No. I plan to go to the U.S. but that has no relation to a student visa. A student visa is only for studying in the U.S, not for immigrating there.
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Just to clarify, when I say I plan to return to Canada, I’m referring to what I intend to do after a student visa expires.
With no relation to a student visa, I plan to later go to the U.S.
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I get that people get recruited, but how do you get recruited?
But again - nothing will be more important than your:
- Schoolwork - grades
- Test scores
- Ability to pay - and for international, in many (not all) schools pay a lot
ECs are another layer but far from the most important - and you should get involved in a couple things, establish tenure and make an impact. You need quality, not quantity.
There are many schools out there and many place in many jobs. Yes, some do better than others - but in the end, the schools choose who to accept.
Your job is to be the best you that you can be - in and out of the classroom. That’s what you can control.
You cannot control whether #1 Princeton or #30 Florida, NYU, Texas will accept you - and then you have LACs and mid size colleges, etc.
You can start now - getting involved, making sure your grades and rigor are as good as you can, do well on a test, find a school that’s affordable (you made it seem like money is no issue - but UF and NYU, as examples, are a six figure differential in cost.). And then you will see what happens.
If you lay it all out there, that’s all you can do.
Jobs are a funny thing - they require persistence, ability, and luck. Sometimes luck is just that - connections, right place, right time. Other times - people get lucky often…because they’re not really lucky - they’re really good in all facets.
One can’t make a statement like - someone with a communication degree from a Southern school can’t get hired because… One has no idea of that student’s capabilities, how they interview, their persistence, and if they’re even applying for a set of realistic jobs.
There are successess and non-successes from schools of all levels - so be your best. Getting in is just step one. There’s lots of hard work required afterward.
But make no mistake - you don’t control what a school will decide admission wise.
But you can work hard to make it hard for them to say no to you!!
But ECs are just the surface - what will get you in goes much deeper.
We know 
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You try to be the best athlete you possibly can be and look at highly selective D3 colleges (such as Nescac: Middlebury, Williams…) to see how you compare to their players. You have till Spring junior year, at which point you should have athletic stats strong enough in relation to your teams of interest and would contact the assistant coaches with an academic and athletic presentation&video. Note that you would only get need based aid (ie if your family makes more than 250k expect to pay full price generally). D3 teams may have an excellent level and be very competitive but you’re a student first and would not receive and athletic scholarship.
Being recruited is a “hook” meaning you have an advantage in admission if the coach supports tour application.
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Quant firms do hire from Waterloo. If you have $$$$$$ to spend, you might be interested in top need aware schools like UChicago and Cornell. To develop your math skills, check out the art of problem solving books, alcumus, mathdash, and Courseware | University of Waterloo - CEMC (this last tool let’s you generate problems by difficulty (A, B, C), grade level, and subject/topic so you can focus on problems that are just right in difficulty)
For competitive programming, check out USACO.guide
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Although sailing isn’t an NCAA sport, many schools’ club teams are quite competitive. I’m not sure how recruitment works in that case.
CMU and Williams have golf teams and are both top need blind schools
But from CMU - Carnegie Mellon doesn’t offer financial aid to international students. If you’re an international student who plans to enroll at Carnegie Mellon, you and your family must plan to pay the total cost of attendance.
Williams - Although Williams isn’t need-blind for international applicants, approximately 70 percent of international students receive financial aid from the college, with aid awards averaging more than $80,000 annually.
OP said money not an issue. All we know about OP is they think they lack ECs. I don’t think we know about their overall academic profile - which is too early.
OP is ahead of himself as are we - given he’s just finished 9th grade.
OP simply needs to know - to get involved if he thinks he needs to and wants to and yes, consistent involvement will be necessary for a “top” school…and get great grades and have great rigor…and a top test score.
Then come back in two years.
I already do everything you mentioned you’ve mentioned (incl. competitive programming, although I still need to improve on that) 
Applying to need-aware schools seems like a good idea
Here’s my overall academic profile:
GRADE 9 COURSES
Math - 97%
English - 98%
Science - 96%
Geography - 96%
French - 91%
Business (Domain-Specific Elective) - 98%
Drama (Art Elective) - 95%
Gym - 94%
Average: 95.625%
PRACTICE SAT
I didn’t sit for any SATs so far, but I took a few practice SATs; here’s my progression:
1260 → 1370 → 1390 → 1530 (750 EBRW, 780 Math)
COURSE PLAN
Highlighted in purple are gifted courses.
If possible, I will inquire about reach ahead courses to complete a few grade 11 courses in grade 10 and a few grade 12 courses in grade 11.
Slow down :). You don’t need to have the SAT til 11th.
Keep up the good work.
You’ll set yourself up for optimal admissions but ultimately it will be up to the schools.
Good luck.
Ps - don’t forget to be a kid first and foremost. I hope you are not missing that.
If you have money (like, $400k for a degree full freight money), you can also check out summer research programs like UCSC SIP, SSP, RSI, UCSB SRA, UCSB SMP. There are also math programs like CanadaUSA MathCamp, Ross, PROMYS, SUMaC, MathILY, HCSSiM, etc. Many of the math programs release their admissions psets each year - they might be interesting to take a look at. There is also SPARC and these: https://www.fabric.camp/ and the non-trivial fellowship.
UChicago has an ED 0 option you may be interested in for your junior year: https://summer.uchicago.edu/pre-college/admitted-students/ssen/ (you will need to have attended a summer program at UChicago junior summer or earlier)
If you can participate in the AMC/AIME and USACO, you should for the extra practice and exposure
Aren’t these summer programs extremely difficult to get into (RSI, PROMYS, MathCamp)?
Not as difficult as getting in to a top US university as an international! (Well, RSI is quite close - but the fact that it’s need aware for internationals makes it a little less unlikely than otherwise)
BeyondAI - ThinkingBeyond - this should be less selective and it’s free and applications are open now. It’s not particularly prestigious though, so I would only do it if you’re interested in strengthening your AI skills.
Are there any other programs currently open for application for internationals?
None that I know of besides the for-profit pay to play ones like Lumiere, Polygence, Pioneer, Veritas AI - they don’t really have a program so much as sell access to grad students for research mentoring purposes the way tutoring companies sell access to tutors for tutoring purposes. And they’re about as “prestigious” as having hired a tutor.
It’d really help if you stepped back and thought about why AOs look at ECs and awards. They are trying to get a picture of who you are, how you engage with what intetrsts you, and how you spend your time.
Most awards don’t really move the needle unless they are at a very high level.
So what excites you? How might you use that to connect with others? Or how might you pursue it outside school?
For students considering very selective schools, great grades are a given. AOs want to see where you take it from and beyond there. Maybe you do after school tutoring in your neighborhood. Maybe you have a job. Maybe you can shadow someone. Maybe you learn a new skill that you think could be applicable - or simply that interests you.
No AO wants you to curate your life to create a good application. They want you to have the life you want, and to excite them enough about it to make them want you at their school.
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