Chance an International for CS Reach Schools! [IBDP predicted 777776]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics

Gender: Male
Indian citizen but living in Europe (Czechia) (did HS in Czechia and some of MS in Czechia), Applying for Fall 2024
Hooks: None

Intended Major: Computer Science

Academics

IB Diploma (HL: Math AA, Physics, Chemistry, SL: English Lang Lit, French, Economics) (44/45 Predicted Grades expected, 777776 with the 6 in IB English Lang & Lit SL)

Self Studied AP Calculus BC Freshman Year and took the exam (5/5)

Self Studied AP Physics C Mech in sophomore year (5/5), also self studied AP Physics C E&M sophomore year (4/5)

Sophomore Year did Multivariable Calculus from John Hopkins CTY Online

Yet to take SAT, but can get 1550+ after preparing based on practice tests

Awards

AMC 12 (First Place School, school-level so prolly won’t include in app)

AIME Qualifier

USACO Silver

Canadian Math Contest (10th grade, 1st place school, Top 1% globally)

Google Certified TensorFlow (software library for AI and Data Science) Developer

Represented this small European country at the FIRST Global Challenge Geneva Switzerland 2022 (Robotics challenge)

Will represent Czechia again in FIRST Global Challenge Singapore 2023 (highly likely but not confirmed)

Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award

Sci-Tech Challenge Czechia by ExxonMobil and Junior Achievement: 1st Place

Full Paid trip to Brussels for European Sci-Tech Challenge by ExxonMobil and Junior Achievement

Extracurriculars

Gave a TEDx talk on Artificial Intelligence and Creativity (about 12k views rn)

Did Robotics throughout High School, took part in a VEX robotics competition where many European schools competed

Cross Country running in 10th grade

Tutored high schoolers math in my high school as a volunteer

Tutored our school’s middle school MathCounts team

Run a computer science club in school where I help students with any problems they have with computer science

Wrote some articles on Machine Learning on Medium.com (about 2k views in total)

Financial Constraints: Can Full Pay if needed

Safeties & Matches: All in Europe (So only chance me for the schools below)
Reaches: UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon
Even More Reachy Reaches: MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Caltech

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You look like a strong candidate. Since you already have safeties and matches, and don’t need aid*, go shoot your shot at these reaches.

CMU likes full pay international students so I think you have your best chance there. But it’s not a school that suits everybody, so do your research. If you love the school and are willing to commit, applying ED will boost your chances.

(* - make sure you can show funds for all 4 years. You’ll need to do this to get your visa)

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Thank you so much for the info!

How would you say are my chances for each of the 6 schools?

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The acceptance rate at all these schools is in the low single digits for international applicants. So unfortunately, it’s very hard to predict your chances more accurately.

I think you may get a slight boost from applying REA to Stanford or Harvard, but I don’t have reliable data to back that up. If you do apply REA and don’t get in, you have the option of applying ED2 to CMU.

I’m tagging @hebegebe who may be able to comment on your chances at MIT and Harvard.

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@BearNo21, you have accomplished a great deal and should be proud.

But as you specifically asked to be chanced for HMS and CalTech, I am letting you know that a lot of exceptional international applicants get turned down at those colleges.

The admit rate for international students at Harvard and MIT is less than half their overall admit rate. The international students that do get admitted tend to be scary smart compared to the domestic students at Harvard and MIT.

To put it in perspective, MIT accepts about 120 international students each year. Each country has 6 students on their IMO team, and so many of those apply from all over the world that MIT can only accept about half of them. And we haven’t even started to consider other accomplishments that these colleges like.

Since you have a good set of safeties and matches, I agree with @DadOfJerseyGirl that it’s fine to try for the reaches. Just know the odds going in.

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As you know, the acceptance rates for these schools are very very low…perhaps in the single digits for international students. You are a strong applicant, so go for it. You could be one of those accepted.

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Thanks for the kind words!

Yep, I have come to terms with the fact that the applicant pools for the HMS colleges are very competitive. I am wondering though where exactly I stand in that applicant pool, am I at the bottom of the competitive pool, in the middle, slightly above average, or at the top end of the applicant pool (top end being people who have a fair shot of getting admitted).

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There is no way for us to answer this question for your application year. Every year has a different applicant pool. Plus…if you don’t get accepted (or do) you will never know why. Most of these schools do holistic admissions reviews. They are trying to craft an entering freshman class.

Just apply and see. There is no way to accurately predict admissions at schools with admissions rates in the single digits.

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UC Berkeley’s 2022 admit rates are as follows:
CS was 2.9%. For 2023, it was 2.3%
EECS was 4.5%. For 2023, I have not found specific data. College of Engineering as a whole had a 6.6% acceptance rate.

There is no way to chance with such low admit rates other than to say you are definitely qualified and competitive but so are many of the applicants which were not admitted.

Best of luck.

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For these schools, and CS in particular, the process is highly unpredictable in the absence of an absolute hook. You qualify for all, without an absolute hook.

Your strategy is correct to aim high, since it costs the same to attend the best. Certain schools on your list have a genuine higher admit rate, so you mathematically have a higher probability, but the differences are not large. If time allows, your absolute best bet would be to add perfectly suitable schools to your list, such as Cornell, JHU, UCLA etc

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Mod note: updated info by OP

Hello, I am an Indian citizen living in Europe (living in a small country in Europe with about 10 million people since 7th grade) and I am curious to know what my chances at Stanford for CS would be

Stats:

  1. IB Diploma (44/45 predicted) with IB Math Analysis and Approaches HL, IB Physics HL, IB Chemistry HL and a 777 in HL subjects
  2. Self-studied AP Calculus BC in Grade 9 on the side: 5/5
  3. Self-studied AP Physics C Mechanics in Grade 10 on the side: 5/5
  4. In 10th grade, did Multivariable Calculus from John Hopkins CTY Online (Final Grade: 97%)

SAT: 1540 (800M, 740ERW)

Awards:

  1. AMC 12 First Place at school
  2. AIME Qualifier
  3. Google certified TensorFlow Developer (had to give a 5hr exam to obtain it)
  4. University of Waterloo CEMC Cayley Mathematics Contest (1st place school, top 1% globally and was on the international honor roll) JA & ExxonMobil Sci-Tech European Challenge: Won the national round and traveled to Brussels on an all-expenses paid trip to compete against 6 other European countries
  5. FIRST Global Robotics Challenge 2022 Switzerland: Traveled to Geneva on an all expenses-paid trip to represent this small European country
  6. FIRST Global Robotics Challenge 2023 Singapore: Traveled to Singapore on all-expenses paid trip to represent this small European country
  7. Zonal Informatics Olympiad: First stage of Indian IOI selections, technically only happens in India but convinced the coordinator to let me take it in online and qualified for the INOI In process of getting the DofE gold award

ECs

  1. TEDx: Delivered a TEDx talk on AI to 100+ viewers live and received 12,000+ views on the official TEDx channel
  2. Robotics: Did robotics for all 4 years of HS competing in big competitions like FIRST Global and interschool VEX competitions
  3. Computer Science Club: Leader of this club that tries to help students with CS concepts and discusses new CS concepts
  4. Free math tutoring for 3 years at my school
  5. Mentored my school’s middle school math team and helped them trained for the MathCounts contest
  6. Mentored my school’s middle school LEGO robotics team
  7. Cross country running for 1 year and competed in 2 5km races
  8. Wrote machine learning articles on medium that got read about 2,000 timesLORs: very strong

All responses are appreciated!

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You are a very strong student and are doing very well.

Stanford does not admit by major (for undergraduates). This implies that being a CS major will not hurt your chances.

Stanford is definitely a reach for the very strongest students, and out of reach for most other students. You fall into the “very strongest students” category.

You are more likely to be rejected than accepted, but I think that it is worth an application. You definitely also should be applying to safeties.

If you do get accepted and choose to attend, then definitely attend the welcome reception for incoming international students.

Congratulations on your accomplishments up to this point.

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Thank you for the kind words! Considering I am an international do you think the AOs will treat me like an Indian or someone from the small European country I live in since middle school? Also, yes I am applying to safeties but they aren’t in America

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EFC: Full Pay
Hooks: None
Final College List
Safeties: In Europe
US College List: Berkeley, Stanford, Princeton, CMU, Harvard, MIT

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As I and others mentioned above: you’re a strong candidate. Stanford and MIT - you’ll have your answer within 2 weeks.
There is no definitive answer any of us here can provide you.

Good luck.

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Unfortunately not 2 weeks since I am applying RD to all schools :frowning:

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Oh! Any reason you didn’t apply early at any of these schools? You would have received a boost at CMU and I believe at Stanford too.

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The main reason I didn’t apply early is because as per all the research I did, these schools don’t provide a boost. For example, in Stanford’s case the only thing I could find is the REA pool being harder to get into than RD. while that might not be true, at the very least all schools didn’t have a difference between early and regular. Only one that did was Carnegie Mellon but that’s only if I did ED and I didn’t wanna commit

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Yes, good call not applying ED to CMU if it isn’t your top choice. Opinions on REA boost at Stanford are mixed.

Not receiving a boost isn’t a good reason to not apply early. Anyway, it’s water under the bridge. Best wishes for RD. Please post back here with your results.

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