Chance an international student from Europe

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi guys,

I am an international student from Eastern Europe wishing to apply to some US top universities. I am planning to apply to just “reaches” as otherwise I will rather stay in Europe due to financial circumstances. So as you might have already guessed I basically need 100% financial aid or really close to it.
Stats: New SAT 1410 (Math: 760, Reading/Writing 650) Essay: 6/6/6
SAT II yet to obtain scores, took Spanish, Math II and Physics (June sitting)
IB Diploma: 42+/45
I plan to apply as a major in languages (not sure which yet)

Awards: (nothing much as there are not so many opportunities as e.g. in the US or Asia)
Mathematical Challenge - “Gold Certificate” and “Best in Year”
Lots of school awards and scholarships
Some Olympiads (City rounds)
MUN Best Delegate Award

Summer activities: Every summer I undertook a language camp

Leadership positions:
Sports’ captain
Head of Universities

Work experience/volunteering
Tutoring languages
Translating various documents
Fundraisings
Volunteering in shelters
Internship at a retail company and a counselling one (don’t wanna name them) :smiley:

ECs:
Soccer (Grade 10, 11 and planned 12)
MUN (Grade 11 and planned 12)
German classes (Grade 9, 10, 11 and planned 12)
French classes (Grade 9, 10, 11 and planned 12)
Portuguese classes (previously self-taught) (Grade 10, 11 and planned 12)
Starting with Italian and Slovak (Grade 12)

Fluent in four (including English and my mother tongue), conversational in other two, yet soon four (Italian, Slovak)

In my essays I plan to convey my love for languages -> should be good -> definitely something unusual.
References are to be great as well…

Now the places I want to apply to:
Princeton, Harvard, Brown, Harvard, Columbia, NYU (I know about their financial aid :D) and either Caltech or Duke…

So guys, what are my chances? Anything I can do to improve them?
Thank you :slight_smile:

2

Take subject tests in French and German since you want to major in languages - you need to show prowess in these.
Your odds are about 2-3%, perhaps 5% at most, simply because you’re applying to universities everyone applies to.
Caltech makes no sense for a future language major.
The fact you left out Bryn Mawr (excellent French, Russian flagship program) and Middlebury (top program in the country for languages) is puzzling too.

1 Like
3

Okay, thanks for the advice :slight_smile:

4

Can you address the points above, IE.,
Why caltech and why skip Bryn Mawr (if you’re a girl) and most of all, Middlebury?

5

Sure…because if by any chance I wanted to return to Europe, no one would know about Bryn Mawr/Middlebury (might be better to stay in Europe for me in that case). And Caltech, because I enjoy Maths too, it is just I don’t have any related ECs to it etc., but I take HL Maths as my IB subject so I thought it would be good applying there even though it is mostly a science college!

6

Caltech is exclusively a science college. If you want a hardcore science college where you can also study languages, you have HarveyMudd.
If you attended top colleges in the US, such as BMC or Middlebury, you could do what most international students do, ie., get a graduate degree, and from these colleges (assuming you continue doing well) there’d be no problem getting into a big name known in Europe.
Another reason is that in Europe, you have to choose one path early on, whereas if you go to a top college in the US, you can continue studying languages and math at a high level.

1 Like
7

Great! Thanks for the suggestions! I will look into them…and what about my stats and ECs?

8

You’d need to improve your SAT score to 1450, which should be doable. For the rest, you’re good, but it still makes the odds of rejection staggeringly high due to the entire world applying to just a few colleges.

9

Okay…Thank you!