An international applicant, asking about his admission rate into several US unis

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hi My name Jack Wang, I come from Holland.</p>

<p>I have gone to the Common App applying to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Stanford, Southern California, Berkeley, Virginia Tech, Carnegie Melon, MIT, Duke, Columbia, and Caltech.</p>

<p>By applying to this no. of unis, You might call me crazy, but as a person who is in a school with no one ever attended an US university, in a country with no tradition of doing so (I think) and while my school councilor has little knowledge of US higher education, I must say it's very very hard for me to prepare my application due to the stark contrast between US application and others in Europe, which is very simple.</p>

<p>I also consider US for my uni application because it offers quite an exquisite and unique system in which you can kinda like shopping for courses, and learn as much diversely as you can/like. :)</p>

<p>As I heard that officially, there is no strict criteria Americans use to evaluate their candidates, my biggest concern is obvious about my chance of being admitted as a foreign student. So below is some info that I hope any one of you can use to evaluate my odds:</p>

<p>IB diploma candidate (not confuse me with IB certificate candidate. It's the full diploma I am taking)
HL: physics, chemistry, mathematics (predicted: 7, 7, 7)
SL: further mathematics, Chinese A1, English A2, Economics
(unknown (my teacher say for me, it's likely to be a 7, but I rather be more conservative, 6, 6, 6)</p>

<p>Some distinctions:
top 30 in the International(much like continental, because only involving schools in Europe mostly, but a few from Middle East and Africa) ISMTF senior maths competition.</p>

<p>SCJP (Sun Certified Java Programmer) 1.5 edition</p>

<p>awarded as a C/C++ programmer in National Taiwan university.</p>

<p>Diploma B in piano based on the Dutch curriculum for performing art.</p>

<p>Some major Activities I have done:
Animal Shelter (I clean animals' craps).</p>

<p>Global Issues Network (kinda like raising awareness to help the world to become a better place by telling people to buy FairTrade goods locally for example)</p>

<p>As a traffic guide on road on an international marathon event so both the audience and the sportsmen won't be killed by automobiles.</p>

<p>Sing as a chorus in my school's musical.</p>

<p>Play piano (obviously :))</p>

<p>Playing music in my music school's concert hall.</p>

<p>Learning improvisation, ear training, and playing along with other musicians in my music school.</p>

<p>Maths club (I teach kids maths since I can't bear seeing them failing)</p>

<p>Making a website that earns me 200 bucks a month in order to help my family (well, just joking, for myself lol). This is actually a simulation project to test my economic thesis on a major essay.</p>

<p>IB group 4 science project</p>

<p>Some minor activities:
Astrology club
Badminton club
designing and drawing props for school's musical production.</p>

<p>I haven't taken SAT yet (I just know it like one or two months ago).</p>

<p>I am actually a Taiwanese but came to Holland due to some economic difficulties in my home country when I was 11.</p>

<p>I can speak Dutch, Mandarin Chinese, English and Taiwanese.</p>

<p>Some cons I think that will hurt my application:</p>

<p>my school sucks: (1)about 30% of last year's graduates failed IB and another 20% near failing. (2) you know what, it's not even on the list of schools on CollegeBoard's website. </p>

<p>There are not many extra curricular activities in academics, sports, arts etc in Holland and in my school. The society I am in is very incompetitive to be honest. (Sigh)</p>

<p>I am Asian, and my school's peers sometimes attribute my score to my ethnicity :( But the fact is that I simply love the creative nature of science, computing and maths. Thinking/reading about it is my pleasure.</p>

<p>I know I maybe quite incompetitive for those good US universities because I am Asian, plus the place and school I come from is quite unknown and crappy, but I really did my best to exploit every opportunity given. But all I want is that please any one give me a realistic view of my chance of admission into any of the universities I have listed, and provide me some feedbacks and suggestions that can help me.</p>

<p>Thanks alot~~~~~~</p>

2

<p>Do you need financial aid?</p>

<p>What is your class rank and GPA?</p>

3

<p>Those are excellent projected IB scores. It is very difficult to get a 7 on an IB exam (far more difficult than getting a 5 on an AP). Your awards and honors are also excellent.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, applying to the top universities is always a big gamble anyways, and even more so for an international student such as yourself. But you are certainly qualified. Good luck.</p>

4

<p>Hi Gaffe</p>

<p>I don’t know how to convert complete IB diploma to GPA. The full mark for a subject is 7 on the IB system.</p>

<p>As for class rank, my school doesn’t rank. But I guess very surely that I am the top of about 40 students (lol, how low can you expect from me when many people in my school are failing?).</p>

<p>The thing is that my school tells me that IB diploma is quite a challenging program that earning good IB grades actually give the candidates to top universities and bla blabla, so that’s why so many people fail.</p>

<p>For financial aid, I hope I can apply for it if it doesn’t hurt my admission since I must say the US fees are quite expensive for me. However, if it does, I will try not to do so.</p>

<p>please help</p>

<p>thanks</p>

5

<p>Your classes are graded on a 7 point scale? I’m sure that in your three years of high school, you have received grades for your classes.</p>

<p>Or are you referring to the IB exams? You’ve already indicated that your scores are projected; you haven’t taken them.</p>

<p>Asking for financial aid as an international applicant will really hurt your chances at many of these colleges.</p>

6

<p>thanks for the comment, sinistercharity</p>

<p>One of my classmates (An Indian girl) also wishes to apply to US universities but both of us share some common stress.</p>

<p>The first one is really about our racial status. Both of us have the idea that for international admission, the chance is realistic only for geniuses if you are Asians. However, socioeconomically, we come from this uniquely unknown incompetitive (well, even if would be killed, I would never say so to my teachers, but my friends do reach consensus about that) school in Holland (quite a number of students from my school sometimes feel a little ashamed visiting other many other international schools with far better facilities and funds, even back in Holland).</p>

<p>So, in general, I would like to ask, since I am Asian and come from an unknown school, should I ever attempt applying to some top US unis? of course I know it doesn’t hurt to try, but the application fees’ expenses concern me.</p>

<p>plz help</p>

<p>thx</p>

7

<p>Gaffe, I haven’t taken the real final exams (which only occur after the application deadline).</p>

<p>But, my school did use similar tests that are 90% similar to the real official ones to evaluate our predicated grades by remixing past IB exam questions.</p>

<p>I am not trying to pester but I am doing every thing for the US application on my own without a piece of advice here in Holland. I am also applying for UK’s few good unis, but they don’t ask that much as US ones do.</p>

<p>Please please help.</p>

8

<p>I’m not sure how the concept exists in European schools, but gaffe is trying to ask about your GPA (grade point average).</p>

<p>IB exams go towards your diploma. But I’m sure you have grades in school that project how well you are doing in your classes. These grades are averaged together in a system that often varies, but most commonly, they are done on the 4.0 scale. An A is worth 4 points, a B is 3, and so on. Your GPA is the average numerical worth of all classes that you have taken in high school.</p>

9

<p>so, sinistercharity, Do I divide my scores by the total maximum possible IB diploma score?
Nevertheless, is it really fair? I mean, how does US uni know that IB is considered easy or hard? and why don’t they simply show us the conversion table online which makes thing so much easier? I will ask about the conversion part to my school’s counselor as at least this is responsibility.
BUT, the whole idea is here is that I really want a constructive review on my chance of being admitted based on the info given above, and more importantly, some feedbacks/infos/suggestions that will help me maximize my chance.</p>

<p>please help thx</p>

10

<p>Any one has any idea???</p>

<p>plz help
thx</p>

11

<p>Here are a few suggestions for you.

  1. Study to get the highest possible scores on the SAT and subject tests. Aim for 750+ on each section for your top schools.
  2. Have a look at the University of Chicago. It’s just as good a school as the others on your list and easier to get into than some. It’s famous for having students who love learning as you seem to. To make room for it, you could eliminate Berkeley (too hard to get in out of state, and expensive) and Duke (sounds too laid-back for you).
  3. Have a native speaker of English edit your essays. People on this forum seem very willing. Be sure to spell “Carnegie Mellon” correctly.
    Good luck.</p>
12

<p>Thanks for your response, greenblue. I appreciate it sincerely.</p>

<p>I am definitely working on my SAT. All 3 sections seem to have some logic in it that are quite fun to play with. My weakness is my vocab though.</p>

<p>I understand that maybe you American applicants know very little about international applications, and therefore couldn’t tell me my chance of admission. But nevertheless I am mildly encouraged by you guys’ attitudes to apply to US despite my unique background and economic status.</p>

<p>thanks alot
and appreciate more feedbacks/suggestions or reviews on my chance of admission in advance</p>

13

<p>Jackwang…Instead of getting opinions from those of us who would love to help you, but who do not necessarily have the best information to give you, why don’t you contact the various admissions offices? I am sure that admissions officers would be glad to answer your questions, and then you could be assured that you have gotten the best advice possible. Just go to the various websites of the schools in which you have an interest, and find the email address for admissions, and query those offices. Much good luck!</p>

14

<p>thanks for that info…gabriel</p>

15

<p>Jack, your EC’s aren’t very bad at all for an international! And those predicted IB grades are very, very good. Financial aid will bog you down a bit…if possible, don’t apply for it. However, it all depends on the amount of aid you’ll need, if you do need aid. You are not at all a bad applicant, let me clarify that for you!</p>

16

<p>thanks for comment tetrisfan. Because my school has never sent students to US and is constantly having this low average IB diploma total points per candidate, it’s hard for me to evaluate myself against other applicants who are from much better places and more prestigious schools.</p>

<p>Maybe one more question. Do american universities also ask for the final IB grades after the exams are taken or they simply take your predicted ones for granted?</p>

<p>thanks alot</p>

17

<p>Your final IB grades do not affect admissions into college. Some colleges will take them as credit, similar to APs (although the top colleges don’t usually do this at all).</p>

<p>Since the IB grades don’t come in until around July, colleges have no real way of knowing what they will be until they actual arrive. Your predicted IB grades have little to no standing with colleges.</p>

<p>IB really isn’t as helpful as you may think it is. What it does show is that you are taking a rigorous and accelerated curriculum that is internationally well-known. Good grades in many HL classes are what helps the most.</p>

18

<p>Hi guys, long time no see. Back to CC again.</p>

<p>I have just got the results for my SAT subject tests.
800, 760 and 760 for maths level2, physics and chemistry.</p>

<p>I am going to do physics again as it seems not hard at all to obtain an 800. I thought I was going to get something like 650 as I missed a lot of questions related to electromagnetism and relativity which hadn’t been covered yet in my school.</p>

<p>In overall, My question is, as few of my schools I am applying to require 3 subject tests, do 3 800s really have a much stronger impact on my success in admission to say, Harvard, than 2 800s with a 760? Because firstly, I don’t feel I wanna do chemistry again, but on the other hand, I heard that most people who go to Harvard went to quite well-known expensive private high schools, so I am kinda paranoid that I need TOP grades in order to compensate certain aspect of my app I cant control [sigh].</p>

<p>Any idea to my question? from the perspective of international application of course.</p>

<p>thanks</p>

19

<p>bump…</p>

<p>Any one can answer my question above posted yesterday?</p>

<p>thanks</p>