US domestic (US citizen or permanent resident) or international student
International
State/Location of residency: (state is important if you apply to any state universities)
Singapore
Type of high school (current college for transfers):
Public school with large emphasis on Math/Science
Gender/Race/Ethnicity (optional):
Singaporean Chinese. Male (trans female but not planning to report).
Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.):
First generation
Intended Major(s)
Chemistry
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 4.65/5.0 (no weighted system)
Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 3.72/4.0 (converted to a 4.0 scale)
Class Rank: none
ACT/SAT Scores: 1540 (750 Eng/790 Math)
Coursework (AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes, AP/IB scores for high school; also include level of math and foreign language reached and any unusual academic electives; for transfers, describe your college courses and preparation for your intended major(s))
AP Calc AB: 5
Unreleased AP scores, but expecting 5s, if not 4s: Calc BC, Stats, Physics 1, Chemistry. School only offers 7 APs. I’m not taking AP Bio and AP Physics C since I don’t take the prerequisite courses/I just suck at Biology man…
Took double-enrollment for general chemistry and physical chemistry at the local university alongside my regular classes, got a B+ and an A- respectively.
Took every Chemistry Olympiad course offered by school. (grades generally ranged from B to B+ with one A+, but can be omitted from final GPA as they are elective courses)
Took 4 years of Japanese total in middle school and high school (school only offers 4 years). Bagged a JLPT N3 pass. (grades generally ranged from B to B+ with one A, but can be omitted from final GPA as they are elective courses)
2023/2024 SChL Gold (Student-run national competition, made Gold in 2023, expecting Gold for 2024)
2022/2023 SMO Open Silver (National Math Olympiad, equivalent to AMC12/USAMO? idk how US math oly system works)
2021/2022 SMO Senior Gold (National Math Olympiad, equivalent to AMC10? idk either)
Extracurriculars (Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)
Made it to “camp” for IChO selection. (i.e. final round before national team selection - equivalent to top 13 in the entire country (~5.5mil population) for Chemistry)
I’m also top 5 in my school for Chemistry. Unfortunately, 3 out of these 5 people are IChO participants. They’re probably applying to the same schools as I am. Lmao
Student research attachment at local government research centre. Submitted Materials Science project for local science fair, sadly did not make it to finals.
Interned at a museum about gemstones and minerals (summer holidays, 4 days/week 6-7 hour shifts)
Tutored underclassmen and external students for Math and Chemistry Olympiads
Vice President of the Mental Wellness club for 2 years, leadership for 3 years total
Tennis Vice Captain for 2 years
Yearbook club member (graduation book for our cohort)
Essays/LORs/Other (Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.)
Essay: 6/10. Nothing special, I feel.
LOR 1: 7/10
LOR 2: 6/10
College Counsellor: 8/10
Cost Constraints / Budget (High school students: please get a budget from your parents and use the Net Price Calculators on the web sites of colleges of interest.)
It’s complicated -_- my parents are divorced and talking to my father is difficult, though he seems supportive… expecting to be able to pay ~USD 20k/yr minimally
Schools (List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below)
Safety (certain admission and affordability)
National University of Singapore
Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable)
Match
Cambridge
Imperial College London
(insert UCL KCL Edinburgh)
Reach
UDub (Washington, Seattle)
Dartmouth
Johns Hopkins
Toronto
UBC
How does this compare to other students in your high school? Your grades will be interpreted in the context of the high school or national system that you are studying in. For each of the schools that you apply to, someone on their staff will be familiar with the grade scales typically used in Singapore. I am not.
Are you applying for the Lester B Pearson scholarship at Toronto? You need to get your high school to nominate you for this, and it is exceptionally competitive. However, I do not see how it would be affordable otherwise.
I also do not know how UBC would be affordable with a budget of US$20,000 per year.
And I have no idea whether financial aid is likely at the schools in the UK.
Affordability might be just as much of a challenge as being accepted.
Ok fair point. But OP should still be looking into schools that are likely to be affordable if they are accepted. Nothing worse than getting into a school you really like and not being able to afford it.
CONGRATULATIONS on an impressive record - JPLT N3 shows real strength in an area outside your top field and your results in chemistry should garner interest at all the colleges you listed.
Running the NPC is a very important first step so that international students and their parents understand costs at US colleges. If you live in a country where 8K tuition is considered exhorbitant or where the average middle class family makes $800 a month, these numbers matter a lot.
Students can just enter the info for domestic students and remove any non institutional aid from the financial aid package (ie., Pell, anything with “federal”): this is the lowest amount your family will be expected to pay. When parents are divorced, both parents’ income are factored in, even if one refuses to pay. If they remarried, their spouse’s income also factors in.
Cambridge may offer you a scholarship but other UK universities are both safeties academically and probably out if reach finanfially. Talk with your parents wrt costs there, too.
You need to expand your list though and in particular find 2-3 universities your classmates aren’t applying to.
I’m thinking of Northwestern, Rice, URochester, Vanderbilt, HarveyMudd, USC in particular.
Perhaps Williams, Swarthmore, Vassar - those would definitely be under the radar at an entrance-exam Stem school in Singapore. If your budget of 20k is a true estimate of your parents’ ability to pay (rather than willingness), Amherst and Bowdoin would not consider your need in making a decision, just like HYPM Brown Dartmouth do.
How does this compare to other students in your high school?
The median at our school is a 4.4-4.5/5.0 (say 4.45). The GPA of the students who apply to these schools range from 4.5-4.9/5.0. I have top grades in the relevant subjects (Physics, Math, Chemistry are all 4.9s or 5.0s), but it’s my poor English grades (3.8/5.0) and Humanities grades (4.3/5.0) which prevent me from competing with those at the top.
Are you applying for the Lester B Pearson scholarship at Toronto? You need to get your high school to nominate you for this, and it is exceptionally competitive. However, I do not see how it would be affordable otherwise.
Oh yeah, I brought this up with them a few months ago! IIRC nobody from our school has ever been selected for the scholarship. Quoting my college counsellor, “Our students are not generally the type of people these schools are looking for,” so I’m not relying on it.
Yeah, I think affordability is the largest barrier for overseas schools in my case…
They do offer to OOS (Purple & Gold) but not to International - so it should be removed from the student’s list.
A college like Alabama, as an example, would be a good sub, as the student would qualify for the same merit aid as a US student - a US student would be about $20K so international a bit more (health insurance, etc.). Alabama is one of the few schools I found that give similar scholarships to International and OOS. There’s another potential $6K on top of the auto merit through a competitive scholarship program.
From UW:
The UW Office of Student Financial Aid does not offer any type of scholarship, grant or other form of aid to international students studying in the U.S. However, there are other ways for international students to fund their studies.
There may be funding support offered by your own government, or by other organizations, corporations or institutions. Additionally, your academic department may have information regarding specific scholarships and/or funding options available for its majors and minors.
Remember to give yourself plenty of time to research and apply for scholarships, as they tend to be competitive.
Here is the Alabama Scholarship info for international:
These schools are need-blind for international students and say they will meet full-need, which will make them amongst the most competitive in the world for international students:
Amherst
Bowdoin
Brown (starting for your graduating class)
Dartmouth
Harvard
MIT
Princeton
Yale
If your family is willing and able to spend about $20k/year, then that’s a leg up on international students whose families can pay $5k or less. Thus, though the schools I will list below are not need-blind for international students, I don’t think your need is at such a high level that these would be near impossibilities.
This snip comes from this resource showing which schools produce some of the highest number of graduates who went on for a doctorate in chemistry in the U.S. between 2000-2018. Use the link to see additional schools, but the list is sorted from highest to lowest and is inclusive of all schools, no matter what size of the college. So William & Mary (about 6800 undergrads), for instance, is punching well above its weight as it produced more chem doctorates than U. of Florida (about 35k undergrads) or U. of Michigan (about 33k undergrads).
In listing schools below, I excluded a number of schools that would not provide sufficient aid (whether none to international students or insufficient quantities).
Cornell (NY): About 16k undergrads and produced 167 chemistry doctorates. International student financial aid policy indicates that it includes living and housing expenses in its determination of need. Among the 20 colleges with the biggest international student aid packages.
Truman State: About 3600 undergrads and produced 112 chem doctorates (the same number as Cal Tech…both just not visible on the snip). This school may not have a big international reputation, but this school just continuously impresses me with the number of students it produces who go on to earn doctorates in various fields. International students are eligible to earn merit aid here, and you would automatically qualify for $9k in merit based on your test scores/GPA and you would get an additional $2k as an IB graduate. You would also be eligible to compete for the competitive scholarships which would be worth even more. But with $11k in scholarships, cost would be about $18k/year. Here’s the international student financial aid policy.
U. of Chicago (IL): About 7500 undergrads and produced 111 chem doctorates. international student financial aid policy indicates that it does not include living or travel expenses
Carleton (MN): About 2k undergrads and produced 106 chem doctorates. – international student financial aid policy does not indicate whether living expenses are included in the definition of need
Northwestern (IL): About 8700 undergrads and produced 102 chem doctorates– international student financial aid policy shows that it covers full cost of attendance, including room & board, health insurance, travel allowance, etc.
Harvey Mudd (CA): About 900 undergrads and produced 93 chem doctorates. – international student financial aid policy shows that it’s for tuition, fees, books & supplies (so not living or travel expenses)
Rice (TX): About 4500 undergrads and produced 81 chem doctorates. international student financial aid policy does not indicate whether need is determined inclusive of living expenses or not
Franklin and Marshall (PA ): About 2k undergrads and produced 79 chem doctorates.
Washington U. (MO): About 8100 undergrads and produced 75 chem doctorates. Its policy on international aid
College of Wooster (OH): About 2k undergrads and produced 74 chem doctorates. Its policy on international aid.
Case Western (OH): About 6k undergrads and produced 72 chem doctorates. international student financial aid policy does not indicate whether need is determined inclusive of living expenses
Some schools noted for being among the 20 most generous with the average aid package to international students included (in addition to Cornell, listed above):
Duke (NC): About 6600 undergrads and produced 62 chem doctorates.
Haverford (PA ): About 1k undergrads and produced 48 chem doctorates
Pomona (CA): About 1800 undergrads (and in the same consortium as Harvey Mudd). Produced 36 chem doctorates.
Wesleyan (CT): About 3100 undergrads and produced 33 chem doctorates. : international student financial aid policy doesn’t specify whether living expenses are needed, but there is a scholarship for students from Asian countries.
Vassar (NY): About 2500 undergrads and produced 32 chem doctorates.
Vanderbilt (TN): About 7200 undergrads and produced 34 chem doctorates.
Georgetown (D.C.): About 7900 undergrads and produced 24 chem doctorates.
Washington & Lee (VA): About 1900 undergrads and produced 22 chem doctorates.
Skidmore (NY): About 2800 undergrads and produced 18 chem doctorates.
Pitzer (CA): About 1200 undergrads (in the same consortium as Harvey Mudd & Pomona) and produced 3 chem doctorates.
And one last school that has a reputation for being on the generous side for international students is:
Brandeis (MA): About 3700 undergrads and produced 46 chem doctorates. international student financial aid policy does not indicate whether need is determined inclusive of living expenses, but it is noted for having more generous amounts of aid for international students.
Just for giggles & grins, I went on ahead and calculated a ratio of number of chem doctorates earned in relationship with the undergraduate student body and sorted it from the highest ratio to the lowest. Take it for what you will.
Also, @Andygp has an international student who is attending College of Wooster, should you have any questions about the school.
Considering the Demographics may be Reed should be considered as well. It will surely have one of the highest PhDs per capita. Kalamazoo has great chemistry program also.
20K USD for internationals will be hard to achieve except for some southern state schools like Alabama or Need blind schools where they consider your need to be similar to what you feel your need is.
Other mid-ranked need aware schools one may be able to achieve @25K with some post offer negotiation.
PS. I am not surprised with PhDs per capita of CoW. They have a great Chemistry/Biochemistry department. Lots of opportunities for doing non-trivial undergraduate research early in your academic journey. Fair number of students go to top tier graduate schools from there. My son’s friend just went to MIT.
My recommendation to the OP based on our last year’s experience:
Do not apply to state schools except may be some specific southern states and some Texas Universities. But in these demographics may be of concern. In general state schools will not give financial aid to internationals or even to OOS largely for that matter. Admission here will be in some sense easiest to get because you will be full pay and they don’t care about yield.
Apply to need blind + need met private if you believe your financial capability is really low. It may be hard to convince them considering divorce situation etc. Generally for internationals it is tougher deal to come through in a complex situation.
Mid-ranked need aware private R1 and mid rank LACs (30-100) may be the best bet. Take a look at their common data publications and see what is the average merit+need based they have given for internationals in last couple of years. Generally you will be within +/-20% of that number if you get admitted.
Apply to places where Biology, Biochemistry and Chemistry constitutes a sizeable population of students. Some LACs focus more on social science even if they have these departments.
