Female, originally from Ukraine, moved 2 years ago as permanent resident, English second language but now a native speaker
Intended Major(s)
Physics
Biophysics
Physics engineering
Elementary particles physics (don’t know the official name for this major)
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
~3.9
Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): ~4.6 out of 4
Class Rank: don’t know (don’t know how to get to know that)
Am the second person in school ever to take the max of 5 AP’s. Previous one didn’t succeed, I have all A’s
ACT/SAT Scores: didn’t do yet
Coursework
Junior (this year)
5 AP’s: Biology, PreCalc, Physics 1, CSP, Calc BC
Senior (next year)
3 AP’s: Statistics, Physics C, Phsychology
Will have two unusual classes - independent project on IT and robotics and engineering college level class with project based learning
Speak 6 languages:
Ukrainian, Russian, English - native
German - finished level III, last level
Can read and understand Polish and Church Old Slavic
Awards Am the first one ever in our school to participate in MSEF
Regional Science and Engineering Fair 3rd place 2 consecutive years
From life in Ukraine:
2nd place in the competition “Enchanting physical experience summer 2022”
2nd place at the 1st stage of the “Competition-Defense of the Science Projects”
2nd place in the competition of the best robotics student`s works for 2018
Extracurriculars
Internship in RNA Therapeutics Institution
Started my own software development club
Help for the tech team at school every day
Doing A LOT of online courses
Making a series of physics lectures for my peers at school
Essays/LORs/Other
Always have been a good writer. Have just my first draft, will write about my journey here from my country of origin. Developed a lot during this process.
Cost Constraints / Budget
Don’t have savings at all.
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)
I don’t know about what admissions ED/EA/RD are best for each, these are very roughly, a highly likely subject to change
Safety (certain admission and affordability)
Boston university EA, can afford
WPI EA, need scholarship
RPI, EA, need scholarship
Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable)
UChicago, RD, need scholarship
Duke, RD, need scholarship
Johns Hopkins, RD, need scholarship
University of California-Berkeley, EA, need scholarship
Olin, RD, need scholarship
Match
University of Texas-Austin, need scholarship
Stony Brook University, need scholarship
Explain BU to me - and it’s not a safety as great as you are. How can you afford it? It meets need but there’s never an assurance.
Many of your other schools you say need scholarship but they meet need. So your parent should run the net price calculator to see - if you can afford it or not.
Your rankings are very off - for example, BU is a reach, Chicago and Hopkins are reaches and SB is a safety.
But I’m unclear on your financial status.
Can you expand?
Generally, a school like UC Berkeley and UT Austin wouldn’t come in affordable. I suppose one never knows but I’d remove those and find lower cost options - or if you apply, know that if you need money, it’s a hail Mary - you’re not going.
I don’t know enough about Olin. WPI and RPI are probably likely/match
By scholarship if you mean merit based money - most on your list above won’t give you any or very little.
If you meant need based aid, you should run the net price calculators on these schools’ websites to get an estimate of how much you might qualify for. The OOS public schools won’t give you any, so you should probably take these off your list.
Please ask your parents and let us know your budget so we can better guide you.
I am tagging @AustenNut who may be able to recommend match, likely and true safety schools for you. You currently have an extremely reachy (and likely unaffordable) list.
Please don’t overstate your credentials. I’ve lived in the US for 13 years, speak perfect English, and would never deign to refer to myself as a native speaker.
Agree with much of the above. You are not a native English speaker. You may be fluent, but that doesn’t make it native.
These are all reaches, not likelies. UC Berkeley gives very, very few scholarships to out of state students and will likely be unaffordable (the same for all UCs). UC Berkeley also does not have EA (although you are right that the deadline is earlier than most other schools).
Since you are in Massachusetts, I would look at UMass.
Your list is reach heavy and mis-stratified. BU, UChicago, Duke, JHU, UCB, and UTA are all reach schools. BU might be a low or moderate reach, but still a reach. WPI, RPI are targets. Olin is a difficult one to chance. The admit rate is low, and the admitted classes are very small. You have no safeties. Stony Brook is not a safety if you can’t afford it.
In fact, don’t expect to have your financial need met by any of the out-of-state publics on your list. Do you qualify for in-state rates at UMass, would you still require more funding? UMass is strong for your intended major(s).
If you need money, every single one of these is a reach maybe with the exception of WPI, RPI, and Olin which are still not safeties.
I’m sorry, but you are being naive if you think Duke is a likely. We know many perfect stats + legacy + crazy EC + full pay people that were rejected. They were the “perfect” candidates too.
If you need money to make it affordable, you’re going to need to apply to many more colleges with higher admit rates that you could get merit from. It is also impossible to chance you without an SAT score as those are required at some schools and I believe more will reinstate it.
I would also send in an application to U.Mass Amherst. It is very good, and to me seems safer compared to your alleged safeties (both in terms of admissions and in terms of affordability).
I see MIT in the title for the thread, but not in your list of schools. Regardless it is a reach. Your stats might be typical of accepted students there (if and only if your SAT or ACT is in line for what MIT expects), but are also typical of the vast majority of rejected students at MIT and at your other reaches.
I do not know Olin at all.
Being out of state and needing financial aid, I expect that UC Berkeley is probably very close to hopeless. Admissions is possible but a reach. Financial aid is very unlikely. UT Austin might be similar although I do not know it as well.
Have you run the NPCs for Chicago, Duke, and Johns Hopkins? I would put them all as reaches. You similarly need to run the NPCs for WPI and RPI before you put them as “likely”, never mind “safety”. The same is true for your reaches.
To me BU seems possible for admissions, but not a safety unless there is something that I do not know (such as you having a parent who works there).
I would not apply ED anywhere unless you are sure that it is your #1 choice and the NPC shows it as being affordable. Even in this case I would print out and keep a copy of the NPC results in case the actual offer comes in as not affordable. I am however a fan of EA as long as you can get the applications sent in on time. Waiting for admissions results can be stressful, and having an affordable acceptance in hand can help to reduce the stress even while you are still waiting for additional results.
There are better places to study physics than Olin. And without a budget I’m struggling to suggest which of these would be solid targets for you. But Stonybrook, UIUC, if they come in under your number would be good to explore.
Until you have some scores on national tests we’re all just speculating. And without a budget, we’re kind of wasting your time.
The whole “need scholarship” verbiage is very unclear, as you’re applying it both to schools that meet full documented need (like UChicago/Duke/JHU/etc.) and to public universities that do not give need-based aid to out-of-state students (like Berkeley and UT-Austin)… and also to schools that don’t necessarily meet need but do give merit scholarships (like WPI/RPI). And then there’s BU in its own “can afford” category - I to was wondering if you’re a faculty/staff kid there. (Although, even if you are, that doesn’t make it an admissions safety.)
Run the Net Price Calculator for every school you’re considering. (Here’s one example: Net Price Calculator ) Then categorize schools as: 1) affordable based on the NPC 2) not automatically affordable based on NPC, but merit awards exist that could make it affordable 3) no path to affordability. Obviously the category 3 schools come off the list.
In the super-reach category, I’m surprised not to see Princeton and Cornell.
I agree that Olin is not a fit, as you can’t major in physics there. If you want something with a bit of an Olin-like vibe, but with a physics major and very strong placement into physics PhD programs, look at Harvey Mudd.
A slightly-less-reachy school that still meets need and is very strong in undergrad physics and placement into physics PhD programs is Reed College.
Definitely put UMass Amherst on your list; it’s always good to have your own flagship in the mix, and UMass is a very good one.
Others have already provided you with advice about the schools on your list and which ones are affordable.
It would be very helpful if you could give us an idea of your budget for a couple of reasons:
It affects your chances at schools that “meet need” but are not “need blind.” (If they don’t say they’re need blind, they’re need-aware.) This means that a school is most likely to offer an acceptance to a student whose family can pay $60k/year (receiving $30k/year in need-based aid) as compared to a similar student whose family can pay $10k/year (receiving $80k/year in need-based aid). That’s not to say that students with high levels of need can’t get into need-aware schools, but it does affect their chances of getting in.
It helps posters to find schools that will offer sufficient merit aid for you to attend. If you need schools to cost $X but the max scholarships can’t get us there, then we would know not to suggest them.
Since not everyone agrees on terms like “match” I prefer to use categories based on the chances of admission. All of these schools are sorted by their admission rates.
Do not think of the admissions rates in comparison with your own high school or students you know. You may be one of the top students in your class, one of the top students in the school, or even one of the top students in the school’s history. The latter may benefit you (if teachers/counselors include it in their letters of recommendation), but you will be competing against the best students from across the country and the world. There are far more extremely strong candidates than there will be spots available at the schools in the low probability category.
Extremely Likely (80-99+%)
Likely (60-79%)
RPI
Toss-Up (40-59%)
Stony Brook
WPI
Lower Probability (20-39%)
Low Probability (less than 20%)
Boston U.
Caltech
Duke
Harvard
Johns Hopkins
MIT
Olin
Stanford
U. of California – Berkeley
U. of Chicago
U. of Texas – Austin
Yale
If you let us know a budget, I’d be happy to help research possibilities for the likelier categories for you.
This was originally posted for another student interested in physics. Some of the suggestions may be relevant to you as well (should you decide that you would like to major in physics):
I concur. Nonetheless, that post, in which Mudd received a full line, was intended to offer a sampling of attributes for these schools. I’d encourage the OP to look into each of them more deeply.
I thought people frown upon self studying for an AP test? And since the grade won’t make it to the transcript it’s like it never happened. Am I mistaken on this?
