Please tell me what colleges I will fit in

College Search & Selection
1

I’m a female international student from an overrepresented area in Asia!
I want to major in chemistry or biomedical engineering if possible.
My stats are:

UW gpa: 3.9 (3.68 → 3.86–> 3.86–> 4.00–> 4.00–> 4.00)
ACT: 34 (essay:8)
APs: Chem (4) Micro (4) Macro (5) Psych (5) all taken in junior year
SAT II: Math2(800) Chem(780) Bio(750)
Recommendation letters: pretty good. assume (7.5/10)
Essays (9/10) I worked super hard on it and many people seemed to like it
ECs:

  • several school honor role awards (not significant tho)
  • internship at local college for pharmaceutical studies
  • worked at pharmacy based on the knowledge and experience
  • volunteered at hospital for the disabled
  • volunteered at emergency center
  • started a student organization that teaches low-income household children in our community
  • published a patent for a facility that aids certain disabled ppl
  • started an organization based on patent (not extreme tho)
  • varsity soccer 3 yrs
  • participated in street campaign to do free dental checkups
  • school newspaper club member
  • track and field 1yr
  • drama club president and founder (performed at community centers for children)
  • human rights club president (held open sessions and awareness campaigns in school)
  • key club president (organized fundraisers, donated $1500, and held annual service trips)
  • environmental club secretary

I want to go to a big school that has an overall healthy student atmosphere.
Also prestige is the biggest factor because my asian parents…:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
Any input will be highly appreciated

2

If you want a big public school I would check out the UCs, University of Washington, UNC CH, UVA, UMich, UF, UWisconsin. Your stats are very good! If you want a medium sized school I can also recommend some :slight_smile:

3

Do you think that schools like UNC CH and UMich will accept me…? Please bare in mind that I’m an international student from an overrepresented area and that my ECs are kinda bland. :frowning:

4

What is your financial situation? Also… your parents can’t make schools accept you. So you should apply to a few matches and safeties so you are sure to have choices.

5

I can pretty much afford all 4 years of college years. Plus to clarify my parents and I both consider prestige as a big factor :slight_smile:

6

Boston University. Sounds more prestigious to most foreigners than it really is.

7

Michigan and Wisconsin are good suggestions. Both are world class research universities, in lively college towns/cities, with great school spirit.

8

USC is another that might sound more prestigious than it is — it is a fine school, but a bit easier to get into than the very top ranked schools. But you need to really consider — are you going for a brand name, or to get an education? The focus on the name instead of the actual coursework and programs is really a bit silly.

9

It appears you are seeking name recognition, and not really a prestige that can be defined by objective characteristics. Schools such as UNC-CH tend to blend in a bit when considered by factors, such as selectivity, that normally generate prestige. Compared to the full range of U.S. colleges and universities, UNC places within about the top 95 (https://amp.businessinsider.com/the-610-smartest-colleges-in-america-2015-9) when considered by entering factors. This is fine, and actually quite high, but just not particularly exclusive, and therefore not notably prestigious for those who seek this. Substantively, however, UNC appears to offer a nice joint biomedical engineering program with NC State. It would be on this basis that I’d recommend the school.

10

@irenemigh : Johns Hopkins University might be a great choice for you.
University of Michigan is another.

11

For what it’s worth, more or less prestigious schools with relatively large Asian populations (by absolute number, not percentage) include:

  • UC Berkeley (~9K Asian students)
  • The University of Texas - Austin
  • The University of Southern California
  • NYU
  • The University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
  • Georgia Tech
  • Cornell University (~2300 Asian students)

At Ivies besides Cornell, or some other peer private institutions, Asian Americans might comprise about 15%-20% of the undergraduate population. Non-resident aliens (including Asians) might comprise another ~10% of the undergraduate population. However, if you aren’t Chinese or Indian, there may be relatively few other students from your home country.

In any case, you won’t automatically fit in anywhere.
You’d need to make friends and participate in activities you enjoy (but everyone else is pretty much in that same boat.)

12

UCS, UChicago, UCLA, also try applying to Northwestern, Brown, Rice

13

“Do you think that schools like UNC CH and UMich will accept me…”

I think that they are both worth an application. I would apply to McGill also if I were in your situation.

McGill is a very good school with a big name to please your parents, won’t care about your ECs, won’t care about your freshman year which if I am reading your post correctly was your weakest, and has a lot of Asian students.

14

Congratulations on your hard work and success!

It sounds like you have a good understanding of the US college/university landscape. I get the big emphasis on reputation and ranking–it’s really a big thing in the region where I live–though I think it is VASTLY overrated. There are many, many schools where a hard-working, talented student who will take advantage of opportunities and make opportunities can do very well, living and learning with other bright students and studying under outstanding faculty.

Maybe you convey to your parents that excellent state universities, like the Universities of Iowa and Nebraska and Iowa State, are not hyper-competitive in admissions–and might make great safeties, you’d have to check for specific engineering programs, I’m just using them as examples. They attract many of the top students in their states (often for financial reasons) and are world-class research institutions with world-class faculty. These type schools generally do well in international rankings, which are often based to a large extent on research and publication, so maybe you could point to that to make the case to them.

I’d really second the University of Wisconsin, which is truly outstanding in the biological sciences. You might also research the University of Minnesota, another excellent school, in a nice (and very cold) urban environment, besides the ones I mentioned above. The latter ones, I’d guess, get fewer international applications than Michigan, but offer a similar education.

Then you might look at some “mid-size” national universities, which would usually have about 5000-12,000 undergrads, give or take. The University of Rochester, Tufts University, and Case Western Reserve University offer academics as strong as anywhere. All are urban schools.

Another that might be an interesting one is The College of William and Mary. It’s a public mid-size university. It’s similar in size (6000 undergrads) to those 3 schools and is in a great environment, nice campus, all walkable. It is often ranked in the same tier as these schools, and often similar to Michigan, UNC, UCLA, etc. It does not have engineering but is strong in sciences. It does offer a 3:2 program where students get a liberal arts degree (usually in science, for example chemistry) from William and Mary and an engineering degree from Columbia University (Ivy League), which might appeal to your parents. The school gets fewer international applications than a Michigan, is focused on attracting international students, and you are a strong applicant and fully pay. Here’s the info about the 3:2 program:

https://www.wm.edu/as/undergraduate/more-pathways/engineering/index.php

Good luck!

15

This list of universities with the highest percentage of international students may be useful to you:
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/most-international

For a full-pay international student like yourself, the admissions path will be less steep at schools with substantial international student populations than at schools who accept only a small number of international applicants (and in the case of some super-elite U’s in this category, receive many, many international applications).

I had to laugh at @moooop 's suggestion of BU, because I went there, and the very same thought was literally the first thing to come into my mind. (I experienced the people-being-overimpressed effect even when I moved out to California after graduation.) It’s an excellent school, but it does get a bit of unearned gravitas. You’ll note that BU is also near the top of the list above, with 22% international students. It’s a good target. NYU is in the same category - both wrt gravitas and re: padding its budget with many full-pay international students. BU’s neighbor, Northeastern U, could be worth considering if you like the idea of a co-op program. (Co-op could be particularly beneficial if you are hoping to go directly into the workforce after undergrad.) Northeastern is comparable to BU in selectiveness and quality, but lacks the unearned gravitas factor, with it’s more utilitarian-sounding name and its reputation that hasn’t quite caught up with it’s ascent in the rankings. USC is getting more and more competitive but could be a great choice too.

I’m not sure whether the University of Rochester in upstate NY and Case Western Reserve U in OH are as high-profile internationally as the ones above, but they absolutely offer just as high-quality an education and personally I would choose either for biomedical engineering or chem over BU, NYU, or NU. The combination of top-notch engineering and physical sciences with top-notch med schools means that there are phenomenal research opportunities, and the size and relative graduate/undergraduate demographics mean particularly good opportunities for undergrads. They’re also very international-friendly. Rice is more competitive than UR and CWRU but less so than the super-elites, and while it doesn’t have its own med school it collaborates heavily with the enormous Houston Medical Center complex nearby and would be a great reach school to consider. All of these are smaller than you’re suggesting you may want, but such excellent schools that they deserve a close look before ruling them out. For a student like you who isn’t sure about engineering vs. physical sciences, these schools can be much more flexible than the big public U’s. At Rice, for example, you could start out as a chem major and choose to switch into engineering, and there would be no barrier. I don’t believe this is the case at any large public U. The Residential College system at Rice makes for a spirited feel in spite of the smaller size.

As you can see, there are also quite a few excellent public U’s on this list - UC’s, SUNY’s, UIUC, Purdue, Michigan State, and so on.

International admissions are harder to predict, so cover your bases with a range of schools - but if you write great essays I think you’ll be a strong candidate for all but the most insanely competitive schools (i.e. the super-elites that are need-blind for internationals and thus attract a deluge of international applications vying for both the prestige and the rare international financial aid). Good luck!

16

*full pay

Note on the William and Mary/Columbia 3:2 program (3 years at W&M and 2 at Columbia): a student does not have to apply to Columbia engineering program in the sense of maybe being accepted or rejected, a student “only” has to meet all the prerequisites, which are rigorous, and then admission is automatic, which is good; you can don’t have to go on to Columbia (would not be applying to the program, just to William and Mary), and could just stay 4 years and graduate at W&M if you decided to major in chemistry or something else; and you could live in a nice, small, historic US town (with a good number of restaurants, coffee shops, sandwich shops, etc. adjacent to campus), and acclimate, and then spend 2 years in New York City. Also, W&M has a new Integrated Science Center, which I know houses chemistry. I started to think this was even more of a good idea after I suggested it.

Again, similar reputation/academics to a Michigan, but far less competition for international spots. For William and Mary ranking, and for the other schools, see USNWR national university rankings.

17

Although many of us share that opinion, the OP did say “prestige is the biggest factor”.

Considering prestige + biomedical engineering strength + undergraduate quality of life + size, without regard for admission selectivity or cost, a reasonable list of top schools might include (in alphabetical order):
Columbia University
Cornell University
Duke
Georgia Tech
Johns Hopkins
MIT
Northwestern
Stanford
University of California - Berkeley
University of Michigan
University of Pennsylvania
Vanderbilt
Washington U. in St. Louis
see:
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate-biological-biomedical

For these criteria, my #1 pick probably would be Stanford … but that would be a very long reach (as some of the others would be). If you downplay size, add Rice. If you downplay prestige, you can add quite a few more state universities. If you emphasize neighborhood quality of life and safety, maybe remove a couple of the above.

18

OP - Virtually every so-called, state “flagship” university - University of [State X] west of the Mississippi River would fit your criteria.

19

Wash U St Louis is a top 20 school that has a high % of Asian/Asian American students. It values high test scores. You would get a meaningful boost by applying ED but as you are prioritizing prestige, ED would preclude other options if you are accepted. Demonstrated interest is important, which (given the distance) you can show by visiting their website, requesting information and/or joining their email list, or requesting an alumni interview.

Case Western has similar parameters with respect to high test scores, demonstrated interest, and ED boost and also offers strength in BME. Rank is in the mid 30s.