<p>international+great story=good essay material. Probably work on the ACT&SAT a little more</p>
<p>amazing EC’s!</p>
<p>Brown - low reach
Columbia - low reach
Caltech - low reach
Stanford (dream) - reach
MIT - reach
UPenn - low reach
Duke - match
Cornell - low reach</p>
<p>chance back??</p>
<p>Please be honst, i dont think, caltech or upenn could be low reach</p>
<p>well i may be unqualified for this, but i was being honest. with your background and work experience i saw them as being low reaches. sorry if my advice is misleading</p>
<p>Brown -reach
Columbia -reach
Caltech -reach
Stanford -reach
MIT -reach
UPenn -reach
Duke -match
Cornell -match
Boston University -match
Johns Hopkins -reach
USC -match
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute -match
it’d be very helpful if u had some sat 1 or sat 2 scores
can u plz chance back? <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/748134-plz-chance-poor-californian-who-has-compassion-chance-back.html#post1062924526[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/748134-plz-chance-poor-californian-who-has-compassion-chance-back.html#post1062924526</a></p>
<p>Brown - low reach
Columbia - reach
Caltech - reach
Stanford (dream) - reach
MIT - reach
UPenn - low reach/high match
Duke - match
Cornell - match</p>
<p>Hmom is being a little too intense. You are different than most American applicants and top schools love diversity!!! But you never know with a lot of those top schools, you could get rejected from Cornell and get into Caltech and MIT. You mentioned you were looking for some matches/safties? Try looking at</p>
<p>Boston College
Harvey Mudd
Swarthmore
Bowdoin
Johns Hopkins
Boston University as a safety
Good luck!</p>
<p>Chance back?
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/748621-chance-ivies.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/748621-chance-ivies.html</a></p>
<p>Wow, this is an especially bad year for kids who don’t know what they are talking about posting chances. They even admit they are not qualified but post away!</p>
<p>OP, here’s what I think. You need to add some schools that don’t see as many candidates from Germany/W Europe if you want to attend a US college. If these are just backups and you have a good option at home, it doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>The ivies, MIT and Caltech are going to see better candidates from Germany. Unless you raise your ACT by a lot or get a 2300 SAT, I think most of these are highly unlikely with $30K in aid. Even back 25 years ago when I worked in admissions at Penn which was much easier to get into then, any nternational getting in with aid had national medals.</p>
<p>I would look at some smaller name schools that would be more eager for an international and are know to give generous aid to some. Grinnell, Rhodes, Bates, Colgate, RPI, Purdue, Emory come to mind.</p>
<p>@hmom5
I have good options back home, so I am satisfied if my list contains only reaches and matches. I know that i need a lot of luck to get in HYPSM, but I want to play this “game”. In Germany we have this saying: Trying is better than studying.
At which colleges of my list I’d have better chances considering my need for financial aid?
I’d love to apply to e.g. Cornell, but idk their financial situation. Any college on my list would be fine.</p>
<p>Brown - reach
Columbia - reach
Caltech - low reach
Stanford (dream) - reach
MIT - high reach
UPenn - high reach
Duke - match?
Cornell - (haha, this is my dream)</p>
<p>I agree with KRNpro. MIT and Caltech highly value any innovation you can bring in the sciences/technology, and it looks like you have great ECs for those (so long as you have almost perfect Math and Science SAT scores). Work hard on those essays, do well on SATs (2200+) and you may even have a decent shot at Stanford. You will probably make Cornell and Duke. If you are genuinely interested in all those schools, definitely try; you never know.</p>
<p>All of these are probably reaches with possibly the exception of duke an cornell.</p>
<p>If your’e a US citizen, then you should get in to some of those. HYPs are unpredictable with everyone. If your’e not, apply to the schools that are need blind for exchange students (I know some of them are, not sure which, sorry).</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>I’d have to agree with KRNpro on this one. Your scores are in the range for these schools, but with single digit acceptance rates it’s hard to say when it comes to Columbia, Stanford, and the like. Like some posters already said, the competition among international students is insane, but at the same time I think your ECs are outstanding and your awards are impressive as well. I’d say the most competitive schools are definitely worth a shot, but for everyone who applies there it’s difficult to predict the outcome. You’re a very strong student though, good luck!! :)</p>
<p>Duke is actually hard to get into for international because there are so many students applying international so I disagree with all of those that say Duke is a match. Duke’s acceptance rate is just as high as UPenn’s and the SAT/ACT of the middle 50% for Duke is the same and slightly higher, not much (so I don’t understand how people say UPenn is a reach while Duke is a match). I don’t get it when people say that Duke is a match and JHU is a reach, JHU has a higher acceptance rate than Duke and the SAT/ACT of middle 50% is slightly lower than Duke’s. And that 28 on your ACT English does actually hurt a bit. All of these colleges have really good international students applying and only a handful get in. I personally have to say that most of the top schools you listed are a reach because of the large number of international students and you apply FA. However, USC and BU are matches I think. But you never know until you apply.
Good luck!!!</p>
<p>Costa Mesa College looks like a good fit, or Humboldt State. I’d probably even look at Siskyous just in case. DHQDDHA!</p>
<p>Brown - Reach
Columbia - Low Reach
Caltech - Reach
Stanford (dream) - Reach
MIT - Reach
UPenn - High Match/Low Reach
Duke - High Match/Low Reach
Cornell - Match</p>
<p>Honestly, most of those schools are reaches for anyone. I’m not sure if Brown or UPenn are really useful for what you are looking for, although Wharton would be good for entrepreneurship if that was to be your focus. And even Columbia’s engineering school isn’t great. I believe Cornell, Princeton, and Harvard all have higher ranked engineering programs than Columbia in terms of the ivies. I think Columbia gets more attention just because they have a specific school devoted to it. And as for Duke, they only have four different engineering majors, so make sure the ones they have are the ones you want.</p>
<p>I think you have a great chance at Cornell and it is probably a really good match for you. I would also suggest Carnegie Mellon as it has highly esteemed technical and business programs. </p>
<p>Unfortunately I don’t think any foreign admissions are need-blind, so that could work against you. But you definitely are very qualified. Best of luck!</p>
<p>As an international it’s naturally going to be tougher for you. I like your ECs, they show passion, creating iPhone apps is really cool!</p>
<p>Unfortunately all of these schools are going to be reaches. Make sure you have some safeties lined up, whether in Germany or in the US, and also remember that you want to find the schools that best fit you, and are not necessarily just the top schools in the country.</p>
<p>Brown - low reach
Columbia - reach
Caltech - high reach
Stanford (dream) - high reach
MIT - high reach
UPenn - reach
Duke - reach
Cornell - low reach</p>
<p>You know, as much as I know that there are a lot of Vietnamese living in Germany, its still hard to believe that I met another one on the forums. I technically don’t live in Germany anymore, but I am Vietnamese and I was born and raised in Berlin, Germany (funny, eh?). I still even have citizenship over there! Anyways…I seem to have digressed.</p>
<p>I personally think that as an international student it is much more difficult for you, but your resume really shows your passion for engineering and the sciences. Like Mr. Secret Asian Man above me, I’m going to have to agree that most of these schools are going to be reaches (purely due to international status). However, I think you have a great chance at most schools.</p>
<p>Brown - low reach
Columbia - reach
Caltech - mid-reach
Stanford (dream) - high reach
MIT - high reach
UPenn - reach
Duke - reach
Cornell - low reach</p>
<p>Hope that helps. =D, VN Deutsch pride XP</p>
<p>i just wanted to update with my sat II scores:
Chemistry: 800
Math II: 800
Physics: 790
also took the ACT, pretty confident of getting 33/34
Had anything changed on my chances?</p>