More Safety Schools?

College Search & Selection
1

I’m an international student applying to US undergraduate programs for the fall 2020 season. My stats are as follows:
ACT: 36
SAT Subject Tests: Math Level II 800, Physics 800, Chemistry 790, I’ll be giving biology and literature in the November session
Grades: I have 13A*s in traditional subjects, a world distinction in CS and a national distinction across all subjects in my O Levels (if you’re familiar with the O/A Level system). I have 6 A Levels encompassing the sciences, further maths and literature and my predicted AS and A Level grades would be straight A’s too.
Extracurriculars: Involved in a teaching program for the domestic staff of my school for 2 years, society head of the environmental society as well as the math and astronomy society (which is involved in organizing a mega intraschool competition), leader of winning and runner-up teams at regional math and science competitions for 3 years, done 4-5 online math and environmental courses, editor of the environmental section of the schools weekly bulletin for a year and writer for the schools monthly telegram, selected in the top 50 in the national math competition and will attend math camps in the coming year and hopefully participate in the IMO (after the admissions season ends though). I’m also involved in the schools peer tutoring program for math and teach private O level math and SAT tuitions for money. I’ve also done original independent math research in combinatorics although it hasn’t been published anywhere.

I’m thinking of applying to these colleges:
Harvard (Early Action)
Stanford
MIT
Caltech
Princeton
Yale
Amherst
UChicago
Cornell
Tulane
Carleton
Colby
Grinnell

Do you think I’m applying to too many reach schools and/or too few safety schools? If so, can anyone tell me other schools I could apply to? I’m looking for a decent liberal arts college as I’m not that sure about my future plans, preferably with a good math and CS department.

2

Since you have zero safety schools, I would say that is too few. Can you afford 300,000 USD or do you need financial aid? That is a very large consideration. Not sure why you are taking more subject tests. It makes me think that you really don’t know what colleges are looking for.

3

Based on your interest in math, note that The Princeton Review suggests colleges for this field across a fair range of selectivity in its sampling “Great Schools for Mathematics Majors” (Harvey Mudd, MIT, UChicago, Caltech, Haverford, Harvard, Hamilton, Bowdoin, Reed, Rice, Carleton, Grinnell, Macalester, URochester, St. Olaf . . .). You might notice the promising similarity to your current group of choices.

4

Definitely too many reach schools. In fact, every one is a reach or a high reach. Not a single one is even a target school, much less a safety.

Of your list, 7 have single digit acceptance rates, 5 have acceptance rates in the teens, and 1 has acceptance rate of 20%. Acceptance rates of international students are even lower than that. For example, in 2018, MIT only accepted 2.4% of the international students who applied. By 2020, when you apply, that is likely going to be lower.

If you apply to only these schools as an international student, you are extremely likely to be rejected by all of them. You will almost certainly be rejected by Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Princeton, Yale, and UChicago. Your chances at being accepted to the rest are only slightly better.

You need to do more research on colleges, and you need to look at the acceptance rates for international students. If you were an American, you would stand a good chance in some of them, but applying to CS at Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Princeton, Yale, or UChicago is like buying a lottery ticket, even for USA students with the very best stats.

Furthermore, can your parents afford the $300,000 cost of attendance at any of these schools? Financial aid for international students is very limited.

5

I’m hoping I’ll get significant financial aid if I get selected to one of these universities since my parents’ annual income is less than $50k. I haven’t added universities with lower acceptance rates since they usually don’t have decent financial aid for international students. If I don’t get accepted to any of them, I can always apply to national universities.

6

As others have noted, you have zero safety schools. As you have noted, you need substantial financial aid so you are looking for those schools that give that, which amounts to highly selective schools.

Well, you’ve done the easy part of looking for schools. For the most part, the most selective schools, the ones that appear on easy to find lists, with high name recognition, are the schools that tend to give the most financial aid. But theyvsrr skdi the ones that have low admission rates. No one is guaranteed to get into these schools, and if you are a needy international student, the chances are even lower. Too many of such students, so many that only a handful of colleges meet full need AND look at international student applications on a need blind basis.

So now you need to do the most difficult part of college search of all. You need to find schools that have low cost, very low costs, and that have merit money. These schools are sometimes willing to pay the money for high test scores to give their academic stats a boost and bring in some top flight students. These schools are not going to be on easy to find lists. You need to really hint for them. Schools like East Mexico State, Chadron state, Mississippi Valley, Minot. Look at the historical black colleges. They take students ofcdvery color and some have great scholarships there. You have to dig and hunt for these schools. The lists change so drastically each year as does the funding so It’s a fresh hunt each admission and there is competition for those dollars too.

Many US students are unwilling to make the drastic change, travel the distances to these unknown school destinations. But you have already made that jump in deciding to try to come to a whole other country. So, include some of these schools that are not that far away proportionately, from the distances you are going to have to travel , and look at these options as well.