Some background info: I am a high school junior (Asian female) and a US citizen studying in India. I studied the CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) curriculum in grades 9 and 10 and am now doing the AS and A-levels.
Courseload:
Physics (A-level) Predicted grade A*
Chemistry (A-level) Predicted grade A*
Math (A-level) Predicted grade A*
CS (A-level) Predicted grade A*
Further Math (A-level, self-studying this)
Eng. Lit and Lang (AS-level) Predicted grade A
Global Perspectives (AS level) Predicted grade A
Grade 10: 98% in the CBSE board exam, topped my school
Took the SAT once, scored 1570. NMSQT (semi)finalist status pending. 800s in Math L2, Physics and Chemistry SAT II.
ECs:
9 years violin training
Regional science olympiads and spell bees, in which I have done well
Active member of math and data clubs at school
Doing weekly astronomy activities with the junior science club at my school
President of a student-led initiative which does volunteering activities around the city
Member of the pulsar search collaboratory- involves analysing pulsar data plots
Founder and president of physics club at school
Participating in a selective country-wide asteroid hunt
Participating in NASA Ames Space Settlement Contest
Cofounder of a small business which donates 70% of profits to charity
I’d like to apply to an undergrad physics/astrophysics program. No financial aid required, and I don’t have any particular preferences in terms of college size and location. What colleges would you suggest as matches?
Among other options, you could look into liberal arts colleges such as NESCACs (e.g., Williams, Wesleyan, Middlebury, Hamilton), Swarthmore/Haverford/Bryn Mawr, Colgate, Wellesley and Pomona. Note that while all of these colleges would be excellent for physics, some may limit their astronomy programs to a minor.
You probably know this already but Oxford would be much more of a match than any US school of comparable quality. You could get a masters in four years and still end up coming to the US afterwards.
In the US I think you’d be well positioned to get into at least one of Berkeley or UCLA if those are of interest (and you are happy to pay the OOS costs). Many would say they should be classified as a reach for everyone, but in L&S (as opposed to Engineering) I would disagree (my S18 was comfortable applying to just those two UCs and got into both, albeit instate). And they don’t consider ethnicity in admissions.
The choice of a city school such as Rice could depend on the OP’s interest in visibly experiencing the stars and planets on a nightly basis. For those fascinated by the night sky, this could mean everything.
Rice and Wesleyan are similarly equipped with campus based observatories that are used primarily as teaching facilities: https://www.wesleyan.edu/observatory/
The research for which the three universities (UT, Wesleyan and Rice) share credit in post#3 was probably performed using the West Texas observatory owned by UT: http://www.as.utexas.edu/mcdonald/mcdonald.html
Thank you all for your responses! I’ve been looking into these colleges and will probably apply (Williams and UC Berkeley in particular). I know they’re high reaches, but based off my stats do you think I’d be competitive for Princeton and Caltech?
Yes. And in 2010, they even won in the same year. How is that possible? Because they compete in two different institutional tracks, Phd-producing (Wesleyan) and non-Phd-producing (Williams.) That means Wesleyan was punching way above its weight against such giants as Michigan, Chicago, Harvard and Princeton: https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/apker.cfm
I disagree with that conclusion though, at least as a generality. If the stronger physics undergrads were in the non-Ph.D. granting programs that year, then the Williams recipient would have achieved the more significant recognition.