Do I stand a chance?

Darkseer · September 24, 2005, 8:57am

Well, this is a “how much chance” question again.
Any suggestion and opinion will be appreciated.
Sorry if my English is poor.
And sorry for the incompleteness of my information.

-

Applied as freshmen, an international student.

From Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in east Asia.
In Taiwan senior high school are ranked and students have to take tests to go to senior high, I go to the best(that, in fact, simply means it requires highest test scores) school in Kaohsiung.

GPA about 3.0 (from grade 10-11, grade 12 will be better, about 3.5~3.8, I hope), oh yes I know lots of B does really, really hurts…

College courses taken: //I give names given in Taiwan, might be strange…
-Calculus(I and II)
-Linear Algebra(I and II)
-Algebra(I)
-Introduction to Computer Science
all received grade 99 or 100

to be taken this semester:
-Advanced Calculus(I)
-Complex Analysis(I)
-Topology //graduate course

Test scores
-TOEFL 243, will be taken again, 25x expected
-SAT to be taken in November, verbal and writing will be bad definitely…
-SAT II to be taken in October, my estimation:
-Math IIC:800
-Physics: 770~800
-Chemistry 720~800

Awards: //remember that “national” means “in Taiwan”
-2004 IMO gold medal, 41 out of 42, 5th place
-2005 IMO gold medal, full score
-2004 APMO gold medal, full score
-'03 & '04 National High School Contest in informatics, 2nd prize
-'03 & '04 National Problem Solving Contest, 1st place
(teamwork, about programming too, like ACM-ICPC)
-National Chung-Cheng Cup Debating Competition 2nd place
-National xxx(can’t translate) Cup Debating 4th place

Extracurriculars
-Computer Science & Technology Researching Club, I am the instructor
-Mathematics Research Club, instructor again…
by the way, I am training the mathematics and informatics school teams, those who go to national Olympiad in math/infor and seek for chances to go to IMO/IOI.
-Debating Club

Thanks you for reading. Is there anything I missed?

Darkseer · September 24, 2005, 10:00am

Oh, I almost forget this.
I don’t need financial aid. Our ministry of education are running a project that will pay for me…

tech_fan · September 24, 2005, 11:42am

It is always a challenge to predict chances in these situations. On the one hand, the IMO is very impressive, but sadly we turn down some IMO medalists from Taiwan and Korea every year. But the math research club will be a big help (make sure to emphasize and explain this in your application), since that shows you are broader than just solving contest problems.

You’re certainly an international student with a fair chance of admission. Your goal is to make sure your application shows a strong ability to communicate in English (have it checked by the best English speaker you know) and that your mathematical mind is more creative than just solving contest problems. If you can do that, then I would feel very decent about your chances.

meanvaluetheorem1 · September 24, 2005, 4:14pm

But Ben, if this person was American, he would definitely be accepted, right? That’s so unfair… He’s a genius.

sr6622 · September 24, 2005, 4:29pm

WOW…41 and perfect 42 in IMO…It is sad but true, the fact that Caltech rejects amazing IMO medalists much like yourself.

If you can nail the SATs I guess you would have a better chance.

ALso, try posting on Art of problem solving . com

sr6622 · September 24, 2005, 4:35pm

“But Ben, if this person was American, he would definitely be accepted, right? That’s so unfair… He’s a genius.”

if he was American, he would probably get the Axline scholarship.

tech_fan · September 24, 2005, 4:51pm

Yes, that’s all true. The international competition is much tougher. That’s not my decision, just the way it is. If it helps, this imbalance in chances is also the way it is at all of our peer universities.

funkbunk · September 24, 2005, 5:52pm

Actually, Ben, the math departments at Princeton, Stanford, and Harvard, are heavily involved in recruiting gifted math students with credentials similar to that of darkseer’s. I’d very much doubt that he wouldn’t be able, with some hard work, to get into these colleges. But he’s definitely in the ballpark.

Ah, and the particular reason for turning down those students is their very low command of English, I presume?

Finally, do you guys prefer math researchers (and RSI-types) over Olympiad medalists with no research experience?

tech_fan · September 24, 2005, 7:33pm

Thanks for the heads up. Having been admitted to all three and taken courses at one of them, I was aware. Not that Caltech doesn’t recruit IMO types and the like just as heavily. In fact, we’re the only top school with merit scholarships for top students, and we have several IMO gold medalists, as well as the winner of the IPhO.

The point I was making, though, was that Princeton, Harvard, and Stanford, just like Caltech, turns down foreign IMO medalists every year in favor of much less impressive kids from the US. That’s the imbalance I was talking about. No matter how you cut it, it’s much harder to get in as an international applicant than to get in as a domestic one at any top university. It’s not just a Caltech thing. I agree that it’s not great, but the problem is much bigger than one university.

Not always, though this is sometimes the reason. More often, there are just even more impressive international students. Along those lines…

Often, we can get students with olympiad medals and research experience at once (see darkseer’s qualifications – he’s doing well). But on the whole, we’d prefer great research to great olympiad achievements a slight bit, though of course an IMO gold would beat mediocre research any day.

: )

Darkseer · September 24, 2005, 10:54pm

Thanks a lot.

Well, I must say that I am happy to see what Ben’s said, though I don’t feel my chance higher than I thought before.

I can understand that international students’ competition is much tougher and see there are some reasons for that…:(. So it is true that all thost top universities set a number and admit international students not more than that number?

Almost all information told me that the committee are not mathematician, even in HYPMSC(I don’t mean to order them, don’t kick me for that, :)). So…maybe showing my passion for helping others will be more important than showing my passion for pure mathematics…all stuff like that. But Ben you’re clearly a strong counterexample It is just happier simply to see that I am “talking” with mathematicians while doing application forms, you know.

In this case, I can fully understand the importance in showing my mathematical abilities other than Olympiad problem solving. Well, after reading Ben’s replies, I asked myself that whether I’ve much research experience. The answer seems to be “no”, at least for a student who is going to be a mathematician and found his talent in mathematics early.

Yes, I’ve done some projects. But you see, if the project’s whole problem is not harder than the most difficult problem in IMO or IMO shortlisted. How can it be a research? Fortunately I’ve started doing some real research recently. I’ll try my best to express them in my essays and recommendations.

By the way, since the committee must be well aware that student can have their essays check by the best English speaker they can find, why does that still matter?

-

To sr6622, oh yes I am a member in AoPS, with the same name Darkseer. I’ve posted about 60 posts, mostly in the Olympiad section I think. Sadly I haven’t been there for 2 months.

tokenadult · September 24, 2005, 11:21pm

To the contrary, at all the top math schools there are mathematicians looking at the applications of top math students.

Good luck; I used to live in Taiwan.

tech_fan · September 24, 2005, 11:26pm

Roughly speaking, yes. There is a maximum percentage of the admits that can be international. I don’t like it, but it’s not my call to make.

At HYPS, admissions is done purely by admissions officers who are very rarely mathematicians. [Hmm… tokenadult says otherwise… this is contrary to my information, but then again I respect tokenadult… if I may ask, what’s your source on this?] At MIT, there is some student and faculty involvement in the admissions process, but as far as I can tell not quite as much as at Caltech; (I don’t think at MIT the applications are actually read and summarized by students and faculty prior to the selection votes, but perhaps someone will correct me on this point). At Caltech, more than 2/3 of the committee on admissions consists of faculty and students; at least one of the professors who reads applications is Prof. Michael Aschbacher in the math department, and at least three math majors are on the student part of the committee this coming year. The students and faculty read applications, summarize their main points, and then vote on them; so at least at Caltech you can be assured that there is a decent probability that an actual mathematician will read your application.

Don’t be too modest :-). Send us what you’ve done in the past, and what you’re doing now. I’m pretty sure we’ll be impressed.

That’s a good observation, since I am on the committee and told you to have it checked ;-). It is true that the essay is not a perfect reflection of English fluency, and it is somewhat illogical to draw conclusions from it at all; (after all, it could just have been written by someone else). But you’d be shocked at the number of lazy, careless, and otherwise bad essays we get. These people clearly didn’t even take that opportunity. Sending in a very well-written essay shows, at the very least, that you care enough to be careful about it. And since most people are honest and do really write their own essays, possibly with some help on English, we think that it is a decent, if imperfect, reflection on an applicant’s personality.

Plus, if they can write in good English for this essay, they probably have the right mindset and will get their essays checked later when they write things at Caltech! : )

ay_caramba · September 25, 2005, 12:26am

How can you say that? What about Duke? Johns Hopkins? Rice? They all have them… there are other top schools beside the Ivy League…

tech_fan · September 25, 2005, 12:31am

okay, okay, I should have said among HYPSMC – my bad.

tokenadult · September 25, 2005, 12:34am

Somewhere in some Harvard press release about last year’s entering class I saw an official expression of thanks to some math professor who assisted the admissions committee. Sorry I don’t have the URL. The source for Stanford’s practice (and implicitly the practice of Stanford competitors that prompted Stanford to do this) is the book Questions and Admissions by a former Stanford admissions officer. The story from Stanford is that the math department started complaining to the admissions committee that they were letting go too many good math students, which prompted the admissions committee to give someone from the math department a look at application files that indicated a strong math interest.

That’s reassuring, I hope, for applicants who submit applications that say “math, math, and more math” to the usual admissions committee consisting mostly of former humanities majors.

tech_fan · September 25, 2005, 12:47am

Oh, right! Good call. I remember now that Noam Elkies was on the committee at Harvard, and he’s a very well-respected mathematician and a former Olympian himself. Thank you for the prompt reply.

Yes, so mathematicians are likely to have some input at lots of places. That is reassuring, since, as you said, the professional admissions folks, great as they are, typically can’t connect with mathematically brilliant kids so well. And at Caltech, we try hard to make the admissions process reflect the community, so the applicants get a fair shake. : )

Darkseer · September 26, 2005, 9:45pm

Thanks too much. Could you please help me on some more questions?

<ol>
<li>How will the committee think about my poor GPA? By the way, generally speaking, how do they think about Asian students’ grade?</li>
<li>I’ve self-study something like functional analysis, Galois theory, and some arithmetic stuff(p-adic field, for instance). How can I show that?(well, the 500-words limit for essay is just too hard for me>_<)</li>
<li>What might be different in the way how committee considers my case in other colleges?
(I am applying CMPHSY, U. of Chicago, UC Berkeley, UCLA and UIUC)</li>
</ol>

tokenadult · September 27, 2005, 12:23am

<a href=“I%20am%20applying%20CMPHSY,%20U.%20of%20Chicago,%20UC%20Berkeley,%20UCLA%20and%20UIUC”>quote</a>

[/quote]

I like the way you put Caltech first on that list.

<ol>
<li>Every admissions committee in the United States knows that east Asian grades are less inflated than American grades. On the other hand, they also have seen the highest grades that are obtained in east Asia, which may or may not be higher than yours. Don’t worry about it too much, but recognize grades will still be an important point of comparison between you and your fellow countrymen. </li>
<li>You just said it above in fewer than 500 words. On some application forms (e.g., Harvard’s supplement to the Common Application) you can mention what books you have read in the last year. You can find a way to stay in the word limits on different application forms. </li>
<li>Some colleges admit more “by the numbers” than other colleges. Some are looking to build an interesting, diverse class, but unfortunately Taiwanese people apply to all the top colleges in the United States every year, so no college has a shortage of Taiwanese people in its entering class if the college is any good. </li>
</ol>

Ben is straightforward enough to tell people they have no chance when they have no chance. If he thinks you have SOME chance at Caltech, which is quite selective, you have some chance at many of the schools on your list. But that’s a lot of applications to fill out, and all in a second language.

What’s your alternative plan if you unfortunately don’t get into any United States college? Would you then do your undergraduate degree in Taiwan?

As before, good luck on your application.

Darkseer · September 27, 2005, 7:38am

That order reflect my thought lol…It seems to me that CIT and MIT suit me more, while Harvard and Yale say “no no no…you cannot just say math, math, and math but nothing else…” :~)

Yes I’ll finish my undergraduate in Taiwan in case rejected by all the schools in my list. (Medalists in Taiwan can go to undergraduate college without application, with some restriction of course. But god I hope I won’t end up being that case)

Do I stand a chance?

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