Hi, I am a senior year student from India and will be applying to colleges in a few months. I have a rough college list but I really want to take some opinions on where all I should be applying.
Financial Aid Required.
Prospective Major: CS
GPA: School has a different scoring system. Predicted for senior year would be 95%.
SAT: 1490
SAT 2: Will be taking Math 2 and Physics in October [will probably score higher than 750 in both]
ECs
President and the founder of the school’s tech club
Head of IT and core organiser of our school’s MUN and TEDx events
Created a website along with some friends to promote the youth to take political stands
Created a smart grocery management system with a companion app
Was in the top 20 of a nation wide capture the flag competition
Participated and had a good rank [can’t recall the exact number] world wide in Wharton business school’s investment competition
Community Service: Taught underprivileged kids over the summer of junior year
Organised the school’s first Robotics competition
Part of the organising team of the Indian National Rubik’s Cube Competition. Also an active member of the local speed cubing organisation
Currently working on another project that combines community service with tech making it possible for more people to contribute to the society
If you want a US university, you presumably need either:
a. A school where large merit scholarships are offered to international students (e.g. Howard or Alabama, if they still offer their scholarships to international students and your grading converts to the needed GPA).
b. A school where sufficient need-based financial aid is offered to international students. These schools tend to be the most selective ones.
For generous merit scholarships, consider schools listed here: http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
The schools in this second list tend to be less selective than schools in the first list.
Many schools in the first list are small liberal arts colleges.
If you want a larger school, check out the University of Southern California.
It claims to cover 100% of demonstrated financial need, also offers merit scholarships, has a well-regarded CS department, is a bit less selective than some of the other research universities that claim to meet full need, and is located in an area with mild weather. It currently enrolls about 2700 international students as undergrads. Consider it a reach, though.
^ If anything, what’s holding you back is the fact that you are an international/Asian, STEM-focused student with financial need. USC’s overall admission rate is only ~18%.
If you’re willing to consider a smaller school, another one you might want to check out is Rice University (for all the same reasons I gave for USC). But I’d consider that a reach, too (overall admission rate ~= 16%).
Any school with lower than 20% admission rate is a reach. USC;s admission rate was 16.5% last year. Your test score is not far off from their admission average. Don’t expect a chance much higher than the admission rate.
So take a shot at Princeton or MIT. Those are among the few schools that are need-blind for all students (including internationals) and also claim to cover 100% of demonstrated need. For what it’s worth, US News ranks MIT’s CS department #1, Princeton’s #8, Harvard’s #18, and Yale’s #20 (tied with USC’s).
MIT’s overall acceptance rate is about 8%, Princeton’s about 7%. Maybe cut those rates in half for Indian or Chinese applicants? So yes, be sure to find back-ups you like in your own country.
Stanford is another super-selective, prestigious school that does grant FA to internationals. However, its overall admit rate is only ~5% and it is need-aware in admissions for international students. Good luck with that one.
There are other “great” schools between MIT/Stanford and USC (in terms of prestige, selectivity, magazine ranking, or CS strength.) UC Berkeley is one example … but Berkeley does not grant FA at all to international students. Carnegie Mellon is another example (especially for CS), but according to its 2016-17 CDS (section H6) it, too, does not grant FA to internationals.
Is Cornell prestigious enough for you? You also could check out Harvey Mudd College, which is an excellent school but very small … and perhaps not too well known in India (?) Its overall admission rate was ~13% in 2016. If you want a small school with a little more name-recognition, you could try for Caltech.