Kid from one of the Smallest Countries aiming for UChicago [international, 4.0 GPA, 1580 SAT, applied math, <$40-50k]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics

  • International. Less than 3 mill. pop.
  • Going to an international school. Affords me opportunities (but not that much).
  • On gap year

Cost Constraints / Budget

  • Willing to pay 40-50k a year for college.

Intended Major(s)

  • Applied Math. Something adjacent to it.

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.25
  • Class Rank: 1/60 (extrapolated from academic achievement of the year 2x in a row)
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1580 superscore. 800 english and 780 math

List your HS coursework

(Indicate advanced level, such as AP, IB, AICE, A-level, or college, courses as well as specifics in each subject)

  • English: AP Lang
  • Math: AP calculus ab
  • Science: AP Physics 2
  • History and social studies: AP World History
  • Language other than English: French 2
  • Visual or performing arts: Creative Writing
  • Other academic courses: Research Methods

Took 6 AP classes in total. Will take 6 this year as self study; these classes are domains i have knowledge in but aren’t offered at school.

Awards

  • 8 medals from international olympiads.
  • Winner of national english olympiad (every school competed).
  • Valedictorian 2x.
  • 10 awards for academic achievement (once per year per class).
  • AP scholar w/distinction.
  • I guess placing top 20% in some kaggle competitions - usually, professional teams participate.

Extracurriculars

  • 2 Research Papers. Already cited by ivy league graduate students. Endorsed by t3 uk professor.
  • Studying to be professionally certified ML Engineer (by august hopefully)
  • Blog with 1+ million views
  • Many technical projects
  • Another blog, finance adjacent (ui design and academic writing)
  • Active GitHub profile (programming repository used by developers) (2000+ contributions this past year)
  • Ranked top 40 nationally for competitive coding (hopefully in icpc or ioi or ioai contention soon)
  • (hopeful for an internship)
  • (hopeful for government sponsored thing I’m doing. Apparently 100k dollar sponsorship for a team if I get into the program)
  • this might be a little weird but I consider reading to be my most important extracurricular ever. I was wondering if I can just put reading at the top of my list, in terms of importance to me.
  • Some school leadership in stem

Essays/LORs/Other
Essays: I think they were bad. Too abstract and not grounded. 1/10. Have a new idea that might work.

First idea: something about how stupid I am for going to a country for its libraries than anything else (planned hook).

LORs: really loved my LORs. Made me tear up. 9/10

Schools

A little bit of financial aid or scholarship. Can pay upwards of 60k a year. Really want to pay equal to or lower than 40k.

  • Extremely Likely: (Please suggest colleges with plenty of scholarships and fin aid for Ex. Likely, Likely, Toss-up).
  • Likely: Baruch College
  • Toss-up: Tsinghua, UIUC (already got in this year. Decided not to go).
  • Lower Probability: Harvey Mudd, NYU (probably shanghai for its aid), Duke (kunshan), Bowdoin, Swarthmore, Williams, Berea College, Colby, Amherst, Wellesley.
  • Low Probability: ED Uchicago (or) ED Cornell. EA (where it applies & non-exclusive): MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Dartmouth, Brown, Yale, Pomona, Harvard, Columbia, Rice, Northwestern, JHU. Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial.

Another other reaches I can get into? Or ED to for maximum chance?

Note: last time I applied, a lot of the things I listed above didn’t exist. I had a fairly tame highschool career - only picking up pace during junior year. Essentially wasted my life playing games before that. And I only applied regular decision cause my SAT score was horrible before that.

Any help? I do have a lot of time so I’m also very open to suggestions. Just a dreadful feeling of being lost.

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Unless you have financial need, most of these schools aren’t going to come close to hitting your budget and they don’t give merit aide.

Curious why you turned down UIUC? Great school for your intended major.

I’d add Purdue to your list as they will come in under your $60k budget and also RPI where you could see merit $ to bring it in range.

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What if I apply for financial aid? Would that ruin all my chances? I could possibly pay full-price for these colleges for a year or two then do something after the fact.

Parents are retired.

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I declined UIUC because I’m still a little lost in life. 50k a year is a big investment for my parents (they were willing to pay) but I felt it wasn’t worth the investment, and I felt I could squeeze myself, by luck, to somewhere more prestigious.

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Please choose a college you can afford to attend for all four years. Don’t plan to cobble together funds for years three and four.

Check out the SUNY campuses. They could come in at your price point.

I believe you would get decent merit aid at University of Alabama. All campuses. They would be within your price point.

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You should focus more on affordability and less on prestige. What is end goal here?
FA goes mostly to domestic students. In current political climate I would not bank on significant help even from top schools who used to cherry pick and support few international students in the past.

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You will not get a student visa without showing that you can afford four years at whichever college has accepted you. So the “We’ll pay for two years and then I’ll figure it out” is not a plan.

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If you cannot show proof of finances for all 4 years, you will not be granted a student visa.

It depends on the school. Some (very few) are need blind for international students, the rest are need aware. And most schools don’t promise to meet financial need for internationals.

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I want to work in America. Or somewhere where the pay is well, and where I can have a good life. Any semblance of success here is through nepotism. Third-world. Just want a good paying job with good friends and a really nice library nearby.

Prestige just gives me the idea that I can find a shortcut to this freedom. More connections. And a large head-start?

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Frankly, I would suggest to focus on European schools. If your are from European Union you can afford pretty much any top school there. You can study Math anywhere in the world.

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Not now. I have a DD who graduated from " prestigious " school (second in the USA for that major) and sitting unemployed as most recent graduates.

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You will need an employer to sponsor you. That is not easy, and it is getting increasingly harder. You should have a solid backup plan in your home country, or in other countries where you might be able to work.

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My daughter-in-law is Syrian. She’s a computer scientist and a very bright young woman. Even though she received a full-ride scholarship from the United States government (a program available to students in the Middle East), she has had no luck immigrating here. It’s really hard. :frowning: For now, she and my son are going to stick it out in Poland. She works for Google in Warsaw.

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I think the most farfetched fantasy I had was working my butt off during college (which I would enjoy) and then get a high-paying internship (ai lab or quant), and then getting a full offer.

I already have a very long visa, that’ll expire when I’m well into my 20s. Sorry I’m being so vague. The country is extremely small. Anecdotally though, people who migrated to the usa are doing well too (Chicago-specific).

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You need to understand the US immigration system before you let your fantasies get the better of you.

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Sorry. Experiencing catharsis.

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You can only apply to one of Cambridge and Oxford.

How many of the schools on your list did you apply to last year? It’s difficult to know whether your gap year ECs will change the admission decision at the schools where you were denied.

I also would encourage you to focus on EU/UK/other ex-US universities. It will be difficult for you to get an internship, let alone a full time post grad work sponsorship in the US.

Regarding finances, will your family qualify for need based financial aid (if you apply?)

What are your sure thing admits that will be affordable, regardless the country? (I do think you’ll get into Baruch and it would be affordable, but NYC is very expensive to live in.)

Is this a student visa?

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Didn’t apply at all last year. Applied to only 12 schools (basically only reaches, and I got waitlisted at Carnegie Mellon). Only on commonapp.

Got like a 120k scholarship for Steven’s institute but the total cost after was still 50k a year plus living expenses.

For finances, yes, they would qualify for financial aid.

Not a student visa, but my school has never had an issue with student visas. It’s accredited by WASC.

If I get into a prestigious university in america, the country sponsors some of it as a very lenient loan. Very low interest rate.

So sorry, really feel like the biggest idiot when I write these things down. It’s really helpful though: realizing my stupidity.

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This is very important. It really is possible to get half way through university and then discover that you cannot afford to complete your degree. I used to know someone who had exactly this happen to him. Also, yes getting a student visa will depend upon your ability to pay.

Do not start at any university unless you have a realistic financial plan to pay for the full four years and graduate.

U Chicago is need aware for international students. Since you need financial aid this will lower your chances. However, the universities in the US that meet full need for international students are all very highly competitive for admissions, and the few that are need blind are all very competitive for international admissions.

I think that you have a good list to apply to. There are plenty of reaches here of course, but you are also a very strong student. You only need one affordable acceptance.

I am not sure that you should apply ED anywhere. You have a very good reason to want to compare financial offers, and if you apply ED and get in then this takes away the opportunity to do so. You are applying to a large number of very good universities, and it makes sense to me to wait until you see what each one will cost for you before you decide where to go.

I also wonder whether you should look at schools in Canada. For international students the cost of attendance can vary quite a bit at schools in Canada. In addition to the famous schools, you might want to consider less famous but still very good universities such as the University of Victoria and Memorial University of Newfoundland. A close family member used to live quite close to the campus of U. Victoria and it is an attractive location (with the mildest winters in Canada). Also, applications to universities in Canada tend to be very straightforward and easy, admissions is very heavily stats-based, and your stats are superb.

If you can get your high school to support your application, then it might be worth applying for the Lester B Pearson scholarship at the University of Toronto. IF you can get it (a very big “IF”), this is a great scholarship to a great and very well known but academically challenging university, which also happens to be located in an attractive city. You need your high school to support you just to apply for this scholarship, but if you were the #1 student in your high school this seems possible.

At many schools applying for financial aid lowers your chances of admissions. However, you are a very strong applicant and are likely to get in somewhere regardless. Applying for financial aid substantially increases your chances of being able to afford to attend a full four years of university and graduate, which is of course the goal here.

“Do something” probably means drop out, or go broke, or ruin your parent’s retirement. You do not want to do any of these things. Apply for the aid that you need, and see what happens.

UIUC is very good overall and for math and CS. However, to me it seems entirely reasonable to apply more widely and see if you get into somewhere that is more affordable and just as excellent, and maybe (or maybe not) better known in your home country.

Do not expect to be able to stay in the US after graduating with a bachelor’s degree. International students are expected to return to their home country after graduation. Just getting a student visa to study in the US seems sufficiently unpredictable right now. In contrast, the likelihood of being able to stay in Canada or the UK or Australia after graduating from a university there is at least not as much of an unlikely pipe dream.

By the way in the unlikely chance that you do take my advice and apply to schools in Canada, and if you get in and decide to go there, do not ever plan to change planes in the US on the way to Canada (unless you are already coming from an original departure city in the US). The US immigration system and US airports are not well set up for people flying through an American city from somewhere outside the US to a destination which is also outside the US.

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You said you were accepted to UIUC last year

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