What are some colleges that I should apply to?

College Search & Selection
1

Hi, I’m an Asian American male citizen living internationally, so unfortunately, I am not a resident of any state. I go to a very small private school (100 students in high school) for free since my dad works there. He graduated from UCLA and my uncles went to Berkeley (don’t know if this is important though).

Weighted GPA: 97.41 or 3.90 (There is no unweighted GPA on my transcript)
Rank: No Rank System but I know I’m 1/17 (yeah, really small school)
APs:
-Junior: Physics 1: 5, Comp Sci: 5, English Language: 3
-Senior: Psych, Physics 2, Calculus (Took all available AP and honors courses at my school)
SAT: 1540 (National Merit Semifinalist PSAT:1490)
SAT Subject: 780 Math 2 (Retaking), 710 Literature, Physics (Taking in Nov)
EC:
-NHS Vice-president senior year (G10-12)
-Student Council (G11-12)
-MUN (G10-12)
-Varsity/JV Soccer Team Captain senior year (G9-12)
-Other school group (G9-10)

Budget: $10,000? (not much)
Major: Mechanical, Electrical Engineering (don’t mind considering other engineering majors)

Current possible choices: Stanford, CalTech, MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, John Hopkins, National University of Singapore, Harvey Mudd, Berkeley, Webb Institute, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, UCLA, Tohoku (Japan), USC, Loyola Marymount, Olin College of Engineering

I feel that I don’t have enough safety schools and that I have too many high reach schools. Please tell me what schools I should probably add to the list (Reach and safety) and what schools are probably better to remove. Sorry if it’s hard to read and thanks for reading and (hopefully) replying!

2

Congratulations on your success! I’m not sure if you will be considered an international student for admissions and aid, but the difficulty for you probably won’t be your academic record but financial aid. International students and even out-of-state (OOS) applying to public universities rarely receive much financial aid.

I suggest you google “colleges that meet full financial need.” These schools at least strive to cover all the costs that a student cannot meet. That’s not to say that they would certainly be affordable to any specific student, but at least they are actively trying to do that.

The lists you find will include the most elite, most competitive schools, like Harvard, Princeton, etc. Of course, these schools have extremely competitive admissions. In some cases, fewer than 5% of RD applicants will receive an offer of admission–and the applicant pool is ridiculously strong. And it can be even more competitive for engineering applicants. Good news: Cal Tech, Olin, Harvard, Princeton, Harvey Mudd, Stanford, USC, Stanford, and Cornell are on lists.

All of the US schools on your list are obviously strong schools. A few have reasonable, though low, acceptance rates for international students applying RD. However, these schools–like Loyola Marymount and CP-SLO–may very well not be affordable. Most, though, have very low rates. You are qualified for all of them, but the vast, vast majority of qualified students are not accepted. Again, Stanford’s effective RD acceptance rate for an “unhooked” applicant (i.e. not a recruited athlete) is probably in the 1-2% range. A top student–the valedictorian at a large high school with great test scores–could easily be rejected to almost all if not all of the US schools on your list, except maybe LM and CP. I’ve known about four students who’ve gone to Stanford in recent years. Every single one was a recruited athlete.

Because of your grades and test scores, you might also google schools that offer generous merit aid. I’m not sure you would be interested in the Deep South, but the University of Alabama (main campus) and University of Alabama–Huntsville offer engineering and generous merit aid (I’m not sure how it works for international students though.) NASA has facilities in Huntsville, so it is sort of a high-tech center, though I’m not very familiar with it, except through friends. Miami of Ohio has engineering and offers a very simple table that shows a range of merit aid that a student might expect to receive. As you can see it would be half to full tuition for you, though you’d still have room and board. VERY IMPORTANT: Some schools like Miami of Ohio and USC have a December 1 deadline to receive consideration for merit aid. So the application deadline might be January 1 or January 15, but a student will not be considered for merit aid if they do not apply by December 1. VERY IMPORTANT

http://miamioh.edu/admission/merit-grid/

You might also consider San Jose State, especially if there is some legitimate way you can qualify for CA residency. It has engineering and places lots of grads in Silicon Valley.

If you are really committed to studying in the US–and maybe you will have some great options in Asia–I would suggest you find a few schools with engineering that have RD acceptance rates north of 30% that claim to meet full financial need.

Good luck!

3

@TTG Thank you for your lengthy reply! Everything seems like great advice and I definitely will check out the schools you mentioned!

4

Just wanted to add, I’m not discouraging you from applying to any of the schools on your list. You are qualified for all of them, and they are wealthy and give good aid. I’m just advising that you have a few schools that seem likely to work in terms of admissions and are affordable.

I like to use this example: We visited a tip-top liberal arts college (LAC) about 6-7 years ago. Rep said 70% of applicants were qualified, and the school thought they would succeed academically and otherwise. It accepted 14% of applicants at the time (now lower). So 4 in 5 fully qualified students were not accepted. That’s with a 14% acceptance rate.

But this is not the case at the vast majority of US schools. Just a few dozen are extremely competitive.

5

Don’t think it’s likely there is any way to be considered a CA resident if you don’t live or pay taxes there. Most states have pretty strict guidelines about what it takes to qualify as an in state resident.

6

@jym626 I think you’re right too because when I talked to a Berkeley representative at a college fair they said that its hard to get residency in a state for college. So I was wondering do you think it’s better if I skip the UCs and any other expensive public schools then? I was thinking about U of Michigan Ann Arbor, Purdue, and U of Illinois Urbana-Champaign but I felt they were too expensive without much financial aid.

7

You won’t be considered a resident of California, so take the California publics off of your list because you won’t get any funding: UCLA, UCB, Cal Poly’s.

You are considered a legacy at UCLA.
Right now, it doesn’t look like you did any service for your community. I know it may not be available, but that’s what those schools will look for on your application.
If you need funding to attend college, you need to look at schools in the South and Midwest.

8

Do not apply as an international student if you are a US citizen. Checking the international student box gives you higher international tuition beyond what out of state students pay and lowers your odds of admissions to boot.

You can also file the FAFSA and have access to the federal student loan program and any aid the school offers to out of state students.

You can find merit aid for national merit at Alabama and UAH, as well as in the southwest like Arizona, ASU, and New Mexico. Apply to honors programs at colleges that have them.

9

@“aunt bea” Thank you for your reply! I will most likely remove them from my list. Also, the NHS chapter at my school is quite active and I have been involved in different community service activities there (Ex. Visiting retirement homes, soup kitchens, science lessons for elementary students, etc).

10

@AroundHere Thanks for the advice! I will make sure to do that on the common app.

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You will need consistent volunteer hours or, if you have a job, this will be your EC.

USC and UCLA look like possibilities, but Stanford won’t happen. They just don’t have the room to accept students after their commitments: athletic recruits, celebrity students, millionaire donors children, international stars.

If you didn’t run a small country, it’s not going to happen at Harvard, Stanford, MIT, etc. MIT, Caltech and JH like research-based EC’s.

USC will like your sports and NM status, so be sure and apply by Dec 1 as @AroundHere has suggested. (You’re an American citizen living abroad so you may be eligible for other scholarships). Loyola and Mudd are possibilities and have funding so be sure to apply. New Mexico and Oklahoma love NM students, you could apply there.

12

These aren’t generally Common App schools - most state schools use their own systems. Oklahoma is another good suggestion,too. I forgot about them!

13

The OP’s budget of $10k is very limiting. The only likely affordable options would be the ultra competitive schools (which she doesn’t seem that competitive for, but should apply) and UA and UA-Huntsville and any other schools that would give her huge merit to get COA, including int’l travel, down to $10k a year.

14

The advice above seems pretty spot on so far. Have you run the net price calculators on all the schools on your list? I can’t tell if your family is low income, or has a decent income but just hasn’t saved or budgeted much for college. It makes a big difference in the recommendations. You should calculate your UW GPA yourself, because colleges will.

15

Looks like at Texas Tech u would get your out of state tuition waived, and u would get $6000 per yr in scholarship money, which would cover almost all of the in-state tuition. So it’s basically room & board & books you’d pay for…which would be around $10k.

16

Sorry I wanted to bring up another question. Most of these schools that everyone mentioned are in the South but I was wondering if they were quite conservative? No offense to any conservatives, but I personally would prefer a liberal or moderate school. Are there some private schools which meet most or full need? I was thinking about schools like Lafayette.

I also wanted to add that I feel like my family could afford more but that is what they said. Usually, how much of income is used for tuition? I think that it probably is that I also have 2 siblings younger than me.

17

The students will be more conservative in a state like Alabama, though colleges and universities tend to be more liberal than the state or locality. Someone more liberal minded might not enjoy the experience at a school like the University of Alabama. Also, the culture in general might not seem all that appealing.

As suggested above, you might consider Arizona and New Mexico, which are not “southern” but the public universities there do sometimes provide generous merit aid. Here’s an estimator for Arizona State, which has engineering.

https://scholarships.asu.edu/estimator

I’m thinking of Universities of Arizona and New Mexico and Arizona State and New Mexico State. All have mechanical engineering, I think.

It seems reasonable for you to give Lafayette a shot. Case Western is another one, though I’m guessing you might not receive sufficient aid there (though I think you’d get some if accepted).

18

@TTG Thanks for the info! I’ll check those schools out!

19

The Southwest has a different vibe than the South, so those might be more appealing based on your comments. Weather is generally nice during the school year, though it varies at the schools. The schools are more multicultural and the landscape is incredible, especially if you like the outdoors.

Case Western is a top science/engineering school in Cleveland. It’s in the city but not downtown. It’s in a nice cultural district with lots of restaurants, etc. on Euclid Avenue geared toward students. It gives very good merit aid, but probably not enough. It might not hurt to apply if it works time- and money-wise

Lafayette is a very nice school in all respects, I think.

Again, note that the merit aid deadline for some schools (like Miami of Ohio) is Dec. 1. You’d obviously want to get those applications in first.

I don’t know they in’s and out’s of applying as an international student v. applying as a citizen living abroad. Just testing your numbers on that link ASU link, it looked like you would get more aid since you’re a citizen and presumably not applying as an international. The advice from @AroundHere seems very good, but I don’t enough to advise on that.

20

Thanks @TTG but I was wondering what you meant by Miami of Ohio