This is a carry over from a match me that I posted a few months ago and I wanted to post a chance me now that I’m applying to colleges and have solid test scores.
Demographics
Domestic student living in a small town in Mexico with a lot of American expat families, about 1-25 kids from the local high school (both Mexicans and Americans) apply to colleges in the US a year. There have been a handful of people who’ve gotten into prestigious LACs over the past several years, but those are exceptions and nobody that I know of is currently applying to selective colleges.
Extracurriculars for teens are practically nonexistent here
Hispanic/White, dual citizen
Homeschooled
Intended Major(s) Social Anthropology or Global Business/International Relations
Honors Geometry, Algebra II, Pre-Calculus, Honors Calculus
Honors Daily Life in the Ancient World & Comparative Religions (semester block classes), Honors World History, Honors History and Culture of Mexico (in Spanish), Honors Global Issues & Politics. I took US History in 8th grade and I put that as a note on the transcript.
Honors Philosophy as Literature, Honors World Literature, Honors Latin American Literature (in Spanish), Honors Literary Theory and Criticism
Electives: Painting & Photography (semester block courses), Honors Analysis of Human Nature, Honors Central Asian Studies & Tocharian (semester course), Honors Art History, Fashion in History, Russian I, Guitar, Acting. Will do a senior project on mythology in the spring semester.
All of my courses are described in detail in my application, including textbooks, books read, resources, etc.
Honors/Awards
Publication in a bunch of selective literary magazines
Currently expecting results from a bunch of competitions I applied to, and I am also
planning to publish a history research paper. I will send the colleges an update letter in 2024 with any new honors I’ve received.
Extracurriculars (Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)
Wrote 2 full-length novels, received manuscript requests from literary agents, working on a novella. I’ve been publishing some of my work online and have garnered a relatively big following on a creative writing platform.
Founder of an online business that creates high school humanities curriculums complete with tests, projects, and assignments. I’ve also dedicated hours of research on how to create rigorous courses all on my own.
EIC and Founder of a literary magazine
Writer & editor at a few student writing platforms
Contemporary dancer, practice for 8 hours a week
Recreation (exercise, pilates, yoga) for about 4-5 hours a week, although this depends on my dance schedule
Attended an informal arts summer camp in 2020, attended my local writers conference this year
Was an active member of a teen outdoor activity group in freshman and sophomore year
Some informal modeling
Other smaller ECs that don’t really matter (I was briefly a part of a book club and I did some babysitting freshman year).
Essays/LORs/Other
Essays – 9/10
LoRs – 8/10
Cost Constraints / Budget
All of these schools meet my financial need
Schools (List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below)
Safety (certain admission and affordability): Colleges in Mexico
Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable)
It looks like you and your family are doing the work to document your homeschooling, so that’s great. The lack of physics will be noticeable and may be a blocker at some schools.
I can’t really judge the value of the specific creative writing awards and potential publications, but having the focus is clearly helpful.
Just confirming - you’ve run the NPC’s at all of these and they will be affordable for your family?
Even without your caveat about the history of admissions from your current region, these are both Reach schools for any Regular Decision applicant, with acceptance rates below 10%. Your test scores are totally fine for these or any of your other schools, but they don’t open doors.
You aren’t really telling us how important is to you to go to school in the US - would you want to stay in Mexico if you don’t get into any of these reach schools? If so, great: if not, I’m sure that with more information, CC could help you discover some likelies and matches.
I agree that the particular LACs you named should really be thought of as reaches.
Off hand, with your interests some additional LACs I would consider would include Macalester and Oberlin. Both are strong in both Anthropology and IR, and both would be somewhat easier admissions targets. I may have missed something but I didn’t see your gender identity. If you are able to consider womens’ colleges, though, I would add Barnard.
In terms of universities, I always think any high numbers kid with any sort of IR-type interests and an affinity for Ivy-type universities should at least look at William & Mary.
I would definitely add Denison (to combine writing and Global Business), Dickinson (same thing), Beloit as a safety (well-known for anthropology). Macalester is a great suggestion!
Why not JHU?
Apply by Dec 1 to universities with scholarships for your stats- University of Alabama Honors College comes to mind, with a Scholars program like Blount? That would be a better safety with lots of individual opportunities.
UIowa would be another solid safety with honors college but not sure what the deadline is for Honors college.
As for the colleges you listed: 30-70, 40-60 perhaps (at best) at Middlebury and Hamilton, especially RD.
For the super reaches, your profile is in line with their expectations, but it only means your odds in the RD round are 1 in 20. If you apply for anthropology at Stanford you may stand out a little compared to all the kids who want to go there for tech related fields but we’re still talking 1 in 20…
There are a LOT of wonderful colleges in the U.S. between your reach and high match schools…and your safety schools in Mexico.
If you want to attend college in the U.S. it is absolutely possible for you to do so. But you need some realistic target schools…and even sure things for admission and affordability that you like here.
I guess the question is…would you rather study in Mexico? Or would you rather find some attainable colleges here.
You should also check University of New Mexico.
What IS your annual budget for college every year. We can make better suggestions knowing what that number is.
To which school do you intend to apply at Georgetown? In any case, be sure to research whether its Global Business major would be available to you from the undergraduate school that you do select.
Hamilton and Middlebury are reaches for all due to low acceptance rates.
How much is your budget? If it’s high enough, you might be able to find some financial safeties that offer large automatic merit scholarships, such as University of Alabama and others.
Most of your list so far are mid size universities, not LACs. You might add more of both sizes to your list. For matches, look further down in rankings for schools with reasonable acceptance rates, generally beyond the top 50 national universities, with a few exceptions like the University of Rochester. Use the Net Price Calculator for all schools of interest to make sure they’d be in budget.
Should you decide to revise your list, this site, which mentions 20 smaller colleges with solid — or, in several cases, excellent — anthropology programs, may be of interest:
Astrobiology actually is counted as a physics credit in my application. However, if having a more unconventional science course is really a blocker at some schools, I can start a regular physics course now and work on it from here until the summer.
Yes, I ran the NPC and all of these schools will be affordable for my family. I don’t want to disclose too much about my family’s financial situation, but we qualify for 100% need-based aid and my parents are only allowing me to apply to college in the US if the schools I apply to fall under that category–preferably with a very minimal amount of loans. So basically, I can only apply to the schools in this blog post: Here's Every College That Offers 100% Financial Aid. However, for personal reasons, my parents aren’t thrilled about me going to the US and they’re only going to be happy about it if I get accepted into a highly prestigious school ( a T20 or a top LAC)—hence the lack of safeties/likelies/matches. They would rather have me either stay in Mexico or apply to colleges in the UK, which I am also doing. I’m fine staying in Mexico but I would rather go abroad.
I am female and Barnard was actually one of my top choices, but I doubt my parents would let me to move to NYC (though I’ll make a weak attempt to try to convince them hahaha). If there are good schools that are similar and meet need, I would love to be notified about them.
If it matters, AP exams are practically inaccessible to me.
As a practical matter, the NPC result is what matters for the purpose of the college passing the financial screen, not whether the school appears on a list of generic financial aid claims like “offers 100% financial aid” or “meets need” or whatever.
@Momofthree24 this is from the Georgetown website which is a better source than anything else:
Need-blind, meet-full-need admissions
More than 40 years ago, Georgetown became one of the first schools to admit undergraduate students on a need-blind basis and meet U.S. students’ full demonstrated financial need. The decision transformed our trajectory, making Georgetown a destination for the world’s most talented students and ensuring they get the opportunity to study here.
I didn’t provide the list, the OP said herself that her parents would only allow her to apply to schools on THAT list. Thank you for clearing that up re:Georgetown and other schools.
Then add Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Smith and/or Wellesley, part of the original 7 sisters, can’t get more prestigious than that for girls (you could add Scripps if your parents find the Claremonts prestigious enough).
You have 20 slots in CommonApp.
Run the NPC on all colleges mentioned on this thread and see if they’re affordable then see if your parents would agree. Remember that there are 3,700 colleges in the US - you can check our The Princeton review’s Best Colleges for roughly the top 10%.
The UK will be super expensive with no scholarship and require APs or similar exams so it’s out for you.
You can look into Sciences Po Poitiers, the Sciences Po campus dedicated to Latin America since you have some French and are bilingual Spanish/English. It’s a top European school.
They have scholarships though I’m not sure it’ll be affordable and you can only major in Economics, Finance, Humanities, IR, etc, (no STEM), and all students minor in Latin American studies.
(you could add Scripps if your parents find the Claremonts prestigious enough).