Suggest Reach/Match/Safety Universities for Gap Year Student

College Search & Lists
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So I’m a student from rural America, but I’m an Indian citizen and don’t hold a green card. I also need financial aid. I didn’t realize how hard it would be to get accepted to top universities. Come march, I found myself waitlisted at 6 top 20 universities( I wanted to get off the waitlist at princeton so bad, but that sadly didn’t happen) and accepted to 4 colelges. I failed to apply for a scholarship at my safety school and I was staring at a tution of $25,000 there and tuition upwards of 50,000 the other 3. I couldn’t convince myself to go attend my safety, knowing that I could have got much more scholarships there. Also I never took the entrance exams required for indian colleges, so I was left with few options. So, I chose to take a gap year and work on publishing my research paper and some other stuff.

1550 SAT: 800 Math, 750 English, 18 for essay.760 Phsyics, 800 Biology, 790 World History, 800 Math II
1/300 rank

AP Macro (5) , AP Lang (5), AP US (4), AP Bio (5), AP Chem (4) , AP Micro(5) , AP Stats (4), AP Calc BC( 5), AP Physics 1 (4), AP Government (5), AP Physics C: Mechanics(5), AP Psychology (5), APES 5
)Last Year’s Course Work: AP Psychology, AP Comp Sci, AP Environmental, AP Physics C both electricity and mechanics, Multivariable Calculus, French 4, AP US Gov, Engineering Internship

Extracurricular:Varsity Tennis & Baseball, started my own tutoring program for students in the community, independent research in high schools under stem mentor, President of Interact Club, SGA Treasurer, NHS, Mathematics Club President, Know to play piano,

State Math Competition, Economics Bowl state second, some minor essay competitions, National Merit Semifinalist, AP National Scholar, and a few local awards, Bio Olympiad State level.

Probable Major: Materials Science, BME, Biophysics, also econ& math at LACs would be interesting to study.

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bump

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Why not reapply to that school and the scholarships? Although if the scholarship is competitive and you need it to be able to afford attending, it should be treated as a reach, not a safety.

What net price do you need it to be below?

What state did you graduate from high school in?

You may want to name the colleges that rejected you and were too expensive, so that people do not suggest them (these are now high reaches at best, or unrealistic reaches, based on the information you know now).

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@ucbalumnus Preferably around $20,000, a little more is fine.

Colleges that were too expensive- Georgia Tech, University of Virginia
Colleges that rejected me- Columbia, Harvard, Dartmouth, WUSTL, University Of Chicago, Stanford, Carleton College
Colleges that I messed up fin. aid at- Georgetown

Also, do you suggest re-applying to universities that rejected me, as some of them probably rejected me for my last minute essays?

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What’s wrong with your public state universities? Not prestigious enough? For engineering fields, state flagships are often as good as, or better than, most of the schools you’ve listed.

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The colleges that rejected you or were too expensive should be moved to the high reach category. The results give you information that your credentials were insufficient for admission (or needed scholarships) then, so it is less likely that they will be sufficient if you try again. I.e. it is better to find a new set of schools that are less selective and/or where you would be a better match for what they are looking for.

If you graduated high school in Texas after a sufficient amount of time attending school and living there, note that it may offer in-state tuition even for international students. https://admissions.utexas.edu/residency#fndtn-t143-requirements

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@simba9, There’s nothing wrong with them, and I would’ve loved to attend them. Initially, the public universities in my state told me that I couldn’t qualify for in-state tuition, so I forgot about them. However, I talked to the director of international admissions at one university and found that I could indeed qualify for in-state tuition, but the deadline for the scholarships had already passed.

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@ucbalumnus, Thanks for the advice. I might apply to one or two of those colleges only if time permits.

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Any college/scholarhsip recommendations?

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If you’re in an MSEP state https://msep.mhec.org/faqs , you may also qualify for the reciprocity discount at schools on the exchange. The FAQ say only that you have to be a “legal resident” of your state, although of course you’d need to drill down on how they define that.

Or, if you’re in a southern state, you may be able to get the Academic Common Market rate for this unusual but BME-ish major at WVU: https://admissions.wvu.edu/academics/majors/biometric-systems (It’s eligible for the reciprocity rate because no other state has exactly that major.) You’d also be eligible for $15K automatic merit there (would have been full tuition for NMF but I think that ship has sailed) but I think it’s either-or, not reciprocity plus scholarship.

I definitely think it makes sense to reapply to schools where you were accepted or waitlisted, if they have potential to be affordable. But reapplying to schools that denied you is less likely to be worthwhile unless something substantial has happened/changed since then.

You might want to seriously consider some automatic-merit financial safeties. There are many high-stat students at the U of Alabama campuses because of the generous merit aid (equally available to international students). You would receive a full tuition scholarship, which would put the remaining costs well within your budget. You would find many similarly qualified students in the Honors College at UA Tuscaloosa, and at UA Huntsville (known for STEM, especially aerospace) as well.

Canadian U’s can indeed be a good deal as well. U of Waterloo has some good scholarships that are open to international students.

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@aquapt Thanks for the great info. Definitely considered WVU as an option and I do qualify as a resident. Do you suggest any LACs that have materials science as a major?

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If you’re in-state in WV, then you can (probably, unless there’s some wrinkle with the in-state international thing) get the SREB Academic Common Market rate for:
http://home.sreb.org/acm/ProgramDetail.aspx?id=435&state=WV
http://home.sreb.org/acm/ProgramDetail.aspx?id=860&state=WV
Both U of KY and U of TN have merit scholarships too, and I don’t know if those would “stack” with the reciprocity but worth looking into.

Case Western would be really good for you to look into, for merit. They have unrestricted mobility among majors/programs, so you have some flexibility once there; and they have a lot of programs in your areas of interest:
biomedical engineering, engineering physics, biophysics, materials science & engineering, polymer science & engineering, systems biology… and LAC-quality humanities and social science programs as well, with just over 5K undergraduates. U of Rochester also has a good range of majors and programs, and merit potential. Also, Union College is an LAC with engineering programs including biomedical engineering and a nanotechnology minor. WPI is great, gives merit, and has biomedical, materials, and more.

U of Cincinnati has co-op engineering programs in biomedical and “energy and materials” engineering. They could potentially give you significant merit, plus you would be able to get US work experience that you would otherwise be hard to get without a green card.

You didn’t apply to Rice or Vanderbilt on the first pass? Both do give merit awards; plus, Rice’s base price is around 63K currently, so starting 10-15K less than the other elite U’s. Duke is another than seems to have a lot of what you’re looking for, and wasn’t on your list last year.

Admittedly I don’t fully understand what kind of scholarships you theoretically should have gotten (i.e. from Georgetown) last year, and your international status means that you’re eligible for some scholarships but not others, so… YMMV - you have to check out the schools in context and see which seem to have the best opportunities.

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@aquapt Georgetown thought I was a US student, so they prepared me a financial aid package similar to that of United States citizen. However, by the time they found out that I wasn’t the international financial aid ran out, as its rather limited. They want me to apply again.

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Check out SUNY Binghamton…their full price for OOS is still half of a private school.

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@bopper Thanks for the recommendation. I’ve considered applying to the SUNY.