Recommend me some colleges?

Relativity93
Fri, 23 Dec 2011 16:24:46 +0000

Hello CC, I am an international student from Nepal, and I am looking forward to applying to some good colleges this season, but I really had no idea what the constituents of a good list would be. So, veteran international students, please offer me your invaluable insight regarding good colleges for me.

As of now, my college list stands as so:

Brown (applied ED, got deferred)
Carleton
Grinnell
Macalester
Princeton
Randolph (safety?)
Reed
Trinity
Tufts
Vassar
Whitman
Williams

I feel that perhaps I need more safety schools and other schools that may be a good match for me. I am also from a low-income family so I need LOTS of aid, without which I probably cannot attend any college in the United States.

My expected major is Applied Math and/or Physics

Here are my stats:

Ethnicity: Nepali

GPA: 4.0 (there is not an accurate method of determining the GPA where I went to high school, but the 4.0 is because I got all A*s in my A levels)

Class Rank: 1st out of some 200 students

SAT: 2310 (740 CR, 800 Math, 770 Writing)

SAT IIs: 800 Physics, 800 Math II

School: a recognized, private A-level school in Nepal.

Honors:
-School Science Fair Winner: 1st Place
-Regional Science Fair: Honorable Mention
-CIA’s Outstanding Young Scientist Award (lived in the USA from 2006 to 2009)
-Best Across Four Cambridge International AS Levels: First place in Nepal (topped my country by achieving the best aggregate marks during my first year.)
-Best Academic Performance: Physics (School)

Extracurricular:
-Chess (winner of annual school tournament '10; created chess club in school '10; president of club '10, '11; organized tournament in school '11)
-Tutoring (tutored students in the school, interned as an assistant teacher for practical physics in another A-level school after graduating) [~250 hours]
-Visual Art (Scholastic Art & Writing Awards of 2009: Silver Key; a bunch of other competitions and certificates; skilled in sketching, painting and collage)
-Dance (Danced for Charity; skilled in metro and somewhat in bboy)
-Debate/Speech (Varsity Debate Team; a couple of wins and involvements)
-Worked (unpaid) under Ascent: Research, Training & Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. (Guidance Counseling; Career Counseling; Coordinated and Presented a presentation on Ivy League Schools: “The Road to Ivy League & Beyond”)
-Health Nepal Foundation (HNF): Executive member (volunteering; Organized a sanitation awareness campaign in which we visited public schools in Kathmandu and taught kids in elementary grades)
-Journalism/Publication (Writer and Editor in the School Magazine; wrote a couple of articles and a music review column)

Essays: Pretty good. Nothing heart-melting or groundbreaking, but I have written about my international life and how it has shaped me. I focus on my passions and talk about the time when I first discovered them and what I felt. My friends say it’s good, and I spent a lot of time fretting about it, modifying it every time I opened the document. I was satisfied with the end-result, but I’m not sure if the admission officers will say the same.

Recommendations: The teacher recs are really awesome, but I don’t know about the counselor rec; haven’t seen it.

Anyways, I hope my thread is not an eyesore, and I hope you will leave reasonable replies as to which colleges I should/should not apply to. Please comment on the colleges I have chosen and say so if you think there are better alternatives. Once again, I absolutely NEED financial aid and cannot hope to study if I receive anything less than a 80-95% scholarship.

Thank you for your attention and have a very pleasant day.