Chance an international student from a post-Soviet country for MIT/Ivies?

International Students
1

Demographics: Male, Caucasian (Azerbaijan, southwest Asia), sophomore (or junior, 10th grade, we have a 11-grade system), middle class (need at least 70-80% financial aid). Both parents graduated at local universities (Father – Bachelor’s deg., Mother – Master’s deg.). Uncle graduated from Harvard Kennedy School (MBA).

Passion(s): Computer Science, Mathematics

Academics:
SAT: 1500
TOEFL: 110
SAT II:
Math: 800
Physics: 780

School: one of the best state schools
Class rank: we don’t have class ranks in our school, but i think i can ask about one from my counsellor. Top 5% for sure.
GPA (unweighed, we don’t have weighed GPA): 3.97/4.00
Coursework (most recent) [important notice #1]: Algebra I & II, Precalculus, Geometry, some topics in Calculus, Physics (equiv. to AP Physics C), Organic Chemistry, History, Literature, Russian, Azerbaijani, English, German
Rec. Letters: 9/10 Math Teacher (who is also my homeroom teacher), 8/10 Russian & Literature Teacher, probably will be able to get a rec. letter from the principal (she knows me well). Letters show my active role in educational process, creativeness, dedication & hard-working. Awesome relationship with (almost) every teacher.

Sports (minor): 3 years Aikido, 1 year Tae Kwon Do practise

Extracurriculars: (important notice #2):

  1. Game Development (Programming and Graphical aspects, all by myself). Releasing my first game this week, plan to dedicate myself fully to gamedev, studying Computer Graphics, Collision Detection, AI, etc. Plan to write an (hopefully :slight_smile: ) outstanding essay on this topic. Also planning a project in Computer Graphics, something to show to CS department at a potential university choice.
  2. Competitive Programming (dark green on CodeForces). Planning to dedicate a lot of time to the upper-pink tier. Republic Informatics Olympiad finalist (Olympiad is still continuing, so i have a chance to take a place).
  3. A lot of web development projects, plan to get all of them on GitHub. Starting a small web development business, created 3 commercial websites for small local companies. Plan to develop my web development “business” further.
  4. Student Government. School Parliament Vice-Speaker, will try to raise my rank to Speaker. Organized school sports events, cancer/AIDS awareness days, prom parties, etc.
  5. Any suggestions?..

Please chance me for the following schools:
MIT
Ivy’s (Yale, Cornell, Dartmouth [ED], Brown, Cornell)
Boston U.
Harvey Mudd
Pomona
Northwestern
Illinois institute of technology (safety)
Any suggestions?

Important notice: I took the most intense, hard and interesting to me courses available at my high school. State schools don’t provide any AP, IB, Honors, etc. courses. However, state-approved curriculum is pretty intense and definitely catches up to AP. Coursework is not customizable, all courses are required. However, you are given four curriculum choices before 10th grade:
Technical group: focus on Math, Physics, Chemistry.
Economic group: focus on Math, Earth Sciences (Geography) and History (no Economics courses, somehow).
Humanitarian group: focus on Languages, Literature and History.
Medical group: focus on Chemistry and Biology.
Obviously, i chose the technical group.

Important notice #2: Choice in ECs is nowhere as broad in US and other countries. Nobody has even an idea about what a school club is, and the situation is the same in every single school. There isn’t even a single Computer Science course offered, so i had to study it all by myself and create opportunities myself. I wonder if university admission officers are aware of this.

Thank you so much!

2

University admissions officers are very aware of the types of differences between US and international secondary schools in terms of choices, expectations and ECs. They may not know the details of any one country, but they know the big picture, and they evaluate you in terms of your region.

Both Physics C’s (Mechanics & E+M) require calculus, in which you have done ‘some topics’- you may be closer to Physics 1 (Mechanics) or 2 (E+M).

Don’t count too much on your own conversion for GPAs (are you using the 5=A, 4=B metric to get to a 3.97GPA?) the universities will do their own conversion), but note that a few universities actually have country by country grade info (University of Oregon actually has Azerbaijan…).

if you are in your penultimate year of secondary school, for posting purposes you are in effect a junior.

As for ‘chances’, you can do the maths for yourself: google collegedata + college name to find out how many international applicants they get & how many they take. Assume that needing aid will reduce your chances further. For the most familiar name (eg, MIT, Yale, Cornell, etc), assume that you have to be not just at the top of your school but at the top of your country / region. For example, MIT takes just 8% of it’s applicants, of which just under 10% are international- from nearly 100 countries. So last year, about 24,000 students (domestic + international) applied to MIT, and about 450 international students were accepted. MIT being MIT they give lots of stats (see their international stats here: http://web.mit.edu/iso/stats_16-17/general.shtml)

3

@collegemom3717 thank you very much for your reply! What safety/match schools can you suggest for me? How do i increase my chances of admission?

4

International students who need financial aid don’t have any safeties. You will be competing for very limited funds against top students from around the world. If you do not have the money for Illinois Institute of Technology it’s not a safety for you. Currently, all the schools on your list are reaches for most students, including international students needing extensive financial aid.

To increase our chances of admission to an American school, you need to apply to schools that attract FEWER international applicants. And that means targeting lesser known universities in parts of the country less appealing to international students: the American south, the central states (often called midwest) and some of the less populated states such as Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, etc.

5

Good advice by @katliamom.

You should look at lots of LACs that almost no one outside the US has heard of. Some of them have strong reputations (at least among American elites) and some would give you generous fin aid because they want a diverse student body.

6

Look into Carroll College in Montana