yrs
Gym
Also organised our school annual fest with a group
Job/Work Experience:
Internship at a technology firm
Worked at a research institute with a professor during the summer and a got a good rec from him
Volunteer/Community Service:
Organised a Fund-Raiser for a charity
Took part in several charity runs like 4k,10k etc.
Volunteered at an orphanage and old age home for 3 yrs
Travelled to Northern India for volunteer service; tutored students in elementary math and English.
Additional Accomplishments/Awards:-
Have written a research paper in Physics
Won the regional level Robotics competition held by IIT and reached the national finals, in 11th grade
State level qualifications in Science and Math Olympiads
Several awards in Quiz competitions
Several awards and medals in the sports mentioned above
International Award for Young people (IAYP) gold award
Got distinction for scoring 90%+ in 8 online Edx/Coursera courses on various subjects from Physics and Cosmology to Game theory and Neuroscience
I am an International Student, majoring in Physics.
No financial Aid required.
Do I have a good chance at these Universities?
You certainly competitive for these two but they are highly selective schools and even the best candidates sometimes don’t get in. Make sure you pick some less selective schools which are also in the [url="<a href=“http://theaitu.org%22%5DAITU%5B/url”>http://theaitu.org"]AITU[/url].
I’d say you definitely have a shot. Unfortunately, it’s kinda hard to chance you with no GPA but your EC’s are great and so are your test scores. MIT and CMU are reaches for everyone, but I’d say you have a higher chance at CMU. Apply to some safeties as well. I’d say high match CMU and low reach MIT. Good luck!
You’ve got real competitive stats, but like xray said, the schools are very unpredictable. You have a shot though. Good luck! Chance back: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1753701-chance-me-ill-chance-back.html#latest
@xraymancs What should I do to increase my chances? and what are some universities with great undergrad physics programs?
And is it worth paying full for a top university or paying less for a state university such as UIUC?
I take it your are an international student so the cost may actually be lower at a private university which gives you some merit aid. Tuition at a public university for International students is as high as that at a private university and you don’t get much aid at all.
Since you are interested in physics, which is my field, I can tell you with confidence that you can get an excellent physics education in any number of universities. The curriculum is more or less the same everywhere. You can safely make your decision based on financial. location and other criteria. It is hard to give you good suggestions without knowing your ultimate goals. I am going to presume that you want to go to graduate school in physics after your B.S. degree but if your goal is different, then this advice may be changed.
Your goal, in order to get into a competitive graduate program, is to have a full physics curriculum and gain a lot of research experience as an undergraduate. Look for physics curricula which include a full year of quantum mechanics beyond modern physics, a full year of upper level electrodynamics, a full year of classical mechanics at the junior level, and a statistical physics course. You should take an electronics lab and an advanced physics lab and you might also want at least one course in computational physics. Electives beyond these courses will be important too so want to go to a university which offers them regularly or alternatively to a university with a graduate program where you can take some graduate courses in your last year. This kind of preparation will give you a good shot at the highly selective physics graduate programs. Note that if you enter a Ph.D. program in physics you can expect to have it fully funded with tuition and a stipend you can live on.
As for research, as an international student you will have a hard time getting research opportunities off campus so you might want to consider a research university where you can work on a funded research program alongside graduate students.
There are other things to consider like location (urban or college town), tech school or larger university with many majors outside science and engineering. There are literally dozens of good choices but you might look at the other [url="<a href=“http://theaitu.org%22%5DAITU%5B/url”>http://theaitu.org"]AITU[/url] schools which include MIT, Cal Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Case Western, Rensselaer Polytechnic, Rochester Institute of Technology, Worcester Polytechnic, Stevens institute of Technology, and the university where I am a professor of Physics, Illinois Tech. There are lots of public research universities which are great too as are many other private universities. Make yourself a list and then make sure you have selected some less selective ones along with your dream universities.
I am happy to answer more questions once you have specific ones and if you have questions about Illinois Tech, please post on that forum or PM me.
@xraymancs Thank you for your response. This is perhaps the most elabourate response I’ve ever gotten here in CC. I do aspire to go to grad school after getting my BSc or B.S degree. How different do you think it is in studying Physics in MIT or Harvard compared to a school like UCSB, CMU or NYU. And is it better to go to a school where the competition is not so high, so that you get most of the attention from professors and get a high GPA. A Gap year is also in my cards, to explore my options and boost my resume for college.
Let me be frank. The physics department rankings in USNWR are graduate program rankings and they suffer from the usual popularity contest issues of any ranking. Even so, they have little bearing on how good the undergraduate physics education really is. In fact, there are small liberal arts programs which do a phenomenal job of getting their graduates prepared for a Ph.D. program. The same can be said for less well known public universities.
It really boils down to how much you, as a student put into your education and whether you take the most challenging curriculum available. A smart student will rise to the top at any university. The considerations I mentioned above are really only secondary and you can do very well just about anywhere. The advantage of smaller places, like Illinois Tech is that you get a closer involvement with faculty than at the bigger programs where the faculty are not as engaged directly with the students. Even so, I was an undergraduate at UIUC and I was able to get involve in a publishable research project by being insistent. At my university the barrier is lower but nowadays, all schools encourage undergraduate research anyway. As proof of what I say, I can tell you that we have sent our undergraduates to many excellent graduate programs such as University of Wisconsin, Northwestern, MIT, UCSD, UCLA, Notre Dame, Texas Austin, Johns hopkins, University of Maryland and they have been accepted at many others.