Stats:
Nationality: Indian
SAT: 1420 :neutral:
SAT Physics: 760
SAT Math 2: 690 (I am definitely not putting this on my application!)
GPA: Full A+ in 10th board, full marks (540/540) in 11th grade, expecting to score full marks in 12th Grade.
Oh, by the way, my stream is Biomath (Phy, Che, Math, Bio, English, Hindi)
Extra-Curriculars
Published a couple of apps in PlayStore with over 1k downloads.
Have my own website/company which I created when I was in 8th grade.
Learned Python, Java, C++ (now beginning in competitive programming).
Participation at State Level website designing competition for 3 consecutive years and won A grade 2 times.
3rd Runner-up at National Space Quiz conducted by ISRO.
Best Cadet Navy Junior Division, National Cadet Corps (NCC), leader of the squad for 2 years with the highest rank.
IT Club student coordinator for 3 years. (Maintained & updated systems, trained students in webpage designing, app building, etc)
Selected participant in State Level Science Camp conducted by the State Education Department.
Received Chief Minister’s Scholarship for Outstanding NCC Cadets, a couple of scholarships from school alumni, etc.
Participated in a robotics competition (state level), underwent Raspberry Pi training (Code to Learn initiative by State IT department), shortlisted for Youth Innovators Programme conducted by State Startup Mission, did a couple of projects (Smarthome, Home security).
Designed website for school, chief editor of the first digital magazine of the school.
Last but not least, practicing Indian classical music for 7 years.
I am currently working on a robotics project (IndiaSkills). Also, I’m designing a major app (expected to launch next year).
I’m applying to all the Ivies, Stanford, Georgia tech, NYU, cornell, brown etc.
Budget? Not so good. I heard that these universities provide financial aid to international students. (Some of them are need-blind, aren’t they?)
Yes, you can gain acceptance at a variety of “good” engineering colleges, but not all. The test results and GPA indicate the ability to succeed at a very wide range of programs academically, but do not assure admission to all engineering programs.
There are many options at US universities you may not of heard about
at your current secondary school. Look for well developed engineering programs at universities where the unweighted secondary GPA of entering students approaches 4.0. Not all Universities in US admit by computer, but the stronger programs will likely be looking at your GPA.
MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford and 1/2 dozen others are pretty much out of reach for almost everyone. CS majors are the most difficult major for admission. Because of their CS reputation, this places CMU also into an almost impossible range.
What majors are of interest? BME? ME? ChE? What is your degree list at the end of four years?
Not an Ivy, but does give some FA to non-immigrant applicants. I doubt this is the only one, but it would be very competitive. AVG entering student GPA is 3.89/4. Large choice of bio/engineering majors.
Uh…I am interested in only CS. Been my aim since 5th grade. The main reason I’m looking to study in the US is that in India, to get into a good college (IIT), you literally have to prepare for 2 years, sacrificing everything you love to do, and in the end, you get to major in something you may not be even interested in according to your All India Rank. Indian education system stinks!
WPI and RPI are also highly regarded and well developed in CS.
Admission to WPI and, I believe, are to the University and not restricted to a specific program. Both of these Universities have designed BS programs which are a littles different from the older, traditional formats.
Academic profiles are about the same at both universities. They are often used as backups by applicants to MIT, Cal Tech, etc. in the US. They accept about 42 to 44 percent of BS applicants while another ten schools accept less than 10% of applicants.
Those are all reaches with your SAT. NYU is probably your most likely admit out of those but is not need blind for international admission and doesn’t meet full financial need for anyone, so it’s likely to be unaffordable even if you get an offer. As suggested by retiredfarmer, you probably need to cast your net wider if you want to attend a US college. In general, i’d say that if you’re not likely to get into IIT then the ivies are out of reach too.
Hey, NYU has a flexible testing policy. I can submit my predicted scores for the 12th board. Should I submit this or SAT? 12th board marks will be impressive than SAT I guess.
And by the way, I can get into an IIT, provided that I drop everything and just focus on studies (Maybe drop a year), but to get into a CS program is hard, but doable.
(1) It’s not going to change the fact that admissions at NYU is need-aware for international and you almost certainly won’t get enough funding to attend. Of course, applying on the chance you are one of the few lucky ones to get enough funding may be worth it.
(2) You said above about having to focus intensely to get into IIT for a year or two - frankly, that’s what people who get into ivies do for 4 years, both academically and EC-wise all through high school.
If budget is a problem, your best approach imo is to aim at IIT for undergrad and then do US (or UK) postgrad. If I were in your shoes, I would not be dropping the ball on the best option at home in the hope that I could both get into a top college in the US and get them to pay for it. Best case outcome is you get to choose an Ivy. Worst case for you imo is no US offers (or none with enough money to make it viable) and no IIT option.
Confused indeed. You realize that CS is often a completely different college, with very different admission rates, than Engineering? CS is among the most competitive majors these days.
All schools you list are a stretch (and both Cornell and Brown are Ivies) with single or low-double digit acceptance rates, lower for international students. All but GT are a high stretch, GT is a match to stretch.
FYI, WPI actually has a project center on IIT Mandi campus. See https://www.wpi.edu/news/global-impact-india This particular center deals with project research by teams of students from a mix of majors. They work on solutions to projects in India. A CS major would just be one of three or more team members working on one of the degree requirement called the IQP. See https://www.wpi.edu/academics/undergraduate/interactive-qualifying-project. The MQP is a like team research requirement in your CS major with other CS majors. The system is different.
Your current, very high quality, secondary school CS research helps on admission probably more than test scores.
“International students are not eligible for federal or state financial aid programs, and institutional scholarships administered by GT Financial Aid are often not awarded to international students due to donor requests. …
Privately funded loan programs are available to international students, but most require a co-signer who is a creditworthy U.S. citizen or permanent resident with a permanent U.S. address.”