Match an international student, please? [A-levels AAB, <$10k, computer science and engineering]

Applying to College
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Hello! I am an international student (Male) from Bangladesh hoping to enroll in the fall 25 semester. I have made a shortlist of a couple of unis but would love some suggestions on potential matches according to my stats and ECs:

Academics:

  • 3.7 unweighted GPA
  • 1450-1550 SAT (I didn’t get my results yet but fingers crossed I might score between the range)
  • Two national academic honors for being a high scorer in my O levels batch

ECs:

Nothing too fancy, I worked in a charity organisation providing relief to multiple orphanages in my town. Also i have completed two 8-year courses in classical music from a local university. Also won two hackathons and a local math olympiad finalist.

I have decent recommendations and LORs from my physics and mathematics teachers.

My EFC is about $10k per year. I would really appreciate if someone could take the time to match me with some public unis and LAC’s that give generous aid please! Thanks a lot!

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I know of no public school to make your #. There are LACs - from a Franklin & Marshall to Amherst and more that meet need but you don’t know how much need the schools will say you have. That’s not the EFC. And most are need aware so if you need too much, they won’t admit you.

You can try Amherst, Franklin & Marshall, Bowdoin, Davidson, Trinity and Richmond.

Good luck.

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What would you like to study?

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Computer science or Engineering

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Most colleges here want one sciences/math type of recommendation and one humanities one. Do you have anyone who can write that humanities recommendation for you?

The public universities that are generous with need based aid for international students are…maybe two. And they are very competitive for admissions.

LACs that give generous need based aid are also highly competitive.

Is this the amount your family can contribute annually? Please clarify!

A very competitive major.

I hope someone else has some ideas for you that will meet a $10,000 price point.

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So I’ll be very frank with you.

If your budget is a maximum of $10000 per year, there are very few offers like that available for Internationals across the whole US college system. Many colleges will not make any such offers. Among the subset of US colleges that will make some such offers, there are very few available. Most of those colleges are what is called need aware for Internationals, and so they will only make such offers to the few high need International applicants they want the most. A very few are what is called need blind for Internationals, but this is not much help because those few colleges have incredibly low admissions rates for Internationals in general.

So either way, there are not many such offers truly available, and it is incredibly competitive to get one.

OK, given this, the fundamental question is whether you will be competitive for any of those offers. And again the frank answer is that I don’t know.

In part that is because we don’t know your SAT score yet, and at this level of competition there is a big difference between a 1450 and a 1550.

Additionally, we don’t know what a 3.7 unweighted GPA means in the context of your school and course rigor. I can tell you that in a more or less normal college prep US high school with a normal amount of grade inflation, assuming decently high course rigor, that would be a good GPA for US college admissions generally, but it probably would not be competitive enough in your context.

But perhaps a 3.7 means more in your system than it would in such a US high school. To figure this out, ideally you need prior US admissions data from your school, or at least similar schools. If nothing else, though, it would be helpful to know where (or approximately where) that ranks you in your secondary school class, compared to how many people in your secondary school go to US colleges.

Finally, applying for CS/engineering would not necessarily be a problem if you were able to pay, as there are many very good colleges for that in the US that are happy to take some Internationals who can pay. But most of those then fall into the category of having no aid for Internationals.

And then among the remainder, CS is more common, but engineering is far less common. Meaning if you need engineering to be an option, the number of offers like that available across the whole US is an even smaller number than before.

And then CS is just an incredibly popular major these days, not least among Internationals. So if you are thinking in terms of how to stand out among all the other International applicants a US college with International aid is likely getting these days, such that it is willing to give you one of its few available big aid offers over all those other Internationals who would want that offer–again, to be very frank I think it could well hurt to be a CS intender. Not impossible, but it might mean things like your SAT and grades would have to be even more competitive than usual, possibly ECs as well, and so on.

So I don’t love giving you this message, but at this point I truly do not know if there will be any offers at that level available for you in the US. But if you can provide us some clarity on how competitive your GPA is, an actual SAT score, and whether you need engineering to be an option or just CS, we might be able to recommend at least what might be among your better chances. But they still might all be low.

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I can ask my english teacher to write me a letter of recommendation. My family is able to contribute about $10k per year yes.

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My 3.7 GPA is from getting an A, A and B in my A levels subjects (Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics respectively) They are undoubtedly among the top most difficult subjects my curriculum has to offer. Our school doesn’t do class rankings, but I would attest I’m in the top 10% of my class.

Regarding which major to choose, I do understand that CS and Engineering are very very competitive and I do realise that my chances of getting substantial aid is pretty low. I think I’ll have a good understanding of my position once I get my SAT scores (which I will on the 19th) but till then I’m in quite a dilemma about where I should apply to.

I’m not looking for highly ranked unis, I would just be relived if I even got to a mid-ranked uni with some aid, (max $15k per year) but I’m not sure now if I can pull that off.

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With a budget of $10k you will need pretty much a full ride scholarship. Often things like transportation, health insurance, books, spending money, etc. are not covered and those items can run thousands of dollars per year.

Agree that this level of scholarship grants are few and far between – even moreso for international students. Are you one of the top students in the country?

It is great to give some US colleges a try, but I suggest you also seek out affordable options in your home country.

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Well, the good news is that is very likely more competitive coming out of an A Level system than a 3.7 GPA would have been at a typical US high school. In fact, I would suggest it is really doing you no good to try to “convert” your A Level results to a US-style 4.0-scale GPA. Typically US colleges doing International admissions are going to understand the A Level system and evaluate you in that context, so there is no real point trying to converting to a system used in a different context.

I note, though, one of the basic problems with moving from the A Level university prep system to a country like the US with a very different college prep system, indeed a very different bachelors-level higher education system generally, is that the norms for college preparation are different. Like, usually the most competitive US students have taken the maximum rigor available (or close to it) in all five of the core areas, which are English, History/Social Sciences, Foreign Languages, Math, and Natural Sciences. You have only done A Levels in Math and Natural Sciences, so that is not really a direct match for what a very competitive US student would normally have done, even if they were interested in a STEM field in college.

Among other reasons, this is because typically US colleges will still require you to take a lot of courses outside your major, sometimes called gen ed courses. And they want to know you will thrive in those courses too, even if you are not majoring in those areas. Plus, a lot of people in the US actually change their majors during college, including many going from STEM majors to other majors (and some the other way, although less so). So just being a STEM specialist is not necessarily the most competitive pitch for a very selective US college.

But again, US colleges will understand the A Level system is different and take it into account. Still, I think you would be well-advised to be thinking about how to show US colleges you are well-prepared to thrive in non-STEM classes, and indeed will value those courses even if you intend to major in CS/Engineering.

Yeah, I really don’t love to be discouraging, but the fundamental problem is most “mid-ranked” engineering colleges in the US are going to be at public universities with no aid for International students. So, great system if you are either a US domestic student or an International who can pay. Mostly useless to an International who needs a lot of aid.

That said, I am not necessarily saying this is impossible for an AAB International. You just need to be aware it is going to be very competitive, and there is no getting out of that competition just by being open-minded to mid-ranked colleges. Meaning the ones with big aid for high need Internationals will also be very competitive for such Internationals regardless of their overall rankings.

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Have you looked at universities in continental Europe? They are generally much cheaper for an international than US ones are, and there are a number that teach in English.

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