Chance me as an Indian 11th grader
Demographics
Indian citizen, Male
Family income ~ $20,000 (requesting full financial aid)
Type of school: CBSE(non attending 'dummy admission', I'm living across the country, away from my family, to study for JEE)
Intended major-
Computer science(primary)
Electronics and hardware/cybersecurity/ai(secondary)
Academics-
9th grade - 90%(dip due to health issues)
10th grade - 98%
11th grade - estimated~92-95%
SAT- 1510 one sitting - june 2026, planning to give again in September 2026.
Awards and honours-
School level-
-Scholar badge holder- 4 consecutive years( aggregate 90% academics)
-Blue coat holder- scholar badge for 3 consecutive years
-Won the best delegate award at a school hosted MUN.
-Helped setting up a 3d printer at the school lab.
-Incharge of the school electronics and hardware lab.
District level-
Internship at a local startup, maintaining their website.
State/Regional level-
-Qualified IOQM(open to everyone), Qualified RMO(regional level - for qualifiers of IOQM), couldn't give INMO(national level- for qualifiers of RMO) due to health issues.
-Won a state level tech expo. The project was based on the problem that handicapped students need a writer to write exams. So I made a speech to a physical writing solution.(Explained further in the projects section)
National/International level
-Won 1st place representing my school at highschool organised IT Fest, for a self designed 3d printed drone(explained in detail further), schools across India and CBSE schools of middle East were also invited(over 500 schools participated)
-Won 2nd place representing my school at a hackathon(about 400 schools participated across India)
-4th position(runner up) for representing my school at a national level robo soccer competition, self designed car type robot(discussed in the projects section)
-USACO- gold division
-Tech team lead at a worldwide mental awareness club- Calm Minds.
Projects-
-Voice to physical writing CNC- An ESP32 based project with steeper motors, uses a microphone module to detect speech and converts it into commands for the cnc made with steeper motors, which write on a paper with a pen. Original design and implementation(no kits used)( i just have a few photos, maybe a video of i m lucky, my brother destroyed it RIP CNC)
-Self made drone- Original 3d printed design using ESP32 , one on drone to control motors and other functions, one on remote as transmitter.
-Self made Car type robot using Rpi involving, actuators and complex mechanism in the front, to pass around the ball and kick it to score a goal
-Smart glasses that help blind people navigate around the world, using a rpi and camera module, it helps and object detection and gives directions to blind people. I have emailed a few NGOs maybe I can partner with one of them
-Made an entire full stack website for a non profit calm minds - helping manage their face on the internet and managing their content. Currently for members only, where they write their articles (the website has inbuilt workflow to write articles, editors edit them, head writers approve publishing), the website will be open to the public soon.
-Made a biometric based attendance system, for my JEE coaching, solving the problem of proxy attendance, using a rpi, camera module and fingerprint scanner. Will be deployed very very soon like next week, will be used by over 180 students regularly.
-A network scanning tool called Lemon trace - for home labs and enterprises, a python scanner scans the network, react based local dashboard shows the result and any anomalies. Currently in early stages of development.
I plan to make a startup out of the Lemon trace project.
-Also i do pc building on commissions, made enough to buy my own macbook. -Also just felt like mentioning i have been doing programming for 6 years- web dev (react, next etc), python, java, c++, basics of rust, sql ,mongo db, firebase. Is it worth yo mention the Udemy courses I have done to build these skills. -I used to do CTFs for fun but i absolutely suck at it.
Schools I plan to apply -
Need blind schools-
MIT
Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Dartmouth
Brown
Need aware-
Caltech
Stanford
Or any other top school which can cover my financial needs.
Imaging here my essays and letter of recommendations to be 10/10. Is there even vhance I can get into any of these schools.
Also I still have 1.5 years before applying early.