Hello everyone! I am an Indian student in class 12. Next year will be college year and I wanted to shortlist a dew colleges in the states to which I should apply. Of course there is no sure shot way of getting a college and neither do I want one. What I do ask for is recommendation for colleges which I can apply to realistically. So ill start with my details
First and foremost : I love physics a lot!(and naturally math too). I will surely become a theoretical physicist in the future. Therefore, I have my major decided already. Moreover, I would prefer a college which is science focused where my peers are passionately driven about science like me.
Secondly, I will not be applying for aid.
Now, as far as academics are concerned, there is not much to worry about. I am probably the best student in my school academically with an aggregate of 92 percent in class 11 (yeah, in India we don’t have GPAs). I scored a 34 (35 superscore) in ACT so that shouldn’t be a worry either. ( I have taken APs and SAT II and expect full on all of them too-but since I haven’t got the results I can never be too sure)
Now for my ECs :
• Obtained an all India Rank of 501(out of about 100,000 students) and a scholarship for higher studies in science in the KVPY national exam, one of the country’s most prestigious exams for science students.
• Won the Mathematician of the Year Award at a national math competition (INFINITY) where I represented my school. Over a 100 students from several different schools took part in the competition.
• Have published a paper in the IOSR Journals on the geometrical representation of Euler’s number. It demonstrates a way to visualise or picture one of the most famous mathematical constants.
• Have published a paper in the IOSR Journals on an intuitive introduction to Fermat’s Last Theorem. It demonstrates in a non-rigorous and intuitive manner why Fermat’s Last Theorem holds true.
• After reading Feynamn’s famous biography, I decided to try learning some biology. Since I had dropped it as a subject, I spent my summer interning at Medstar Clinics, Calcutta, in the pathology department. I learned a lot of interesting stuff (from counting platelets to carrying HIV and HCV tri-dot tests to carrying out thyroid tests and so on).
• Am currently working and researching on Collatz conjecture under the guidance of Dr. James Tanton, a Princeton alumni and a famous mathematician and math populariser. We have discussed a lot of maths, and I found some interesting properties of numbers following the conjecture too.
• I, in a team of 5, took part in the CERN Beamline for schools competition. Our team proposed the idea of identifying composition of metals in ores (and thereby identifying the ores) using characterisitic X-Rays. Our team ended in the top 30 all over the world and our school lab received a cosmicPi detector
• Have taken part in several city-wide basketball tournaments. Have won 1st place 3 times, 2nd place 2 times and 3rd place 2 times.
• Have taken part in several state-level basketball tournaments where I represented Alipore district.
• Have won the squash club championship (Calcutta Racket Club)
• Have won prizes for excellence in academics and scoring cumulative highest in Physics, Chemistry and Maths for academic year 2016-17.
I am also the president of the Science Club of our school.
These are my main strengths as far as ECs are concerned. I do have a little more activities here and there but these activities are what describes me to the best extent.
Phew! if you’ve made so far, then perhaps you could also drop a comment on which colleges I should target. (As a side note do tell me whether colleges like MIT, Caltech, Princeton etc are unrealistic decisions or not - these three are my dream colleges). And while you’re writing your reply, ill study some more physics
In your search, you may want to make a distinction between “science focused” colleges and colleges that would be strong for sciences. As examples, MIT, RPI, Caltech, Harvey Mudd and, to a lesser extent, Rice would be science focused; Princeton would be strong in sciences and math, but not science focused.
These were recommendations for an applicant with interests similar to yours:
Your profile sounds very impressive, and is up-to-par with what MIT, Caltech, and Princeton are looking for.
However- I’m an avid consumer of journal articles myself, and pay a lot of attention to the prestige/trustworthiness of the parent journals of the articles that I read. Naturally, I was curious about IOSR and looked it up. I worry about both the legitimacy of the journal and the organization that gave it its impact factor. A good deal of google results came up accusing the journal of being fake or “pay to publish”.
I want to be clear- I’m not doubting the work that you put in to write those articles, but I am doubting the legitimacy of the publisher. Being associated with them may take your application down a notch or five.
From one teenage researcher to another, I wish you luck and hope that my doubts are misplaced.
Thank you for the reply!
I get what you’re trying to say. While I prefer science focused colleges, I would definitely not mind an all round college as far as I have great peers and professors to work with.
newkidnewtrix
Oh is it so? I didn’t know that. It was actually one of my seniors who had published in that paper which prompted me to publish too. Well hopefully it doesn’t affect me too much; if the paper looks good to the university it may be okay.
Anyways thanks for your reply! Wish you luck too!
I think you are on par with what those schools want, but many other students are also highly qualified. I would highly advise applying to some safeties.
Many college-bound U.S. students will have completed single variable caculus by the end of HS, either regular or advanced. A few will have taken linear algebra at a local college. Your own math level will partly determine which colleges would be suitable for you.
Yes, though I’d nearly forgotten about Professor Feynman’s nascent interest in biology expressed in that book. You may also appreciate his lecture series at Cornell, available online. Now I can also see why you’ve developed an interest in MIT, Princeton and Caltech.
In terms of specific school recommendations, most of the ~25 colleges you can reference through post 1 would be excellent for you academically. You could start by reviewing their course catalogs in your areas of interest.
@merc81 Thank you for the reply. I will do so and hopefully get a suitable list of colleges to apply too.
Btw thanks for the rec about professor feynmans lecture series at cornell. Will definitely check that out.
As for the math level, I would’ve completed single variable calculus (advanced).
Based on the above, you would be regarded as a “typically” advanced math student in the U.S. Under a likely scenario, you would be placed into some combination of calc 2/multivariable calculus/linear algebra as a first-year college student. That’s noting that your primary interest is physics, of course.
