Chance a US-Team member with Weird Circumstances (Male, 97.8 GPA, 1540 SAT) [US citizen outside the US]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics

  • US citizen, residing in India.

  • Income: Less than 5k$

  • Context: International resident applying as domestic (USA citizen); self-studied all APs (not offered at school); attends a JEE-focused school with no olympiad culture, but still participates in a LOT of olympiads.

Coursework

GPA: 97.8/100, Class Rank: 1st out of 27 students.
Intended Major: Applied Math/Physics/Aerospace Engineering (Maybe would do a minor in business if available)

AP scores (all self-studied, school doesn’t offer APs):
5 Calc BC, 5 Physics C Mech, 5 Physics C E&M, 5 Microeconomics, 3 Statistics (Personal Reasons exist)

**SAT: 1540 (800M/740R), single sitting

Languages (Ordered based on Fluency): English, Tamil, French, Telugu, Hindi.**

Extracurriculars

  1. Founder & Director: Olympiad Math Guide (11-12): 200k+ monthly views, 180k lifetime unique users and 3M lifetime pageviews, 1000+ members on main Discord. Built 27 math clubs across underprivileged countries; partnered with math clubs and professors in those nations to register ~5k new students for olympiads (~40% qualified for the 2nd level). Was featured on social media by several olympiad educators.

  2. Author: Olympiad Math Prep Book (10-11): 20k+ downloads across 40+ countries, endorsed by several olympiad coaching institutions. Personally coached ~20 students to AIME qualification.

  3. Founder & Developer: Education SaaS Platform (9-10): Solo-built, 500+ users. Ran charity book drives, donating 3000+ books to orphanages/libraries (local news coverage).

  4. Research: Shared 1st author (among 3). Chess mechanistic interpretability paper mentored by Caltech undergrads (AI/CS, unpublished; we are applying to workshops rn). Very very niche work, not groundbreaking but helps people in the niche decently.

  5. President of Speech & Debate Club: Helped students get 2 international awards; grew participation 175% and membership 70%.

  6. Music (lifelong, self-taught): Guitar/drums/keyboard, vocals + keyboard in bands, performances for 300+ audiences. YouTube channel, 2.5k subs, ~1M views (most videos are deleted due to father rage quitting on me once and deleting this… but I have taken proofs from the past, lots of images and such).

  7. Tech Intern at an Ed-Tech Company (9th grade): Redesigned company website, improved user sign-up times from 12 minutes to 1.5 minutes.

  8. Sports: Basketball, District team (8th-9th); Chess, 2000+ Lichess Rapid.

Awards

  • Representing USA at IOAA + NAC Gold + Lots of other Astro Awards.

  • AMC 12: DHR (last year), HR w/ 144 (this year), AIME: 13 (top 5%)

  • USACO Platinum, perfect score in Gold

  • RMO x2 (India’s AIME equivalent)

  • PMC (UPenn): Top 10 individual, 1st place team

  • Purple Comet: International 1st, perfect team score

  • All India Rank #1, major national math contest (cash prize + laptop)

  • 4x Merit Scholarship, 50% (max they offer to anyone), all years of schooling, awarded for being within the top 20 of 5500 students of the topmost batch available (on overall exam scores).

**Essays:
POS probably gonna revolve smtg around “Sidequest Sunday”; it’s a habit of mine to do something each Sunday where I try to break some mental boundary of mine. It’s very defining of me as a person, since this is what led me to explore the slums in my city, teach at govm schools, work (as in help around) for a day or two at random places, etc. These shenanigans, as my mother calls them, are ngl the primary reason why I got into the activities I got into. Also the reason why I aim to be building public-facing, socially useful technology as my future both during and out of college. This also links a lot to why I got super into academic competitions; that’s a story for later tho.

(I have a weird random interest in ethnographies and the humanities in general due to this, but I am gonna stick to STEM in college since that would allow me to achieve my aims)**

Schools: To be very frank, Idk which ones would be ranked as what (Match, Likely, Reach, Ultra-reach, etc…) for my situation; hence this post even! It would be very helpful if everyone could chance me and also give me some advice on what to expect + any suggestions on what I should do for my essays (I am not accustommed to writing a lot)

  • MIT (EA) (Has historically 88.5% admission rate for US IOAA Team)

  • Cornell University

  • National University of Singapore (NUS)

  • University of Pennsylvania (UPenn)

  • Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)

  • Stanford

  • Harvard

  • Brown University (May or may not apply, Undecided till now)

  • Dartmouth College (May or may not apply, Undecided till now)

  • Nanyang Technological University (NTU)

  • IIT Madras/Bombay (Aero)

  • Yale University

  • Columbia University

  • Rice University

  • Imperial College London (My mock-TMUA scores are near-perfect btw)

  • Oxford (UK)

  • University of Chicago (UChicago)

  • Johns Hopkins University (JHU)

  • Harvey Mudd College

  • University of Michigan (UMich)

  • UC Berkeley

  • UCLA

  • Georgia Tech

  • UT Austin

  • Princeton

  • Caltech

  • Duke

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It would also be awesome if someone could help me in finalising this college list: should I add more colleges, should I remove some, is this too top-heavy rn?

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Calling @hebegebe

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The student is a US citizen. Would Questbridge be a possibility as well…if anyone knows.

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Yes, but time is getting short for that app (due 10/1). National College Match | QuestBridge

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This sounds super interesting to me and a great way to demonstrate curiosity. Not sure why you call it POS. Going forward here, it’s best to not use abbreviations that adult posters might not understand! :grinning_face:

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So first, you need to confirm all these colleges will be affordable for you, using their Net Price Calculators. I am concerned about many of your US public colleges in particular, which may offer little or no aid to US citizens who are not state residents.

Then if you want to seriously consider Aerospace Engineering, I would think about trimming out some of the highly selective US colleges on your list that are not really known for having robust related engineering. I’d personally think about cutting Brown, Dartmouth, Yale, and Chicago. I’d see Columbia, Penn, CMU, and Duke as borderline.

To compensate for cutting publics and these colleges, you could consider some other privates which would be good for your interests. I’d suggest taking a good look at all of RPI, Case Western, and WPI. The University of Southern California is also a sneaky good choice for Aerospace.

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Does this mean you need a full ride from financial aid or scholarships?

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Although you are a US citizen, you do not have state residency so you will be considered out of state for any state universities on your list like UCLA and Berkeley. These schools will not be affordable without residency so you are looking at costs around $85K/year to attend with no financial aid.

Please run the Net Price calculators for all the school on your list as suggested.

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Mb for that, will edit the post for clarity :))

Do you actually think that’s a good idea for the personal statement? I was talking with some of my team coaches and other friends; they kinda just told me to write about “whatever makes you, YOU,” so that’s the first thing (and kinda the best thing) that came to my mind.

There are multiple stories of me one could draft; it kinda just depends on whoever it is and which “me” they know, so I wonder how one actually decides the version of themself they want the personal statement to reflect?

I could prolly write versions of me that are more “me” in the prespective of what I consider myself, I could write of a version of “me” that my friends have, my family has, I could even try to write of the version of “me” that I want the AOs to see or wtvr, but that would be hard since I don’t know them lol… but enough of the yap, How would one decide which version of themselves they want to write of? If any clues at all, that would be terrific!!

Thanks a lot for responding to me, Hope you have a great day!

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Yes! I would need that indeed, Can’t go to school on 5k a year can I?

My parents can sell some of their assets to pay for school to maybe get the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) upto about 15k a year, but that itself would involve selling a good chunk of land that we own. (Not the most desirable outcome, but my parents wouldn’t refuse to allow that if I ask them to do so.)

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Ah! QuestBridge, the old fairy tale fascination of mine!

I also had previously assumed Questbridge would be a dream come true type opportunity for a person like me that does have the brains to go to these top colleges but not the money in the bank, the biggest problem with this is, since I’m not a US resident, despite me being allowed to apply via Questbridge (for example lets say, CPS or National College Match), I would basically be flat out rejected anyways. This has been evident in the past years with only 1 or 2 of several thousand student getting into either of CPS or National College Match from India (I mean in context of US citizens)

TLDR; QuestBridge doesn’t care about US citizens living abroad (at least this seems to be true from the extensive research my friends and I conducted)

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Do you have facts are basing this on anecdotal data - and it’s not like a high percentage of domestic students are getting the full ride freebie.

Outside of that, you have a budget issue.

So then you need to apply at schools that have freebies. Yes, there are the meets need schools - but there are also schools with full rides. For example, E Carolina has the Brinkley Lane program (not sure if they have your majors). UNCC has the Levine Scholarship.

Yes, they are beneath your stats but that’s the point.

And yes, they’re maybe not at the level that you need but you have a better chance. Other less competitive have these too.

And yes, there’s Stamps and there’s the meet needs schools - assuming they agree with the cost you have.

The other thing is the auto merit schools. If you take the ACT and get a 36, U of Alabama would give you free tuition and one year of housing. It wouldn’t be $5K a year in years 2-4, but maybe $15K ish. Now, assuming a 3.5+, you’d be low to mid 20s depending on major. Engineering is cheaper. UAH and Ms State would both be sub 20k with your stats and are outstanding for aero.

Also, schools like Alabama A&M, Troy, Prairie View, you might qualify for a full ride.

It’s just a list expansion to “easier” to get money schools - but I think you eliminate the publics like others say that you can’t afford - UT, hit these high reach schools, add a few like I noted - and cross your fingers.

Partner Schools - Stamps Scholars

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Note that NPCs may not be accurate for you because your parents own land. If the NPC doesn’t ask about real estate/land ownership, you should be skeptical of the results.

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With $5k (or $15k if the parents sell some land), $20k is at the outside limit of budget even adding a federal direct loan.

Also, Tuskegee. All of these except Troy have mechanical engineering. For math or physics, you need to go through the offerings carefully to see if they would meet your academic goals.

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@Beluga123 are you certain you have no chance of claiming residency in any state? This can be a gray area, and depends on the state.

If not, I see your budget as the biggest bottleneck. Student loans may wind up being a big part of your financial aid. In that case you’ll have to think carefully about whether it’s worth it and whether your college degree will put you on a path to pay it back. A career in STEM fields and/or loan forgiveness program for teaching in low income areas could be a part of your solution.

Another thing you may want to consider is to move back to US and do a gap year or two to establish residency in a state.

Just some out-of-the-box suggestions. Ideally you get accepted by a school who offers you a near-full-ride. I hope your parents don’t sell their land — I don’t think college is worth it. You seem a super high achiever. You’ll succeed no matter where you go.

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Kinda anecdotal, Kinda Facts? We asked about 1500 students who applied and found only 2 who were accepted. We learnt from them that there are others who get accepted, but these are usually kids who have lived a considerable amount of time in the US. (And there is another weird piece of evidence pointing out a couple of schools that feed like 20 students into Ivies each year; students who go to these 2-3 schools seem to be getting QuestBridge, while it’s obvious that they are rich enough (their school fee is about 11000$ a year); this is a HUGE amount in India. So this might also just be a problem of subpar LORs and Essays? I’m not sure.

All in all, I can still apply to Questbridge, but at least from the anecdotal evidence it seems that the chance I get in anywhere despite academic competitiveness would be very small.

There is also another thing addressing the second half of your response.
It’s quite unlikely my parents would let me go to schools outside of the T30s (within the US).
The fact is that I’m kinda guaranteed to get admission and good aid at both Singapore Unis and IITs. Which currently act as the safety net I’m gonna rely on in case US admissions go sideways. This basically also leads to my parents not letting me go to college in the US that would not be academically as competitive as my stats… Which does make sense to me as well, since I would be kinda disappointed as well…

Some historical facts go in my favour rn; these include

  1. MIT seems to have about a 90% Admission rate for US IOAA team members who get a silver/gold in the olympiad. I personally believe that I can definitely work hard enough to bring back US a silver/gold medal this year. The rest anyways seemed to have gone to Stanford and UCB. But obv, this is not a huge sample size (only about 50 members). MIT being my dream school, anyway, plays in my favour.

  2. Harvard/Princeton/Stanford (HPS), too, surprisingly have good acceptance rates (at least 45% of people got into one of HPS as well; info obtained by messaging past teams), but low matriculation rates from the IOAA team (primarily due to MIT hoarding everyone LMAO)

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I think you should really trim down your US school list and focus only on the schools that meet your eliteness criteria + the promise of significant scholarship assistance. Meaning, keep Stanford and remove Berkeley etc.

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You are a really exceptional candidate. That being said, I’d cut the state schools that don’t offer aid to OOS applicants as they won’t be affordable (I.e. the UC schools). Of the elite public’s I think only UVA and UNC meet need for OOS students.

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Agree. And OP- you are a US Citizen but have no portable health insurance so will need to purchase a policy. That is a non-trivial expense.

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