Chance an international

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>First of all, I am an International student who lives in Stockholm, Sweden and finished high school in 2012. I applied last year as well to 6 colleges but got rejected by all but Vassar College where I was waitlisted. I aimed too high and I realize that now. Please warn me if I might be in over my head this time around as well!</p>

<p>SAT I - M: 790, CR: 610, W: 600, Total: 2000</p>

<p>It is not the best scores, but I study English as a second language and I am rather happy about these scores anyway. 2000 sounds better than 1990, so I was perhaps a bit lucky!</p>

<p>TOEFL: 109/120 (Writing: 27(/30), Reading: 27, Speaking: 27 and Listening: 28)</p>

<p>Strengths:
I have a 3.9 GPA from one of the top 5 high schools in Sweden, but sadly there is no official ranking of schools here so I hope my counselor conveys this as well as he can.</p>

<p>Teacher recommendations are great (at least one of them is). (the teachers always appreciate my enthusiasm and my ability to ask good questions in class)</p>

<p>I help out a lot in my family company as well as home, which makes it hard for me to find time for other extra curricular activities. </p>

<p>Played saxophone since third grade and this summer I played at a music festival where Robyn and other famous Swedish artists performed. I wrote this adventure in my common app essay. Perhaps I need to rewrite it a bit since I didn't get in last year :P</p>

<p>Flaws in application:
I am applying for a lot of financial aid.
Not that great ECs (like most other Swedes)</p>

<p>List of colleges I will probably apply to:
Gettysburg College
Dickinson College
Franklin and Marshall College
Depauw Uinversity
St. Lawrence University
Ithaca College (maybe)
University of Mississippi (maybe, since I would get 9 k or 15 k in scholarship there, but for 15 k I need a 3.9 GPA and mine is 3.86 if I just translate my grade point average from Swedish to English. How exact are they? :P)</p>

<p>Now, what are my chances based on the information I have given you in your opinion? Please motivate your answer! Any other similar colleges I could add to the list?</p>

<p>Thanks in advance!</p>

2

<p>Anyone? …</p>

3

<p>Pretty please?</p>

4

<p>Are universities in Sweden either overpriced or overly selective? Or is a Swedish U your domestic safety?</p>

<p>Gettysburg: Low match
Dickinson: Match
F&M: Match
DePauw: Safety
St. Lawrence: Match
Ithaca: Low match
Ole Miss: Safety (Ole Miss is a safety at 2.8/1500)</p>

5

<p>They are great, free and selective (but I can attend any of them if I want), but I didn’t like it very much since I still lived at home since it is impossible to get a hold of property in Stockholm. I have one school though north of Stockholm which I would consider a safety since I have the scores to get in. In Sweden we only use either standardized test scores or high school grades for admissions and mine are almost the highest you can get.</p>

6

<p>As an international student, your chances of getting accepted and getting the money you need is very low. Most of those schools are not need blind for internationals. Ole Miss might not be need blind, but other than that merit award, you are not likely to get a cent. Make sure you check each school and find out if they even give aid to internationals. Some schools do not.</p>

7

<p>These are the best colleges with late dealines that also give out full rides to people with my stats and Ole miss doesn’t need to give me more aid than 15 k since that is almost the whole tuition and I can manage living costs since they are cheaper than in Sweden. So even though my stats are better than the 75th percentile at most of these schools, my chances of acceptance are very low? That may be true, but I just want to here a confirmation :)</p>

8

<p>Yes that is true. Usually acceptance rates for international students is very low, especially those that need financial aid. Most schools don’t even give much aid to out of state students. Their money is mostly spent on in state students.</p>

9

<p>I can’t see you rejected out of Ole Miss, though. UCs are far more payment-sensitive with out-of-staters than Ole Miss ever would be.</p>

10

<p>Gettysburg College, Dickinson College, Franklin and Marshall College and St. Lawrence University all have decent allocations for international FA. University of Mississippi? Why not Uppsala or something in Norway? Maybe you want Skidmore in upstate NY instead of Ithaca College.</p>

<p>Why is you CR score so low? You started English at age 9 in Sweden, right?</p>

11

<p>That guy said that he had a safety in Sweden… </p>

<p>I hope the comparatively higher TOEFL score would compensate for a low CR score.</p>

12

<p>I have Uppsala as uber safety actually, but I want to study in the US since I miss it. I lived there when I was 5-8 years old and learned to write and read in English before Swedish. My skills in English didn’t continue to develope until like ninth or tenth grade sadly, since it is our second language in Sweden like you guys have Spanish. Could you score more than 610 in a Spanish SAT test if it was as hard as the English one? I hear of Americans who don’t even know Spanish when they are 18 and I speak more or less fluent English. I score 100 points more than all other Swedes who don’t have any English speaking parents and they also get the high remarks in English.</p>

<p>I studied some difficult vocab for half a year in English and got almost all the right answers in that section. Also, if I would have two guesses on each question I would have at least a 750 or something since I usually over-analyze the questions and read between the lines too much so I get confused over what I actually read. Those are my flaws in English and the reasons why I got such a low CR score.</p>

13

<p>Furthermore, my TOEFLs are higher since I consider myself a better listener and speaker than I am at writing and especially reading. I am a slow reader which makes these tests pretty difficult for me to begin with. The TOEFLs are a peace of cake though; feels like it did in mddle school.</p>

14

<p>bump!:!::!:!</p>

15

<p>bump10char</p>

16

<p>Are you sure you need only $15K at Olde Miss? It charges a $10K fee for out-of-state residents.
[The</a> University of Mississippi ? Office of Financial Aid](<a href=“http://www.olemiss.edu/finaid/costofattendance.html]The”>http://www.olemiss.edu/finaid/costofattendance.html)
The average FA amount awarded to internationals per CDS H6 is $11.888.
[The</a> University of Mississippi • Institutional Research & Assessment](<a href=“http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/university_planning/institutional_research/cds/2010-2011/section_h.html]The”>http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/university_planning/institutional_research/cds/2010-2011/section_h.html)</p>

<p>You can scan down this list of deadline dates to see if there a someplace else that meets your criteria. You’ll need to check respective CDS section H6 for international FA info.
<a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/docs/downloadforms/common2010_Grid.pdf[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/docs/downloadforms/common2010_Grid.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>One thing you should be aware of it that some colleges don’t use the writing part of the SAT at all. It’s not an accurate test. It is considered less important than the first two parts everywhere.</p>

<p>Your CR 610 + M 790 = 1400 out of 1600 is a good score. If you explain the gap in your English education and say you want to do a math/science or economics major, you should get in at most of the places you’ve listed.</p>

<p>If I were in your position, I’d try submitting a few January 15 applications late. My guess is that international applications get done later than the others. For example, Oberlin is big on music and may like you.</p>

17

<p>Thanks for your input rhg3rd! If I were to add one college with January 15 as application deadline to my list, I would probably go with Skidmore since they have killer financial aid :slight_smile: I don’t think I am good enough to become a music major at Oberlin, but I enjoy it as a hobby :)</p>