Author: Samik Goyal

Before starting this, there are some ground rules to know of.

1. This information pertains to Indian citizens applying for stem degrees.
2. The claims in this post are not purely from my own experience, rather from what I have heard and seen with students all around me. However, this also means that I am biased as the people I’ve met are ones that attended the same events as me (IOITC/IOAITC/etc.).

The financial aid systems.

Whether you ask for financial aid/scholarships matters a lot. Now, it makes perfect sense that your chances of success with aid will always be less than or equal to chances without. However, there is more to it. Broadly, we can classify universities that offer aid into three systems:

1. Need Blind

Used by MIT.

This is the system where whether you ask for aid or not does not change your probability for success. That is, the university does not look at financial information while making an admission decision and offers need-based aid to every single student. This is the system MIT follows. Inarguably, this is the most “pure” system out there.

However, there are other universities which claim to be need-blind such as Yale, Harvard, etc. but for whom it is an open secret that they are not. Look at the opportunity insights study¹ for reference. Also look at the 568 cartel lawsuit.²

2. Normal System

Used by Cambridge, Oxford, NUS, NTU, many Indian universities.

This is the normal system we are all used to. Admission and scholarship are separate processes. Therefore, getting admission + scholarship is much more harder than just admission. However, this system allows for a very important possibility, that is, you get admission without scholarship. In that case, the student may opt for an external scholarship or loan. This is still a “pure” system. Most universities outside the USA follow this system.

3. Need Aware System

Used by a lot of top USA universities such as Stanford. In effect, even universities like Harvard, Yale behave as if they are need aware.

This is the worst system, designed to favour money. The way this works is simple, it eliminates the possibility of giving you admission without aid. That is, if you ask for aid, either you will be offered admission + scholarship or nothing. This leads to these types of universities having effectively two admission pools: full-pay and with-aid. In case you are wondering, the quality of people going full-pay is extremely low as compared to with-aid. For example, I know of people who have gotten Stanford full-pay but would get absolutely nothing (not exaggerating) had they applied domestically/to a university with a “normal” system.

Conclusion

From these system types, I hope it is visible that most American universities have a system designed to prey on people who cannot pay fully. For that reason, I would recommend staying away from such universities (unless you are full pay).

The top universities and what they look for.

American region

As I have said before, most American universities have a very bad financial aid system. This also means that the kind of people they attract are often quite dumb. However, one of the main advantages of being in an American university is well that it is America. A lot of people go crazy over America.

The best universities here are MIT and Stanford. A lot of people seem to think that your essays matter a lot for these universities. I would beg to differ. I have seen only few cases which could not be explained simply by a achievements based criterion.

MIT basically only admits Olympiad kids. You would need a gold medal at an Olympiad to go here. Besides that, I don’t think you need a lot going on.

Stanford is as I have mentioned before a Need-Aware university. This means that the quality of Indian kids going to Stanford is shockingly low because of this.³ However, they rarely take some Indians with aid as well. These tend to be ones from the research competitions, primarily IRIS/ISEF.

European region

The best universities here are Oxford and Cambridge. However, it is important to note that, for both universities, the College you apply to makes a big difference. For example, Trinity College in Cambridge has significantly better students than other colleges.

Since these universities use the Normal system, you still need to be good to get in. These focus almost completely on their entrance tests which involve math. There is also an interview with basic Olympiad style questions.

I’ve seen the benchmark be around IOITC level for CS to get into Trinity. For getting a scholarship, you would need to be an international medallist, probably Gold.

A pretty good advantage of these universities is that they have three year courses instead of four years.

Asian region

The best universities here are NUS and NTU. There are good universities in Hong Kong as well. Even though both these universities use the normal system, it is significantly easier to get a scholarship in NTU (on the order of 10x). You also have the option of taking the MoE Tuition Grant. Note that scholarships in NUS are competitive even for IOI medallists (as in you need to be ≥IOI Silver to have a good chance).

It is important to note that scholarships in Singapore come with a three or six year work bond. That is, you have to work for that number of years for a Singaporean entity. You don’t have to necessarily work for the government or any other unwanted job. You have the freedom to choose your job.

As for admissions, the important thing here is board marks or international medal. However, I have seen people get in if they have very good other ECs as well. With an international medal, you are basically guaranteed admission though.

One of the arguments I have seen for these universities is that they have a dumb student population as well since they admit students on the basis of board marks. However, it is important to note that, the same system is followed by other top universities (MIT, Stanford, Oxybridge) for their domestic applicants. It is just that NUS/NTU holds Indians to similar standards as MIT does to domestics.

NUS/NTU attract a lot of international medallists from Asia though. NUS in particular has the highest number of IOI medallists after MIT and Cambridge.

Personal Opinion

A lot of people have the view that American universities are just better than European or Asian ones. However, this view has been changing recently in particular with the political atmosphere in the USA. I have never understood this. As, for objective measures, Europe or Asia is quite good as well.

Most of these people who have the “America Better” sentiment are unable to support this argument.