I know that the question is strange. I -myself- don’t think that I should apply under Early Decision for a college that is not my no.1 choice.
However, Amherst college is a special case for me; it’s need-blind for international students with acceptance rate of 39% in ED ! While the total acceptance rate is 14%.
I know that MIT is also need-blind for internationals, but its acceptance rate is only 7.9%. But it is my dream college.
I want to take the risk and apply for MIT under regular decision and apply EA for a college with acceptance rate like 54% for RD and 58% for EA.
BUT, the high acceptance rate of Amherst is due to the fact that only about 450 student apply ED and they accept about 170-180 every ED round from them. While about 8000 students apply RD and they accept about 300 from them.
So, should I apply ED for Amherst ? I will apply RD for it anyway, and I know that I should not apply ED unless I am doing so for my dream college.But I just feel with guilty because Amherst is need blind while my EA semi-safe school is not and I am applying for a really huge amount of aid due to my country and family circumstances.
I have an unweighted GPA of 4.0 (straight A’s mostly) and have taken all of the honors courses offered at my school; my school does not rank and does not offer AP, but it has the most challenging curriculum in my country.
SAT subject scores : 800 physics and 740 Math level 2.
ACT : waiting for October score but expecting 31-32 (maybe even 33, I don not know)
EC’s :
Blogger at many platforms and have published online at Huffington post and other local websites
Founder of a YouTube program about science and physics and a presenter at it.
Co-founder and president of physics group at my boarding school (previously a course teacher in the same group).
Volunteer at some scientific organizations in my country.
CCC member at Education USA.
Participated with a cultural exchange program in Germany.
Intel ISEF national finalist.
Participated at the national affiliations of Egyptian physics Olympiad ( ranked 16 from 600 participant)
TEDx speaker at TEdxYouth events and a public speaker.
Assign units of happiness to each school and make your decisions to maximize your expected happiness.
If you think that you have average chances at each school:
Scenario 1: MIT gives you 10 units of happy and Amherst gives you 7.
If you do ED to Amherst your expected happiness is (0.39)7+(1-0.39)0.07910=3.2119
If you apply RD to MIT your expected happiness is 0.07910+(1-0.079)(0.14)7 =1.6925
Applying ED to Amherst is expected to make you almost twice as happy
Scenario2: If MIT gives you 10 units of happiness and Amherst gives you 1 then
If you do ED to Amherst your expected happiness is (0.39)+(1-0.39)0.07910= 0.87
If you apply RD to MIT your expected happiness is 0.07910+(1-0.079)*(0.14) =0.91
Apply RD to MIT is expected to make you a tiny bit happier.
Seems like applying ED to Amherst is the master move given the poor chances of admission.
For MIT, the mid 50 ACT score is 34-35 and the mid 50 SAT math score is 770-800. Your scores are well below average, so your odds at admission to MIT given your projected ACT of 31-32 are below average.
I don’t think that you are getting into MIT with that predicted ACT. Amherst would be better but as @wisteria100 mentioned, that 39% is misleading because a good portion are recruited athletes. What other schools are on your list? What is the max your family can afford?
I think you will be miserable even if you got into MIT with a hook, if you have one. I know many kids cannot hack through the rigor of MIT even they were Vals or Sals and with perfect scores in their high school.
Your goal should be much lower than MIT. starting with your in state flagship. If Engineering is your target, you still can get a good job by graduating from the state flagship.
Sorry, I do not read poster’s old posts and just value the thread on its face value. If he is from Egypt, he should say so and post it in the international section.
At any case, anyone think his first love is MIT on CC is going to get a rolling eyes without stating his accomplishments, preferably a national or international awards and flawless scores.
“anyone who thinks his first love is MIT on CC is going to get a rolling eyes …”
I do have a concern that high school students seem to have dream schools without fully understanding what that school is actually like to attend. For students who live so far away this might often occur without their even having visited. Top schools don’t put microchips into your brain during freshman orientation and then painlessly download wonderful information while you sleep. Instead, MIT and comparable schools are tough, much tougher than most high school students can fully understand.
To me MIT and Amherst are so different that wanting to go to one and then applying ED to the other doesn’t seem like the right thing to do.
Well, if he’s the only one from Egypt applying to Amherst, which very well could be, then he has a much better chance than the ACT 36 UW GPA 4.0 kids applying from California. I think ED to Amherst is a smart move from OP’s point of view.
@EgyptianSTEMer, Applying to Amherst ED because it’s need blind for internationals is not a sound strategy. When Amherst joined the handful of schools that are need-blind for internationals, their international applications increased dramatically. During the ED round, they only admit 15 or 16 internationals. I don’t know how many apply but my guess is that the ED admission rate is very low. Overall for both ED and RD combined, Amherst’s admit rate for internationals is only 8%. (MIT’s is under 4%!)
In my opinion, you’d be better off putting need-blind/need-aware status to the side and concentrating on schools that guarantee to meet full demonstrated need for internationals. Schools that, because of their location or low name recognition, don’t get that many international applicants, certainly not many Egyptians. Look for schools that are located in the midwest or south and/or in rural locations. If you need substantial financial aid, these are your best bet.
I would consider Grinnell, Rhodes, Macalester. These are small liberal arts colleges (like Amherst) with excellent academics and very good reputations with top graduate schools.
There are also quite a few mid-sized research and tech oriented universities that would fall into this category, but I’ll have to leave suggestions up to others more familiar with that field.
Big financial aid awards are hard to come by for internationals. You will be competing with other internationals – not the general applicant pool – and competition is stiff. You need to be open minded on location and USNWR ratings and plan to cast a wide net. Again, look for schools that guarantee to meet full demonstrated need for internationals and that would be interested in the diversity advantage of admitting a high achieving Egyptian.
Maybe I missed something here, but Amherst’s ED deadline was 11/1. The original post here was 11/3. Unless the OP is applying a year from now, I don’t see how Amherst ED is an option.
