Chance me for need-blind schools [international student, IB, 35 ACT, high FA need, bioengineering]

International student.
East Asia country national. No PR or citizenship for other countries.
Public (with high tuition).

Annual income 40k with 2 cancer patients to support.

Intended major: bioengineering

UW GPA: 6.33/7 (4.1)
Class Rank: N/A
ACT Scores: 35 (one time, math & science 36, reading 34, English 35)
IB 2 SLs (Chinese A & ESS), 4 HLs (Math AA, English A, Biology, Physics)
Self-studying 4 APs (Lit, Comparative Government, Chem, World History Modern)
1 college summer course (JHU BMEI), 3 credits, A-

Honors

  1. 2023 NAQT national no.3 team + individual Gold (top 5%); 2025 CAQT National no.2 team, individual top 5%; qualified for HSNCT twice
  2. HOSA national gold honor 5%, advance to global
  3. Diamond Challenge Business Track China runner-up
  4. Conrad Challenge CHN bronze award
  5. ISEF (non-U.S.) State second prize and special prize (highest in Bio)
  6. UKChO Silver
  7. HSNCT 2024 participation (first ever Chinese team to do so)
  8. iGEM 2023 gold medal (team leader); 2024 silver medal (team leader)
  9. YIS (platinum, national top 5)
  10. Yale Ethics Bowl National 3rd
  11. NSES (Conrad-affiliated competition in China) best presentation, most socially responsible project, and best project in category (Health & Nutrition)

Activities

  1. Patent*3
  2. Non-profit for medical services abroad
  3. JHU BMEI (3 credits, 91%)
  4. 2 college internships:
    1. free university internship, organic chemistry
    2. Tsinghua IBME internship
  5. NAQT PASS (SKT student leadership/ambassador)
  6. NAQT club founding member + core member + 24-25 president
  7. Electives:
    1. Math modeling
    2. Earth Science
    3. Physics Olympiad
    4. Linear Algebra
  8. Paid jobs tutoring/TA/modeling
  9. PwC ESG Challenger finalist (top 8 in China)
  10. Xenobiology portfolio
  11. cross country club founder, triathlon club founder
  12. 3 half marathons; climbed a 7000m+ mountain; a few trail running; full-distance triathlon
  13. volunteering at HK100 cross-country; subtitles for my dad’s trail running videos
  14. Philosophy essay portfolio
  15. School musical main cast (SIX Anne Boleyn)

Please chance me for the 10 need-blind schools! Thank you!

They are all reaches for you and just about every other applicant to them. The acceptance rate for international students at these schools is VERY low single digits.

About 95% of international applicants are rejected and in that group are very well qualified students…like you. These colleges simply don’t have enough seats for all of the well qualified applicants they see.

I hope you also have some less competitive colleges on your application list if you really want to study in the U.S. and a true affordable sure thing in your home country. You need these on your application list.

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There are many more than 10 need blind schools. But most do not provide good (or any) financial aid to international undergraduate students.

yes I do have other schools (rationally prepared to go to a top100 school but maybe emotionally not so prepared). As for a school in my home country, unfortunately in my country to college entry process is drastically different from the U.S. one, so there’s no going back

i thought there’s only 10 schools need blind to international students, but maybe the internet sources were wrong :frowning: I’ll double check. Thanks!

I think you’re looking at a list of schools that are both need blind and meet full need for international students (and I believe the list is a little over 10 now).

Far more schools (including pretty much all the public schools) are need blind - but as ucbalumnus said, they provide little to no financial aid.

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ooh hi just out of curiosity am I allowed to still edit this post or no. My ACT’s actually 35, and I recently won Conrad Innovator so I wanted to make edits to update stuff

thanks! I’ll go do a bit more research. I probably wouldn’t apply to public schools since my school counselor already told me there’s no point applying cuz they don’t give aid

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Look at the first three categories - there are a lot of need aware schools which meet full need

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