Chance an international student for top engineering schools

International Students
1

School: National Physics and Mathematics School (ranked as on the most difficult academically and hard to get in schools in Kazakhstan. thus very selective and competitive)
Location: Almaty, Kazakhstan
Race/Gender: white male
Prospective Major: something STEM oriented, have not decided yet. Really passionate about astronautics, so will probably apply to aero/astro.
In Kazakhstan we are graded out of 5, thus GPA: 4.9 out of 5. Don’t calculate weighted grade.
Class rank: school does not rank.

Extracurricular info:
-Speaker of three languages: Kazakh (native speaker), Russian (native speaker), English (C1 certificate)
-During 10th grade Winter vacations, our school was assigned to MIT’s “MIT Global Teaching Lab” program. A group of MIT juniors visited our and taught robotics and mathematics for a whole month. Was accepted through examinations to take a part in the project;(2017)
-Founder of the engineering club at our school “Nerdy Engineers” (unofficial title). Main motivation of our team was to thrive physics through practical tasks and experiments (2018);
-Founder of the charity club “Little Big Hearts” (unofficial title), where we taught 9th graders of the local orphanage “Zhanuia” math, russian and geography. Reached for about 1500$ of fundings for kids’ clothings (2018);
-Was admitted to take place in NASA’s United Space School 2018 this summer;
-Took a part in the Math Fair 2018 and represented my own project;
-Certificate of an active school volunteer member (2018);
-Certificate of participation in XIII International Specialized Zhautykov Olympiad in Math, Physics and Computer Science as a volunteer (2017);
-Accepted to do an IT internship organized by the Method pro organisation in Almaty (2018);
-Did several internships last summer in “Oil Insurance Company JCS” in Almaty, and “Open Clinic LLP” in Almaty to get the understanding of the workforce environment (2017);
-Did a couple of sports, to clarify: basketball (1 year), swimming (6 years), boxing (3 years), wrestling (1 year).

Honors:
-Took a part in the Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament representing Kazakhstan, Cambridge MA on 11 November 2017. As the “Almaty Combined Team 1”,got 7th place as a team, moving further the last year’s team results, and I was by the competition committee as the strongest member in my team (was not accepted to IMO, but hope to get there next year)
-In one of the biggest math olympiad in the world “International Mathematical Kangaroo” in 2014, which was held in Paris, France, I took a third place as Kazakhstan team member;
-Took a part in Euclid Math Contest 2018 and got into 25% percentile of the best participants;
-“The Pride of the School-2018” award winner;
-2014-2018: National math competitions (do not want to clarify all of them, they do not seem as really significant);
-Did swimming for the last 6 years, got places in a couple of competitions;
-Got a first place in the regional boxing competition;

Bonuses:
-In Kazakhstan we study 11 years, not 12 as most of the countries. I recently graduated from school, so before that I thought of applying to US boarding schools to retake an 11th grade and finish the 12th grade there. As a result, I was accepted to Kent School, CT;
-Possessor of the presidential scholarship at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA(2018);
-Admitted into the University of Cincinnati (2018);
-SAT : 1200 (yeah, I know it is really low, but hope to get it way higher in the US boarding school)
-TOEFL : 90/120 (sure will get it higher)

About me:
Love to make people happy, so that’s the reason I have founded the club that will somehow help people with no one to support them. Thus, try to participate in volunteer events as much as I can. Really love traveling and making new friends, so hope to make more friends with diverse cultural backgrounds. Through the process of application colleges and schools, I understood one of the most important things that most of the applicants misimpret. You do not have to force yourself do stuff that the college will probably will find interesting in you, create your own path filled with your own interests, so the life becomes happier. Hope to follow this path and not to get lost.

I know that my scores now are awful for the top engineering schools, but you can tell me that I am on the right direction or not. Any comments will be helpful
Thank you all in advance!

2

Your ECs are impressive, but your odds of getting into any top engineering school right now are nil. Your test scores are simply too low. If your scores dramatically increase after your experience at a U.S. boarding school, you may have a shot. It won’t be a BIG shot, because those schools are extremely competitive, especially for international students. So if you’re serious about continuing your education in the U.S. you will have to apply also to less selective schools to increase your chances.

3

You know what your chances are, b/c you have already tried and the result was UCincy & WPI (with a scholarship). WPI is actually a very strong program, so it is good you have that. Your test scores are the obstacle for the more famous names.

Pretty sure it’s the FISE United Space School, not NASA. It’s a great program, but it is not the sort of selectivity that will compensate for poor test scores.

4

Despite your SAT score, your application would be amazing provided you write good essays too.
But even if you don’t manage to deviate so much from that score, I’d strongly advise you to apply because the facts re set. You would do great at an engineering school.

Don’t let the SAT score stop you from applying. I have seen many applicants(with not so great SAT scores) on CC get admitted to ivy leagues and big schools. Try checking the threads of @ZAPrez I think. He was an amazing applicant(like you) that got into Harvard EA with a low score and he was very inspiring.