Chance Me for Princeton, Tufts, and Purdue 25-26! [international in Delaware, 4.0 GPA, top 1%, 1550 SAT, <$40k]

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Demographics

International student attending mid size, public high school in Delaware.

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0/4.0
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.51
  • Class Rank: 2/257
  • SAT - 1550 (800 Math, 750 English)

HS coursework
IB Diploma Program - 8 IB courses and 10 Pre-IB courses across 4 years
2 APs senior year
IB Math score - 7/7
IB Psychology score - 6/7
Note - This is the most advanced curriculum my school offers. I wish I could’ve taken more APs this year but as a part of the IB program, I was unable to do so.

Awards

  • Mathematical Maverick - State level award given by state university for my math modeling skills on real-world problems like packaging optimization.
  • USA Math Talent Search Honorable Mention - Wrote long proofs for theoretical math puzzles for 3 months.
  • International Math League Summer Challenge Bronze Medal
  • National Merit Semifinalist
  • Tennis Conference Champions (2x)

Extracurriculars

Research/projects

  • Created a Python program that helps optimize multi-stop routes and has helped friends and family save 70 gallons of gas and counting.
  • Collaborated with Harvard Computer Society’s students to build an AI model that predicts stock prices 1 week in the future.
  • Currently working on building an AI model that will help my peers predict their next math grade based on study habits and suggest improvements.

Leadership/Initiative

  • Math League captain at school
  • Varsity Tennis Captain - Won the Blue Hen Conference for the last two years
  • Youtuber - 100000+ views and 5000+ subscribers on my guitar channel.
  • Math Tutor at international and local non-profits - Taught Pre-Algebra & Algebra to 50+ students across 20+ countries.
  • Varsity Soccer / JV Captain

College Experiences

  • Governor’s School For Excellence - Summer program for top 70 academic students in the state. Lived on state university campus and discussed issues with Governor.
  • Summer Math Modeling Program - Highly selective opportunity for state’s top 20 math students. Worked with professors and graduate students at state university to solve real-world problems with math.

Essays
Personal Statement was rated 86/100 by my essay coach
Have not started supplementals yet.

LORs
IB Math and AP Calc teacher - 9/10 knows me well academically
IB French teacher - 8.5/10 knows me well as a person
IB counselor - 7.5/10

Schools & Desired Majors
Princeton (Single-Choice Early Action) - Operations Research & Financial Engineering
Purdue (RD) - Artificial Intelligence
Tufts (RD) - Applied Math

All 3 of them review applications holistically. I have other schools as well but these are my top ones where I’m trying to get an idea of my chances of getting in. Please don’t resist to be harsh if that’s the truth!!

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I can’t chance you, but you should apply EA to Purdue. It is a public school so you are allowed to apply SCEA to Princeton and EA to Purdue.

Good luck!

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Thanks for the suggestion!

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Budget issues ?

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Have you reached out to tennis coaches at those schools?

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Great question. Budget is not an issue for my family based on the financial aid awarded to international students by Princeton, Purdue or Tufts. We are fine up to 40k/yr and I think that’s manageable based on info I learnt at campus visits. I have gone to all of these 3 and talked to admissions counselors about finances, and I really don’t think it will be a limitation.

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I have at Tufts. But I’m really not good enough to be a recruited athlete because we aren’t really comparable to private/charter schools, and all of our achievements are just against other public schools like ours. Also, I started playing tennis only 3 years ago and it’s not something I have done my whole life. But definitely going to play it as a club sport.

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Purdue will not be $40k. It’ll be near $50k for a U.S. student. Intl more. There is a surcharge for the major - so I’m not seeing it as an option. I’m interested to hear how they said you can get to $40k. Tuition yes but not room and board included.

You never know related to Princeton and Tufts. Both a crapshoot.

Who’s your affordable safety ? Do you qualify for Delaware in- state tuition ? UDel can be your safety.

For Princeton and Tufts, talking to someone is not enough. You need to fill out a net price calculator. They need to understand income and assets - that won’t happen during a visit. Make sure they do this to triple check they are affordable.

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UDel, Penn State, and Drexel are my affordable safeties because of the merit and aid I will likely receive. I know that Purdue, Princeton and Tufts can go slightly over 40k but I checked with the NPC and the results are acceptable.

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OK - I don’t see Purdue as affordable and there’s no way Penn State will be - they rarely give merit - and it’s pricier than Purdue.

It shows over $60K for international - before health insurance.

If you want an affordable safety, look at Alabama who gives big aid to international. And some SUNYs may - not sure how they handle international - but like a BInghamton.

Alabama would come through under budget with $28K auto merit.

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Thanks for your input. UDel and Drexel are 2 safeties where I will very likely get into the Honors college, which provides significant merit aid. And I have in-state as well. I’m not very concerned about safeties. I’m trying to figure out my chances at my targets/reaches and Princeton, Tufts, Purdue are on the front of that list.

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Well if you’re assured that U Del is affordable - not sure that you can say that about Drexel - but if you’re assured UDel is affordable, then the others don’t matter.

You have your sure thing - take your shot. What we tell you is irrelevant - you’ll either get in or not - and if not, you have UDEL.

I do worry about your cost estimating - because it seems you are off on Purdue, far off on PSU and I’m guessing Drexel as well too.

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AFAIK Purdue doesn’t provide financial aid to international students. Tagging @momofboiler1 to confirm.

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Just a little data.

In their last CDS reported, Princeton admitted 209/9891 International applicants (about 2.1%), versus 1659/30572 domestic (5.4%). Part of why it is so much harder for Internationals is Princeton has a need blind policy for Internationals, plus it is globally famous, so it gets a lot of International applicants. You are highly qualified so for sure you can apply, I just think it is worth understanding they are going to be rejecting the vast majority of their highly qualified International applicants.

OK, then Tufts was 584/9336 for Internationals, about 6.3%, versus 3373/25085 (13.4%) domestic. Pretty amazing that even just superficially, Tufts is almost as low for Internationals as Princeton is for domestics. Again, part of what is going on is Tufts gets a lot of International applicants, I suspect in part because it is in Boston, and also because it does have some [edit: need, not merit] aid (also it is a good school, but I think it gets a lot of Internationals even given that).

However, it is probably much lower still for Internationals with need at Tufts, because they are not need blind like Princeton. When Tufts does give aid to Internationals, it is usually a lot–a reported average of $80,079. But Tufts only gave aid to 231/887 Internationals, about 26%. For comparison, at need blind Princeton, it was 551/721, over 76%.

OK, so very likely Tufts has a much lower acceptance rate for Internationals with need as opposed to full pay Internationals. How much lower? Well, we don’t know for sure, but if you use need blind colleges like Princeton to make some reasonable assumptions, it is possible that the full pay International admissions rate is something like NINE times the needy International admissions rate. That might be a little high, but point is it is likely a large multiple, as that is what it likely takes to get such a low percentage of Internationals getting need aid. Colleges like Tufts must be using being need aware for Internationals very, very aggressively to enroll full pay Internationals at far higher rates.

And if you do more math, this would mean that while the full pay International admit rate at Tufts could actually be as high or indeed higher than the domestic admit rate at Tufts, the needy International admit rate could be around as low as it is at Princeton, or indeed even lower. Which again implies it would be extremely competitive for needy Internationals applying to Tufts, likely with most highly qualified but needy Internationals getting rejected.

I can’t really chance you more specifically than this. I just wanted it to be clear that although Princeton or Tufts might give you enough aid if admitted, at both there are very few such offers available in comparison to the large pools of International applicants trying to get one.

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That is correct: - International students who hold F, J and some other visa types are not eligible for merit based awards and the university does not provide need based aid for international students.

Note that the COA will be going up in ‘26. There will be an additional $1000/semester for international students plus an increase in fees.

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I’m concerned the OP may have run the NPC at Purdue as if they had a different residency status.

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Tufts does not give any merit aid to international students. (The only merit aid that Tufts gives to domestics is a nominal NMF award and ROTC.)

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OP and others reading this thread…be sure that you look ahead at potential changes in costs. Most schools do raise their COA year to year and if you are needing aid, it could make a major impact on your college list.

For Purdue, this coming year they are estimating $48.7K for international students + miscellaneous expenses (books, travel, etc…) so their estimate is $51K. It will be higher still in '26-27 with the increase in fees.

OP - I’m also concerned that you need to be sure that you are running the aid calculators as an international student, and not a US resident of Delaware. Despite living in the US, unless you have a green card, you will not be considered a domestic applicant which unfortunately makes both admissions and aid more difficult.

You have a very strong profile but please make sure you truly have affordable schools on your list.

And seconding to be sure you meet the EA deadline at Purdue (November 1st) as they fill the majority of their class in the EA round. (Especially important for competitive majors like AI).

FWIW, I think you have a very good shot at being accepted to Purdue.

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Yes, that was just an unforced pre-coffee error on my part.

What I originally was thinking was that at colleges like Tufts, because they are need aware for Internationals, and in fact because their need aid budgets for Internationals are so small relative to potential demand among highly qualified Internationals, their need aid for Internationals functions like merit aid in practice, meaning you have to not only be qualified for admissions, but also win this further competition for these limited aid offers.

I then decided that was more complexity than my post needed, but in cutting back the thought, I said “merit” when I should have said “need”.

Sorry! And thanks to Mwfan1921 for catching it.

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So in addition to not making budget (or close at Purdue) and even worse at PSU and I doubt Drexel, you need to make sure you qualify in state at UDEL or that’s a no financially too.

Then you have no home unless you are admitted to Princeton or Tufts and they get to budget.

You aren’t worried about your safeties. I am. Not admission but cost.

But you have Alabama, at least in your back pocket, if needed. There might be more under $20k - I just haven’t done the research. But other aggressive US schools for citizens typically aren’t for international - which is why I haven’t found another. C Michigan may work.

Hopefully you qualify in state at UDel. OOS is near $60k tuition room and board. I don’t see intl but you can get $5k to $18k in merit - but that’s not a guarantee.