Background - International Applicant from India applying to these 4 need-blind financial aid schools.
Context - Deciding which one to apply for early action.
Reason - In case I get admitted (I may have a small chance, I have an olympiad medal), my number one priority is going to be to earn money and repay the investment on my education. Even with the need-based scholarship, it is going to cost me about 70000 USD (according to Harvard’s calculator) which is a lot of money for my family. Hence I would like to apply for the school which has maximum job opportunities in the USA (or other countries) for Indians which will help me repay my investment.
Interests - My main interests are Physics + Maths but these are negotiable. I am willing to study anything from CS to business management to Economics as along as (i) it is not arts or soft humanities and (ii) gives a really well-paying job to justify the price spent. I am pretty sure that I will enjoy learning them based on my experience with learning topics by myself until now.
Factors to consider - Which school has the best aid policy for international historically, the H1B situation for Indians, do companies from USA/other countries hold job fairs where Internationals (Indians) are allowed, is the job a well-paying one where I can reasonably expect to pay back the cost of my education in one or two years ($100000 per annum salary in the USA)
Question - Which school and which major gives suits me the best?
Additional Question - How accurate is Harvard’s Financial Calculator for International Students in India (it is the only calculator which works for internationals). A few friends told me that the calculator is very biased for internationals and the actual amount needed to pay is almost 6 times what is shown on the calculator and that this is true for all the 4 schools. Is this actually true (actual experience will help here immensely)?
I hope other more experienced posters will chime in, but Yale is pretty actively seeking kids interested in STEMs and are heavily recruiting them (doesn’t mean a shoo-in for anyone for sure!) good luck.
How’s your other stats look like? India has very prestigious stem schools such as IIT, have you considered getting the undergraduate degree in India then come here for postgraduate degrees then work? It might be the best of both worlds: getting great education with little money borrowed.
For any of those four schools, the admission chances for international students probably are in the low single digits. For example, a poster in another thread reports that MIT’s class of 2022 international acceptance rate was 2% (115/4714). For applicants from India, the rates may be even lower. For HYSM, I wouldn’t count on much if any boost from EA over RD (unless perhaps you are a recruited athlete, legacy, or other “hooked” applicant).
Stanford apparently is not need-blind for international admissions.
@tk21769 I typed in Stanford by mistake instead I wanted to type Princeton. Yes, I am aware that chances as abysmally low and yes I do have good stats to at least bother applying. Just wanted to apply EA to the school which has best jobs for Indian nationals. That’s all. I have a good back up here in India. Can you help me? Salary statistics are not useful as the scene for Internationals is very different.
Bad and getting worse by the day. My husband came to the US on an H1B visa, one of my close friends is an attorney that practices immigration law, and I own a business that manufactures electronic products so I’m cognizant of the process.
You absolutely should not assume you will be able to find work here under an H1B when you graduate. If that is part of what makes your plan realistic, pick another plan. The US government has greatly reduced H1Bs available, is increasing review of existing H1Bs and generally making it as difficult as possible to obtain an H1B. Employers are well aware of the issues and mostly unwilling to take them on, so they are changing their hiring away from H1B employees.
As wonderful as all those colleges are, you just cannot rely on getting a job under an H1B when you graduate. I can’t emphasize this enough. Make other plans.
Sorry, no. The calculations tend to differ from college to college and the underlying formulas are not made public (as far as I know). I’d expect HYPM to be among the most generous schools with aid to international students … IF you get in!
Have you considered colleges in any other countries (such as Canada)?
@milee30 Thanks for the sensible advice. Just to clarify, I’m okay with a well-paying job anywhere in the world and I am finding it a bit difficult to believe that graduates from a top school like MIT/Harvard can’t get jobs. If not them then who does? Can you elaborate a bit?
@milee30 Just to be clear, I don’t just want to go to the USA. I would only be going in case I get admission to these top colleges. Surely, there must be companies to hire top graduates from these top colleges for employment with a decent income in the USA itself?
Of course you will be able to get a job. But to get a job in America (which you state in your OP is part of your requirement to pay back your education) you will need an H1B visa. I’m telling you it’s getting very, very hard to get an H1B and it could get even harder by the time you graduate. So if an American $100k+ job requiring an H1B visa is part of your plan, rethink the plan.
A degree from any of those colleges is highly marketable and if you didn’t need a visa or were an American citizen, it would be very realistic to assume you could get a $100k+ job upon graduation. But you aren’t in that situation; you will need an H1B and I’m telling you that isn’t something you can count on. Employers are increasingly avoiding applicants who have to obtain an H1B because it’s just so hard to get one.
Companies love to hire employees with degrees from those top colleges; what companies don’t love is dealing with our current immigration system. So you ask - who is getting those jobs? Americans.
@milee30 I get it! The H1B situation is bad. But that still does not answer my question. Do you actually know whether MIT/Harvard Indian graduates were successful in getting good jobs in the USA in 2018? I would love it if someone shares this information accurately (could not find anything on net)
Employers might want to hire equally qualifying students that don’t have to go through the H1-B saga.
Of course it is not impossible. I would encourage you to apply and he happy with your plan B.
With as few Indian nationals who graduate from Harvard and MIT each year and not knowing the details of their personal situation, how could you possibly gather enough meaningful data to draw any conclusions? You’d have no idea if the few examples one could find were people who were married to a US citizen so pursuing permanent residency that way, were granted their H1B under the older, more relaxed rules, had a family connection in the hiring company that meant the company was willing to go through the rigamarole, etc.
Would you really base a $70k+ decision on anecdotes with little verifiable detail? Seems risky.
There is simply no meaningful difference between these universities in terms of “the school which has best jobs for Indian nationals”.
The odds of you earning $100K/pa the year after graduating are tiny: IB / Wall St jobs at top tier firms is pretty much the only path, and those jobs are ferociously competitive to get.
And even if you get one of those jobs, you have to live in NYC, and your plan of saving $70K in 2 years means that you would have to live on ~$45K/pa ($100- $17K Federal Taxes - $3K NYC taxes - $35K).
I don’t see Yale ‘recruiting’ STEM students, and certainly not for international students.
I don’t know why you want to apply EA. Harvard, Princeton and MIT are explicit that there is no admissions boost to applying early (I am out of date on Yale SCEA- somebody else might know better),
Finally, you misunderstood @Eeyore123’s point: they were saying that it is important to understand the admissions process, and what each university is looking for if you want to be admitted. Just showing up with good stats and a medal - even an Olympiad- won’t be enough.