HYPSM are certainly my top choices, as most of the people, but I also like smaller schools, such as harvey mudd and so on. My favorite are Harvard and Stanford.
I have a 1540 on the new SAT (740 CR + 800 Math + 8/7/8 Essay), and I have a 4.80 Weighted GPA (4.0 unweighted). I am currently a junior and will have taken 11 APs (all 5s so far). My school does not provide class ranking. I am an international student, Asian male. I currently go to a top private boarding school in Connecticut.
As for extracurriculars:
-Scholastic Arts and Writing: three gold keys, several other minor ones
-varsity crew for 2 years (we are ranked in the top ten groups in the nation)
-fencing team captain
-President of multiple school volunteering clubs
-regularly volunteer teaching kids at the elementary school of my school.
-ISEF Finalist
-ran school cafe
-FRC World Championship qualifier team member, top 32. Rookie all star. FTC State Champion Team member. Vex World Qualifier, state champion.
Where should I apply early? Should I apply REA (no legacy, no recruitment)? Anything else that I can do to improve my odds?
My current course load: English: AP Language; Math: Independent Study; Science: AP Chem; AP Comp. Sci. Principle; AP Latin; Painting Honor Studio. I exhausted math curriculum at my school last year, since I took and got 5 on AP Calculus BC when I was in 8th grade, and took mvc, linear algebra, discrete math, and differential equation at my school in my freshman and sophmore year. I am taking Real Analysis and Partial Differential Equation through a program called “stanford precollegiate university level online math and physics.” I am planning on doing similar thing next year.
What does the college placement team at your school recommend? If it truly is a top private boarding institution, they will have records of everywhere students have applied, and where they have been admitted, since the founding of the school, and will have much more accurate advice for you than anyone here.
The fact that you got a 5 on AP Calculus BC in 8th grade and that you’ve already taken MVC and Linear Algebra and Diff Equations is quite something. Congratulations on your accomplishments. I don’t have any advice for you but I must say that you have a bright future ahead regardless of where you apply to or choose to attend.
Yes, the college counseling office provide periodic suggestions and follow-ups. The thing is I would like to hear from different voices, especially because I am an international student from China, while most of the students my school serves are American citizens.
Even full-pay international applicants face challenges in admission that full-pay US applicants don’t. Generally speaking, what would be a match for a full-pay US applicant is a reach for a full-pay international applicant.
Have a chat with your parents about how much the can afford to pay for your education. Have a talk with your counselor about your possible career goals. Do you want to continue to pursue math? What would you do with a math education? Where would you like to work after finishing your college-level studies?
Take a good long look at universities in Canada, Australia, and other countries as well as institutions in the US. Canada and Australia have much friendlier immigration policies than the US does, which means that you would have better prospects for long-term employment after graduation if you don’t want to go back to China.
If you are planning to return to China, then you need to determine whether or not your potential employers there care where you get a degree in the US. That way you will know if you have to focus on a larger or smaller set of options.
Money is not what my family concerns. My family’s income bracket is pretty high. We just wanna know what range will I be having a good shot of getting admitted (like 30% ish). The goal for me is to become an entrepreneur, so employment is really not my big concern. My family has business in U.S., which means I can potentially apply for L1 visa instead of HB1. Thank you so much.
You will have a good shot of admission at places that have never rejected a student from your high school who had your test scores and GPA. You will be guaranteed admission at places that have automatic admission for specific GPA and test scores, and that extend that to international applicants. Check the Auto Admit threads at the tops of the Financial Aid forum and of the College Admissions forum. Beyond that, your own guidance team should have more ideas. They can tell you where international students with grades and test scores like yours have been admitted.
Babson is probably the first place you should look at because of your interest in entrepreneurship. They basically invented that field of study. The international student I knew who went there loved it.
If you do find that you have a true first choice, your chance of admission is likely to be improved a bit by applying ED, or REA if one of those options is offered. But do have the rest of your applications ready to send off in case you don’t get in at that first choice.
The vast majority of international students think exactly like you do so your competition will be brutal . You are obviously a competitive applicant ( because of the ISEF finalist accomplishment mainly ) but applying as an international student from China and also from an elite east coast boarding school puts you in the most competitive cohort there is. Your SAT scores are not near-perfect and your GPA is slightly lower than the average at most ivies so unless you want to risk not getting into any elite, I would suggest also applying to some other ivies/elites outside of HYPSM (think Columbia, Penn, Chicago, Dartmouth, Cornell, Brown). Your matches would be places like Rice, Emory, UMich, Berkeley, WUSTL, Tufts, UCLA.
This GPA is the highest possible at my school, since we have to take one non-ap class, which makes the highest GPA at my school 4.8. I recently took the ACT and got an 36 on it with essay. Could you chance me one more time with these updates? Thank you!
If Harvard and Stanford are your top choices, one of those is where you should apply SCEA. You may want to apply to public flagship like Michigan or Illinois EA so you have an idea how competitive you are as an applicant since you will be out of state/country.