Ontario Highschool Student Looking for Matches [international, IB DP (predicted 776 HL, 776 SL), 4.0 GPA, 1550 SAT]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Chinese middle class male, second generation immigrant
International student from Ontario, Canada
Currently enrolled in IB Diploma Program
Currently grade 11
Mainly looking for matches since I’m not familiar with US options other than top institutions since applying to the US wasn’t something I considered until lately

*Intended Major(s)
Health sciences
(Also considering finances and computer science)

UW GPA: 4.0
W GPA: 5.0
(Out of a 4.0/5.0 scale)
Class Rank: school doesnt do class rank
ACT/SAT Scores: 1550 sat

Coursework
HL Biology, HL Math, HL English
SL Chemistry, SL Business, SL Spanish

HL predicted: 7,7,6
SL predicted: 7,7,6

Took AP Calculus AB outside of school, scored 5

Awards
School honour roll for entire length of high school

Extracurriculars
Badminton: Provincials Silver medalist, 4th place, 2x quarter finalist, consolation finalist | volunteered as assistant coach for summer camp during grade 9, 10 at my club, and plan on doing the same for grade 11 | executive for school badminton club | varsity badminton team, most oustanding player award in grade 9, undefeated and highschool regional champion for grade 9 + 10
Math: Waterloo 99th percentile for Pascal, Cayley, Fryer, Galois | qualified for AIME
HOSA: 9th place in FLC
Hockey: played AA and was AP player for AAA, league MVP
Piano: level 10 certificate, participated in regional and state competitions, passed all exams with first class honours + distinction (90 minimum)
Kumon: a couple awards since i finished the Kumon curriculum in grade 6 (took 1 year)
Had a part time job at my local supermarket for 1 year

Currently volunteering at my local hospital and have about 200 hours

Taking care of my grandparents daily for multiple years due to a long history of severe health conditions

Schools

Chance: (I know im delusional💀, but just wondering. Mostly looking for matches for this post)
Harvard
Yale
Stanford
MIT
Princeton
Duke
UPenn
Columbia

2

Can you and your family afford the price of private US universities you listed? Such prices are much higher than the prices of universities in Canada if you are a citizen of Canada.

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Ok that’s the reaches. Besides names why are these your choice ?

Define health science ? Pre med ? Administration? Something else ?

Forget the name - what do you truly seek - suze, weather, etc.

You could get into any school but that doesn’t make it the right school for you ?

What is your budget ? And if med school, add another $400k.

These schools you listed may provide need aid but won’t merit aid - very very slim chance at Duke.

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Yes, budget isn’t a concern

5

I think your list of reaches is good. You have tons of SOLID awards.

However, add some less prestigious schools that you are ok with, Ik ur going for prestige

Maybe: rice, Vanderbilt, Emory, jhu, nyu, basically just the schools right under the ivies. I think you’ll do great, but you can’t be sure because ur schools are super competitive.

Have u tried athletic recruiting?

6

For breadth in health services and sciences, schools such as JHU, WUStL, Northeastern and Stony Brook may be stronger than any of the schools on your current list. You may benefit ftom defining your academic interests further.

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You should look at some state flagship schools: Michigan, Wisconsin, UIUC, Washington, Florida, UNC, UMD, Georgia, Texas and Texas A&M, Ohio State, and the UC system. There are others, but this would be a good starting point.

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IMO, many of the schools suggested to the OP are still reaches.

Case Western, Rochester, St. Olaf, Stony Brook would be the type of schools I would suggest as matches.

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Are you a Canadian citizen or permanent resident? If so, then you have exceptionally strong (and very affordable) options in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada. Toronto, Queen’s, Waterloo, and many others are excellent universities. Graduate admissions and employers in the US know how strong these schools are.

Are you recruitable for hockey? If you are league MVP this seems likely. Harvard for example has a very good hockey team (actually two teams, men’s and woman’s). Their teams are really surprisingly strong considering that The Ivy League (which is an athletic league) does not have any sports scholarships at all. The very good Harvard hockey team must play against someone, which makes me think that other Ivy League schools such as Princeton and Yale and Cornell must also have some decent players (and I would be willing to guess that many of their players are Canadian). You might want to think about adding Cornell to your list. Northeastern and Boston University are also very good for both health sciences and hockey.

Your “strong academics strong sports” combination is what the coaches at Ivy League schools are looking for. This makes your chances difficult to predict, but probably much better than the average applicant to these schools (assuming that the coaches will care about your hockey abilities).

The same would be true about Stanford except that I do not think that they have a varsity hockey team (understandable considering California weather, but perhaps also surprising since Stanford is so strong for many other sports, and does have sports scholarships). Stanford also does not have a varsity badminton team, although they have very good badminton facilities (I played either badminton or squash very frequently when I was a student there).

MIT would be much less interested in your ability in sports. MIT is generally lousy for sports, but very strong and very demanding academically. For them your sports would be a good extracurricular activity, but not necessarily any more interesting compared to any other EC.

UVM (the University of Vermont) and the University of Massachusetts (both Amherst and Lowell campuses) have very strong hockey teams and would most likely be safeties based solely on your academics. They also have some merit scholarships, but would still cost perhaps twice what your in-province schools would cost unless you get a hockey scholarship. These are very good schools (particularly U.Mass Amherst and UVM) but I do not fully understand what advantage any of them would have over Queen’s, Toronto, Waterloo, or a long list of other Canadian universities.

You should not expect that getting a degree from a university in the US, even Harvard, Princeton, MIT, or Stanford, would allow you to stay in the US after graduating. You will be expected to return to Canada after graduation. Also, at least in my experience getting a degree from a highly ranked university in the US (at the MIT, Stanford level) will not help you at all to get a job in Canada after graduation. Employment prospects in Canada might be better with a degree from one of the very good universities in Canada.

Also, if you do decide to attend university in the USA, do not tell immigration that you intend to stay in the US after graduation. An intention to stay in the US after graduation is grounds for rejecting an application for a student visa to study in the US.

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Are you wanting to play hockey in college? Badminton?

Also, clarity on whether you mean pre-med by “health sciences” or if you mean an actual health field (like nursing, kinesiology, etc).

If you mean pre-med, then these are some schools you may want to look into that also have ice hockey teams:

  • College of the Holy Cross (MA)
  • Miami U (OH) - this would be an extremely likely admit
  • Providence (RI)
  • Rochester Institute of Technology (NY)
  • Skidmore (NY)
  • U. of Denver (CO)
  • Ohio State
  • Penn State
  • U. of Minnesota - Twin Cities
  • U. of Wisconsin - Madison

If you don’t care whether there’s a hockey team, these are some different schools you may want to consider:

  • Brandeis (MA)
  • Bucknell (PA )
  • Case Western (OH)
  • Denison (OH)
  • Fairfield (CT)
  • Lehigh (PA )
  • Santa Clara (CA)
  • Southern Methodist (TX)
  • Stevens Institute of Technology (NJ)
  • Trinity (TX)
  • U. of Richmond (VA)
  • U. of Rochester (NY)
  • Villanova (PA )
  • Wake Forest (NC)
  • William & Mary (VA)
  • Worcester Polytechnic (MA)
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Badminton is not an NCAA sport.

OP has not indicated they’d like to play hockey, but it’s getting pretty late in the recruiting game to consider that a viable option at top schools.

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Do you happen to know what average would give me a very solid chance at the Canadian universities that don’t require supplementary application? (Waterloo Health Sci, Western Med Sci, etc)

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If you are in high school in Ontario, your guidance counselor should know this better than I.

If you are a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, then to me your chances look very good. I am not familiar with programs for which admissions is particularly challenging (such as engineering or computer science or graduate programs), and I am not familiar with supplemental applications. However, when I and years later my two daughters applied to universities in Canada, as Canadian citizens or dual US/Canadian citizens, with a lot of A’s and not much else (at least for my daughters), we considered pretty much any university in Canada as a safety. This did not include the French language universities since none of us spoke French well enough, but we weren’t applying to them anyway. Between the three of us we were 9 for 9 on admissions (including two of us getting admitted to McGill – both getting our acceptance early) so I guess that “safety” was not all that far wrong.

To me “second generation immigrant” suggests that you were born in Canada, which along with your great grades should give you very solid chances at any university in Canada (not including French language universities). However, your guidance counselor would know better than I.

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