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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I would drop all the out of state publics as well as UK schools (they don’t really give aid, but I think Oxbridge have some brutally competitive merit scholarships you might have a chance with). You are extremely, extremely likely to get into a top US university which will meet your full demonstrated need, so I would focus on those.

Also keep in mind that an aerospace engineering degree is very different from an (astro)physics degree, so consider your degree program carefully when applying to Indian and UK universities.

Also, don’t count Cambridge out just because they don’t have a stand-alone physics degree: they offer a degree in astrophysics (the third year drawing from natsci and maths students who completed the second year of their respective degree programs) and their maths degree offers many physics courses: Full list of undergraduate courses | Undergraduate Mathematics

Ultimately though, it’s extremely likely you will end up admitted to a top US university with a very generous financial aid offer.

Some other universities to consider adding: Northwestern (engineering, strong math and physics, double majoring is very common and triple majoring is not unheard of thanks to the tri), Williams (tutorial options modeled after Oxford, home to many Apker award winners, many entrepreneurship opportunities), Notre Dame (large physics and astrophysics department), CWRU (generous with merit aid and also meets full need), University of Rochester (excellent academic quality to acceptance rate ratio, world class in optics, strong in physics in general, active astrophysics department, meets full need and also has a full ride merit scholarship). Brown’s flexibility might make it easy to switch across/between engineering and math/physics. At somewhere like Cornell, on the other hand, you would want to apply directly to the engineering school or the business school as it’s easier to declare a major in math or physics as a student in the engineering school or business school than to declare a major in engineering or business as a student in the school of arts and sciences.

If UT Austin, GT are there due to their offering the stamps scholarship, consider also adding OSU to the list as it has very strong math and physics course options and is also a research powerhouse.

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I think your application would benefit from including both of these.

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Keep in mind that at many colleges even with a “full ride” your family may need to pay for transportation, health insurance, books, spening money, etc. which could add up to thousands of dollars annually. Be sure to look at details of any offer to determine affordability. The good news is that as a US citizen you could get a part-time job to help with expenses.

Congrats on your accomplishments. Your list is reach-heavy but glad to see you have an affordable (hopefully) option in India on the application list. Agree with suggestion to run NPC for US colleges and remove schools expected to be unaffordable.

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I appreciate the optimism:

But I don’t think anyone is extremely, extremely likely - and the SAT score, while great, is average at most “top” schools.

I hope you are right and it wouldn’t surprise me but extremely likely gives the signal that you don’t need to apply to a school that’s safe or safer - ie try for a full ride at a less selective school like UNCC Levine or ECU Brinkley Lanewhere you’ll stand out. I’m sure there is others at “easier to get into” programs.

So I would hope that OP would:

  1. Take the SAT again or an ACT in hopes of getting a 36

  2. Find that lowest cost school regardless - as low as they can find - maybe it’s a UAH type - and apply there in hopes of additional money. Or get that 36 on the ACT and Alabama will beat that 15K per year average.

  3. There are the HBCUS like Prairie View and Alabama A&M that show full rides (tuition, room and board) for these stats - but they do require an app as they are not automatic. @ucbalumnus seems to have good insights on these.

I get it - the student profile is well above any of these - but I think the optimism, while great and maybe warranted, may also leave the student without a US home if they followed it to a tee.

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Beluga123 should avoid retaking the SAT with an 800 math score; try the ACT if he can score closer to perfect in English & Reading, based on simulated practice tests.

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IMO if the student prepared for the SAT, I’d stick to that test IF they choose to retake. YMMV.

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I only noted ACT - because a 1600 might be harder to obtain than a 36. A 36 would give them free tuition and a year of housing at Bama - so all in they might be 3 years at $15K-ish for room and board and one at $5K ish for board - so about $12-13K a year on average which the family may be able to swing (before the other costs like health insurance and transport). Of course, some can spend even less than $15K a year.

I just think a 36 might be more realistic than a 1600 - is why I mentioned.

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Note that the OP posted this:

“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.”

So, please let us not derailed this thread with suggestions that don’t fit the OP’s situation/preferences.

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Missed it - sorry

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In that case, Columbia (aid), UMD (Banneker Key), Northwestern (aid), UT (forty acres), Purdue, Georgia Tech, and UMich (all stamps) are all options. UIUC’s stamps scholarship is only available to Illinois residents.

According to US News, OSU (stamps) is #22 in physics, TAMU (Brown scholars) is #12 in engineering, Virginia Tech (stamps) is #12 in aerospace engineering and T20 in undergraduate engineering.

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For Oxbridge:

Trinity international bursaries: https://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/undergraduate/finance/financial-support/#1648475362438-d22662 (note that Trinity is exceptionally competitive for mathematics in particular)

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To state what I see as the obvious: Your main issue is not whether or not you will be accepted to several elite universities, but, rather, will your options be affordable.

Princeton University should be among your top target schools as Princeton tends to make very generous need based financial aid offers.

Examine a list of the US universities (you’ll need to attend a university with graduate school course offerings because you are so advanced & gifted) with the largest endowments. Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, & Princeton have the 5 largest endowments and are, typically, the top 5 ranked National Universities based on a variety of factors.

The top ten US National Universities listed & ranked by endowment are:

Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, MIT, University of Pennsylvania, Notre Dame, Columbia, Northwestern, and Johns Hopkins University.

You should consider applying to 9 of these 10 universities (not sure that Notre Dame will interest you).

Without satisfying the affordability aspect, attending a US university may be an unrealistic option for you.

P.S. Just did a quick review of the US universities & colleges which offer the largest average financial aid grants:

The top 4 US National Universities which offer the largest average need based grants in aid are:

Columbia, Harvard, Stanford, & Northwestern.

Smaller schools which are among the top ranked US colleges which offer very generous need based financial aid grants are:

Dartmouth, Amherst, Williams, & Pomona.

And, as I wrote above, Princeton University is very generous.

Of course, you should also apply to MIT, JHU, Vanderbilt (super generous merit scholarships available), Caltech, Rice University in Houston, Texas, WashUStL, Swarthmore College, U Chicago, U Penn, Cornell, Brown, & Duke.

Emory University in Atlanta (Decatur area), Georgia offers near full ride scholarships, but, if I recall correctly,one must apply early in the application cycle.

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Well nowwww you tell us…!! That changes everything.

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Damn! I never thought about that. Thank you so much for pointing that out. I will keep it in mind!
Any personal suggestions on which one is best?

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WOW! First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to do this much research :))

I am actually considering the option of doing Princeton REA and then doing MIT RD, since MIT seemingly looks at EA/RD applicants in the same way.

From the top ten US National Universities listed & ranked by endowment, I will be applying to the 9 you mentioned haha (Notre Dame’s highly catholic affiliation might be annoying in the long run due to my religious beliefs).

Most of the top private schools already offer programs where they waive the tuition for families earning less than X$, and usually X is greater than 50k$. With family income near zero rn, I think I would qualify for all of those.

I can add Northwestern to my list, but from a simple Google search, it shows that they take about 70% of students in their early rounds and fill the remaining 30% in rd (hence a VERY much lower acceptance rate), so kinda unsure how practical it would be to apply in rd.

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Thanks for linking them :)) I will try for this to aid in my UK applications

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Thanks!

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Hi, so I’m indeed considering retaking the SAT next month; just olympiad prep, school exams, and other stuff have been taking up so much of my time that I wasn’t sure whether retaking would be worth it.

I was under the impression that SAT scores don’t matter that much and serve as an indicator of a student’s academic capabilities; I hoped my other academic achievements, along with context, would prove that, irrespective of my SAT score. But just seeing this be raised as a concern makes me suspect that an AO might do the same.

Idk if I have the time rn to prepare for a completely different format of the ACT rn, since I barely am getting by on 5 hours of sleep, managing the olympiad classes along with my 12 hours of school…

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I will be applying to some outside scholarships and such exactly for that purpose + if everything fails, I’m still sure I could work some part-time job to get the money I need for that stuff (Being an olympiad team member comes with a great perk of huge pay in quant style jobs and tutoring jobs, there are options where I could get about 60$ a hour even!!)

Thanks for your kind words :slight_smile: . The school in India is indeed really affordable, about 2500$ a year. I have scholarships that cover that amount already, so that would basically be a full-ride guaranteed.

I shall also follow your suggestion and run NPCs on all the schools in my list to remove the ones that seem to be unaffordable even with aid. Thanks a lot :))

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Sounds good. Just be aware that some colleges reduce their financial award by the amount of outside scholarships. Again, pay attention to the details of any financial package you receive.

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