I doubt anyone is lying to you. Change your attitude. Chances are just that- making a, perhaps educated, guess. Your stats are in a huge pool of others with well above average ones. However, they are not stellar for the high end applicant pool you are competing in. There simply are not enough spaces in elite schools for all of those capable of doing well at them.
So- relax and take emotions out of the picture. Ignore things and get on with the final year of HS/childhood.
Like ALL who have reported chances to you- HONESTLY, you have a chance but no guarantees, just like thousands of other students, here and abroad, with similar credentials. There will be students with “better” records who will be rejected- no one was lying when they thought that student would get into a school.
I do not know much about schools from the UK, but my vague recollection is that Warwick is pretty good. Thus you have a good school to attend. You can only attend one university at a time.
The fact that you were rejected from Cornell and Cambridge is not a surprise, both are exceptionally difficult for an international student to get accepted to. I think that you will probably be rejected from most of the schools on your list. You might have a chance at the University of Colorado, and at UCSD, UCSC, and maybe Purdue. Something else might come through also.
I am wondering why you didn’t consider somewhere like U.Massachusetts Amherst, which is very good for computer science. I think that you still have time to apply. Somewhere in Canada such as Simon Fraser University and/or Calgary might also be a possibility.
I think your chances are good at the California schools and at CU-Boulder. The other public schools named are not inferior engineering programs to T-20 schools.
All good choices for engineering. I’d add the Florida schools - UF, FSU, UCF, USF.
I think the college counselor did you a disservice, pushing only “name brand” colleges especially for a computer science major. You do not need a T20 college to get a fantastic computer science education and your original US college list should have included more match and safety colleges. By the way you have a great “body of work” and will be successful wherever you end up, it just might not be T20. Good luck to you!
“I think I’d rather attend a top 7 UK college than attend a T30-T40 US college.”
Considering the UK has about a tenth the total number of colleges as the US does, I’d say “top seven” in the UK is about equivilent to T30-T40 in the US. Don’t get hung up on ranking or prestige. You just don’t need it for a CS career.
“I dont even know why I’m applying to the USA. I’m clearly not good enough.”
I don’t think “not good enough” has as much to do with it as you’re the wrong demographic match for the colleges you chose to apply to. You don’t have any shortcomings that make you “not good enough”, but what you do have is a mis-match between your talents, skills and offerings and what the colleges you applied to are looking for.
As I said previously, you picked too many state schools. The taxpayers of those states subsidize those colleges for the benefit of that state's citizens. They accept a token number of full-pay international students for diversity sake and because they can charge them full tuition (which can offset some of their in-state scholarship students). Don't be fooled: those 50%+ overall acceptace rates don't apply to out-of-state or out-of-country.
Your background has a lot of teaching/coaching and volunteering. Yet you picked schools that lean a little towards "rack and stack", those which look heavily at grades and test scores, even though your lowish-for-CS SAT score was bound to put you at a disadvantage in that very major at exactly those types of schools. A little more research would have steered you towards colleges where the teaching/volunteering/travel parts of your resume would have perhaps been looked upon with enthusiasm.
"But, how would you suggest convincing my Indian parents that the world doesn’t end at the USA and colleges like Imperial are worth going to regardless of them being in the UK. "
Welcome to every first-gen tiger-kid applicant’s life and nightmare. I don’t have an answer for you, but I can assure you that your parents will get over it pretty quickly once they see you happily matched and thriving at a college that is an academic, social, and financial fit for you. Remind them that it isn’t about what their neighbors think of the college, but what the hiring managers think. Best of luck!
@MorbEmergency It kind of looks like you just went down the T25 C.S. list. You have good stats, but as others have said most of the schools are high reaches for everyone (don’t take it personally). What is your objective, is it to get a degree from a T25 name C.S. school, is it to eventually get a work visa/good job in the U.S.? If your end goal is a good job in the U.S., the former is not the only path. Look into the Charlotte regional Indian population growth rates. There has been massive growth; kids are finding amazing educational and financial opportunities at schools like UNCC that weren’t on their radar before. Look at schools like the UofSC (South Carolina). You’re in a good position stat wise. Schools in the south are often overlooked, but corporations are relocating or expanding to North and South Carolina in droves. Companies like BofA, TIAA, Stratifyed, Microsoft,
Lowe’s tech hub, etc. are hiring; companies are cutting relo budgets, which puts regional graduates in a good position.
First, please don’t quote others’ entire posts or most of them. Just the basics. Second, when you respond individually, we often can’t easily tell to whom its meant. One or two composite replies can do it.
You want a top US college and haven’t hit their roughly 750 bar of a number of them. As said, no second SAT 2 score. At the point of applying, one should know what’s recommended and that recommended means required, for you.
Bigger issue, for the nature of most of your targets, is that you want CS. I don’t see a single activity listed that shows your experience in the CS arena. It’s loaded with choices that can/do reflect other sorts of interests. And it includes some mighty expensive trekking. You throw in that you tutor-- but 8 hours/week for what we consider half a summer? It’s nice, but not the level of substantial commitment a tippy top or top holistic can expect, not a stretchy activity or one that put you in deeper contact with other sorts of needs. It’s 32 hours, compared to Everest, at 200+. Climbing is no tip.
When posters say your ECs are so great, well, sure. But not for the academic path you say you want. It has to make sense to adcoms, with the fierce competition they deal with.
Dig into what those targets say and show they want. Many kids stop at at their own desires. They forget that the colleges do the choosing, based on ther wants, not yours.
What services? College Confidential? If you have some point to prove, we don’t know what it is. A huge chunk of the effort to properly match onesself hangs on the nature and depth of awareness you bring to the task. Not trusting the last person who praised and assured.
And if you’re feeling discouraged, how you tackle that, what you do to improve your chances. It’s never as simple as shooting the messenger.
Look mate, I took your previous, rather aggressive, post with a pinch of salt because I had explicitly asked for honesty. Now, I am new to CC hence dont really know the format of replying and quoting, but to attack me based on a comment for companies which pose themselves as “college advisors” and “essay helpers”, is completely unaccaptable. I appreciated your previous response as it conveyed some logic but your repeated rudeness is off-putting. I dont really care if you’re “senior” or anything, but I dont know if you have had a bad day or not, please dont take it out on an online forum
cheers
OP, I think we are all confused by the questions of who you think is lying to you and which “college advisors” are a scam, CC or the one you hired in India.
We are trying to chance you honestly, as you asked. Hopefully you have been given some helpful things think about. You have, in many cases, 2-4 more weeks to turn in additional applications to schools that are a better match of your qualifications to the qualities certain colleges are looking for.
You’ve got an acceptance already. You have the money to be full pay. For an international student, you are ahead of the game. But you must play the game with more care.
Then allow me to clarify, I have been lied to by most of my teachers, advisors (in-school), and the hired advisor…
CC is the opposite, if anything it has opened my eyes.
These posters are being honest and have given you some advice based on previous posts results, indicative of how international students have faired during the admissions process. It has resulted in a lot of students being disappointed by the number of rejections.
I also believe that some of the counselors, in India, are painting “rosier” pictures of how easily their students are accepted. Maybe 20 years ago, the picture was better, but now, it is just too competitive and expensive.
You can let your parents know that the US universities were/are created for domestic students. International students are guests who don’t pay federal taxes. Schools can choose to limit who is accepted and they accept domestic students first since funding, in the form of huge federal grants (taxpayer monies), for large programs, requires US student access. Also, I’ve noticed that Indian parents tend to rattle off the names of schools by rote, as though they are so familiar with the school. I had to tell a student that a winter coat would be a good idea for Harvard, MIT and BU since the Boston area gets strong winter snowstorm cycles. Cornell is in upstate NY in a rural area, yet parents are painting these rosy pictures because they see the pamphlets/website pictures.
Reality fact: There are more than 35,000 US high schools. Each of those high schools has a valedictorian. Each of those 35K students are applying to the top 20 schools with near perfect SATs, thousands of hours in community service projects, and perfect grades. Those are JUST the valedictorians. Students who aren’t the valedictorians apply to those schools in droves. (My kids’ high school had 2000 graduates every year-that’s only one high school) Most US students attend their instate public universities.
Picture the schools where they have limited seating. (Caltech accepts ~200 students per year; that’s it. That number includes US and international students). There are a LOT of disappointed US valedictorians and even more disappointed international students.
Plus, a number of Indian candidates, and their parents, expect their students to land a US job after graduation. US immigration laws and rules have changed. If you are admitted to a US school, you finish your education but should expect to return to India for future employment. US Employers must employ US citizens first and foremost for any job openings; employers must exhaust all US candidates first before even considering a non-citizen. Given the large numbers of US students in CS and Stem-related fields, guess who gets the jobs? Employers don’t want to fill out paperwork and wait, nor pay fees to sponsor non-citizens, when there are so many great US candidates.
Your comments are really strange, OP. I don’t know what you think College Confidential is, but it is NOT a paid service and everyone responding here is a normal person who is here voluntarily, trying to give you honest responses to your questions. The people answering here are parents who have kids in college, or people who might have a lot of knowledge of the college process, possibly because they worked in the US higher education system, or still do. But no one here is getting paid. You asked for truth and we’ve given you truth, to the best of our knowledge.
One thing that’s coming across is that you don’t seem to have a great attitude. That is not going to help you in US college admissions, which will review your app holistically for the most part. Good luck.
@MorbEmergency:
1° There are 3,700 universities in the US; getting into any of the top 370 is already EXCELLENT. Getting into a Top 100 US university is outstanding. Top 50 is exceptional.
Use the right scale and realize that there are lots of topnotch universities, that’s why many students want to attend, AND you may not have heard about some of them, because there are so many even Americans haven’t heard of them.
2° In the UK, UEdinburgh would be a good pick. Your IGCSE’s and A’Levels (especially since you have 4 predicted A/A*'s) should open at least one selective program from your list.
3° You’re likely to get into UCSC, can your parents pay the 65K cost every year? If so, you’re set, because this is a VERY GOOD program in a great location.
All other universities are “lottery schools”, meaning no one can predict anything; you’ll likely make the first cut but no one can say whether you’ll be selected, because there are so many truly excellent applicants that no one knows who’ll be selected.
You could increase your odds by adding a few other universities known for CS specifically and/or that have a “whole university” approach to admissions: UMass Amherst, UMaryland, Marist, Case Western Reserve.
Warwick, Edinburgh and UCL are all better value for money and more prestigious than the lower tier schools people are suggesting in the US. And having done A levels and excelled in those will position you to do well in the UK’s exam-based university system. If you don’t get into one of the better schools on your list (i.e. UMich, Purdue, Brown, CMU, Dartmouth, GTech, UPenn, USC, Vanderbilt, UCLA, UCB or UCSD), which unfortunately is the most likely outcome, then go to the UK, get a first and save your money to do a masters afterwards in the US. I’d pick Warwick for the three year degree in a lower cost location than London, but I understand this may not have the appeal of big city life in London or Edinburgh.
That will give you the best set of options for future employment (either in the UK after your first degree or in the US where a masters will potentially get you some level of priority for a work visa).
I agree with @Twoin18 (solid advice) better to go to the UK unless you plan on returning to India, US work visas are hard to get even with a masters. I imagine you will get into a couple of the US schools on your list, they do like full pay OOS students.
I understand why you’re frustrated and disappointed. It does sound as if you and your parents paid for bad advice.
It isn’t that you’re “not good enough” for the top-tier schools you applied to. It’s that most of the schools you applied to reserve only a small percentage of the spots in their entering class for international students, making the competition for those spots especially fierce. AND you’re applying to computer science, which is one of the most competitive majors at schools that have a strong reputation in this field. So, at CMU for example, you could probably get into the university in a less competitive major, but getting into CS is devilishly hard even for US applicants.
I’m not exactly sure how to calibrate which US schools you should or shouldn’t consider over your UK option(s). I’m pretty sure you’ll get some acceptances but whether they’ll be from schools you think are “better” than Warwick et. al. , I don’t know. I think there’s a decent chance you’ll get into UCSD, but you might get into the university without getting into CS. (You could attend and major in Cognitive Science or Math/CS outside of the engineering school - students in those majors can take lots of CS classes and get CS jobs - but my guess is you wouldn’t pay 65K/year to not be in your first-choice major.) UCSC has a very strong CS program but it’s quite overcrowded - it can take a while to get into the classes you want, which can be frustrating. You may yet get into some of your more competitive US schools - all you can do on that front is wait and see. The question is whether you should add more applications - whether there are schools where you have a stronger chance and might actually attend if admitted.
There are a few top-tier US schools that especially depend on full-pay international students to subsidize the need-based aid they offer to domestic students. University of Rochester was already mentioned - excellent for CS and other STEM, and a whopping 27% of the students are international. NYU is another (20% international), and also two in Boston, Northeastern (18% intl) and Boston University (21% intl). (Northeastern is known for its co-op program, which is a terrific way for international students to get work experience in the US that wouldn’t otherwise be open to them; and the CS program is excellent. BU’s model is more traditional.) If you haven’t considered these four schools, do look at them and assess whether you’d attend any of them over Warwick, and if so, apply.
Did you choose Boulder for the mountaineering opportunities? If so you might want to look at U of Utah as well - strong CS program, and some of the best mountain recreation in the US within half an hour of campus.
Maryland CP
U of Massachusetts Amherst
Purdue
UF
U Texas Austin
UCSD
All of these CS programs are off the charts.
UMA is in top 5 in AI.
All of these schools would be lottery schools for many out of state CS applicants. International even more competitive.
UM Amherst is ranked 64 overall out of the 3500 schools for all that means. The rest are generally ranked even higher.
If you could secure a spot at any of these, I would consider these versus U.K. if money is no object. Simply for the opportunity to go outside of your major in depth and the campus life experience. It can be a lot of fun at a US university outside of the classroom. Sports, arts and wellness facilities etc. are first rate.
Some of the highest ranked schools on your list would be less appealing to me for your major and losing the CS gaming and AI research opportunities on these flagship campuses.
It would be sad for you to give up some amazing educational opportunities in the U.S. because your parents (who don’t really know much about U.S. Universities) want bragging rights to a very narrow group of schools. It’s just different here than it is in many countries. It’s NOT top-20-or-nothing. But I’m glad you also have choices in the U.K.
