Chance Me: Canadian HS senior, IB 41/42 PG, 1590 SAT, 36 ACT, Comparative Literature

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Canadian citizen, Chinese-Canadian (half-half) for ethnicity
Currently attending IB international boarding school (G10-12 only), G9 at US private boarding school (ranked #10 in MA, #55 whole US), transferred due to COVID

Intended Major: Comparative literature
Minors/Back-ups: Art history, museum studies, media studies, creative writing

School has no GPA system… 41/42 for the IB predicted grade, 42/42 for both semester one and semester two in G11, personal estimate around 39-40 for semester one of G12
School has no class rank either
SAT 1590, ACT 36, TOEFL 120, IELTS 9

Academics:
5 in AP Chinese from G9, no other AP scores
Foundation IB course scores are as follows:
Economics 6
Mandarin 6
English HL 7
Computer Science 7
Visual Art 7
Film 7
Math 6

IB subjects/scores are as follows (G11 sem 1, sem 2, G12 sem 1 estimate):
English A Literature HL 7, 7, 7
Biology HL 7, 7, 5
Chinese B SL 7, 7, 7
Math AI SL 7, 7, 6
Film HL 7, 7, 7
Philosophy SL 7, 7, 6

EE (Extended Essay) is in film projected A

Took honors physics and chem in G9 with A+ in phys and A- in chem
Additional self-taught languages are French (conversational) and Japanese (conversational)
Academic high honors + Dean’s List for G9 and G10, Academic standards praise for G10 and G11

Awards:
Top 5% for CTB (International) competition
Semifinalist for S.T. Yau Science Award (International) competition
Scholastic Awards for poetry and short story (G9 and G10) (International)
Campus Newspaper Excellence Award (International)
Young Pianists First-place (Regional)
Young Artists Third-place (Regional
Third-place in junior regionals for figure skating (…regional?)

Extracurriculars (school):
Founder and leader of campus art club
Leader of creative writing club
Editor-in-chief of campus newspaper, layout editor in G9
Layout editor for school yearbook
Head of editing department for campus media group

  • Filmed multiple interview docu-series on school events and other student-run initiatives on campus, most popular amassed ~20k views on platform of publication
  • Works with school’s marketing department to produce material
  • Filmed external documentary on Youth Hostel culture in China
    Founder, head of layout and head of English-language editing for campus creative writing and media anthology
    Founder of writing help on campus (weekly one-on-one support, open to whole school)

PSG (Peer-supporters group) member
Language table head and host of Chinese table
24HR film competition participant
Was in school GSA (gender-sexuality alliance)
Was in ASA (asian students association

House finance manager & house meeting host for residential houses
In charge of the production of house hoodies and merchandise

Was involved in tech production for 2/3 school plays, costume, prop, & set design for 3/3, and ensemble actor for 2/3
Merchandise design and production for Chinese cultural evening (concert)
Design & art for series of posted on sign-language awareness on campus in collaboration with another school club

Finance manager and logistics head for archery club
Varsity archery, JV ultimate frisbee, JV Basketball
Yoga club, Pickleball (for a semester)

One Voice conference school delegate
MUN - 2018 Best New Delegate, currently crisis committee co-chair for MUN hosted by school
Elementary school volunteer/service work
Organised multiple whole-school events
Worked closely with experiential learning and student life offices to plan whole-school events
Hosted 6 different workshops across three years at whole-school events for ~40 students each

Extracurriculars (Work):
Freelance editing & typesetting for online publication
Freelance translation and typesetting for ~11 online publication groups
Translation internship at CCTV (Chinese Central Television) for CN to EN during the Winter Olympics (2022)

Extracurriculars (Publication):
Publication in Coalition for Digital Narratives Fall Issue (Poetry)
Exhibition in Song Art Museum (Poetry)
Published academic paper on AI algorithm for generation of accessibility ramps in arXiv (Cornell) and preprint
Three additional preprints for paper on virtual linguistics, media & digital media history, and East-Asian economic history on media

Extracurriculars (Summer programs):
Harvard pre-college for a film and psychology course
Brown pre-college for college-level writing course
Yale Young Writers

Ellipsis Writing Workshop participant for creative non-fiction

Extracurriculars (others):
Sailing (license earned, junior competition participant)
Scuba-diving (license earned)
Swimming (regional junior competitions)
Badminton (city-wide competitions, junior level)
Figure skating (competition level, from age 7 to present)

Camp counsellor & English language instructor for summer charity outdoor educations program meant for migrant and impoverished children from rural China

Piano (ABRSM G8)
Music Theory (ABRSM G5)

Drama/Theatre (LAMDA G5)
Fine arts (have submitted an art portfolio as part of my application)
Creative writing (have submitted a writing portfolio as part of my application)

Essays:
Personally… I think they’re pretty standard? Nothing outstanding in terms of content but well-written and good show of character
School university counselor said they were good. If anyone is willing to read over them posthumously I’d also be extremely grateful…

Cost Constraints / Budget:
No concerns over tuition/living costs ATM

Schools:
highschool has an enforced limit of 10 total applications, with all UCs counting as one, so below are my ten schools:

Brown (ED) - Reach
Yale (RD) - Reach
Dartmouth (RD) - Reach/Match
Vanderbilt (RD) - Reach/Match
UIowa (EA) - Match/Reach
Swarthmore (RD) - Match/Reach
Middlebury (ED2) - Match
NYU (RD) - Match/Safety
USC (EA) - Match/Safety

UCs:
Berkeley - Reach
LA - Reach
Irvine - Match/Safety
Riverside - Match/Safety
Davis - Safety

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You do not have any safety on your list, except for maybe (?) Iowa.

UC Davis is not a safety for an international student. UC Riverside is not a safety for an international student. Ditto for NYU and USC (assuming that you mean Southern California). Given this list, I think that it is very likely that you will get accepted somewhere, but I do not think that it is certain that you will be admitted anywhere.

Why would you want to pay US$75,000 per year to attend UC Riverside when you could pay less than this for the full four years at McGill or another university in Canada? Given that you have some LACs on your list, I might also point out that you could spend less than US$75,000 for a full four years at Mount Allison or another of the very good small primarily undergraduate universities in Canada.

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My current school has a Davis scholarship program so a total of ~30 students get admitted each year to the UCs.

Also, regarding Canadian universities, I don’t plan on applying domestically because my parents prefer me to work in the US, so it would make far more sense to just apply there and get internship/work opportunities there. Finances are also not too important a consideration for them either.

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Based on your ED choice of Brown, you may want to consider whether any of these colleges also might appeal to you, should you remain open to revising your list:

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Your chances at Brown are as good as possible but you know how unpredictable this process is.
UIowa (hopefully you also applied to Honors) is a safety.
Dartmouth is the odd one out - I would replace it with another SLAC.
Irvine is very commuter and Riverside is a really odd choice - Santa Cruz is the UC’s answer to Brown and you’d be a shoo-in for UCSB’s College of Creative Studies.
As a result, I’d switch these 3 out

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Thank you for the reply! I think I might replace Dartmouth with either Hamilton, Skidmore, or Amherst? I’m not that familiar with the specific differences between UCs beyond majors and research focuses so any additional advice would be much appreciated!

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I wouldn’t call any UC a safety, but you have more of a chance applying for comparative lit than someone applying into CS/bio/psych.

My question is why these campuses? Have you been to Riverside or Davis? Have you done any research into the social scene at Irvine? Likewise, why Iowa? Not that it is any more likely, but why not UCSD?

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Attending a US college is no guarantee that you will be able to work in the US after graduation so that isn’t a good reason to pursue an education in the US. If you are successful in gaining admission to a US school (and you are a compelling candidate - congratulations) you will most likely be required to return to your home country after graduation.

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BTW, have you visited any/all of these schools? I ask because Dartmouth is very rural compared to most of your other choices. It’s a wonderful school, but pretty remote and Hanover is a small town. Middlebury is the same. I didn’t chance you earlier because International students are notoriously hard to chance - at the Ivies, your chances are lower than the already low chance of admission. If I had to guess I’d say you get into NYU, USC and Iowa as well as UC Davis (as your school has a relationship with them).

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There are visas that allow international students to work in the US after graduation. STEM majors are allowed to work for longer than non STEM majors.

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I haven’t been able to tour any of the schools on my list aside from NYU, Brown, Yale, Middlebury, and Swathmore since I was only able to briefly visit the US this summer for pre-college programs (COVID restrictions in previous years) so, honestly, for both Iowa and my UC campuses I’ve just been going off what students from previous cohorts in my school have been saying post-admissions.

Iowa has a bit more going for me since I applied and was admitted to their writer’s workshop (couldn’t attend in the end due to my current school moving up the date for senior move-ins) and my interest in their writing program.

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The OP is planning on a comparative literature major. I know some students are able to stay for a fixed amount of time, but often there is the mistaken impression that attending college in the US is going to allow them to stay here long-term and that is often not the case.

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Congratulations on your acceptance to Iowa. It has a wonderful writing program from what I understand.

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Hamilton can make an especially good choice for creative writing. This site, for example, is among those to have recognized its programs:

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Seconding Hamilton to replace Dartmouth wrt writing program’s strength + closer in vibe to Middlebury. Skidmore and Vassar closer in vibe to Brown.

https://ccs.ucsb.edu/majors/writing-literature

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I think you have a reasonable chance at Middlebury ED2. They filled 71% of the class in the ED rounds last year, and you offer an interesting international perspective. What about adding Kenyon? Good luck!

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I agree with others that you are a very strong candidate and I would not be surprised if you are accepted to any of the universities on your list. That said, however, apart from the acceptance from U. of Iowa that you already have in-hand (congratulations!), these are all reach schools for all applicants, but especially for international ones.

This site shows the number of Bachelor’s degrees in a particular field in 2022 at U.S. colleges, and to which I’ll sometimes refer to in my comments below.
https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/jonboeckenstedt/viz/BachelorsDegreesAwardedin2022/Dashboard1

As comparative lit is your intended major, I’m surprised that you don’t have UC-Santa Cruz or UC-Santa Barbara on your list as Santa Cruz produced the most comparative lit majors in the country (almost 3x more than #2), and Santa Barbara produced the 4th most. As comparative literature is typically not a very popular major, if that’s your area of interest, making sure your major isn’t in danger of being cut is an important consideration, and these two schools wouldn’t add to your total number of applications, as far as your school is concerned.

Additionally, since you seem to like California, I would also consider swapping Occidental for one of the other schools (such as Dartmouth). You have a number of smaller liberal arts schools on your list, but they’re all in the northeast (and very much reaches). If you decide you want to be in California, it’d be good to have a liberal arts school on the list, and your odds of admission are higher here, too (so increasing the odds that you’d have at least one liberal arts college to select, should you decide that’s your preference). It was in the top 10 in terms of producing the most comparative lit majors, but it’s also strong in many of your other areas of interest, too (art, media studies, etc). And Barack Obama attended college here, too, if that makes a difference to your family.

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Kenyon is a great idea :slight_smile: ! And Occidental a great CA option.
Check out whether Iowa has “Honors within Honors” (specific programs - you’d need to dig a bit).
UBC/McGill/UT all have a great reputation in the US, so graduating from there wouldn’t impede your odds of graduate school though they wouldn’t lead to OPT. Would you like Iowa better than McGill?
Perhaps suggest to your school that they should have the same policy for SUNYs as for UCs (1 SUNY app for as many universities in the SUNY system as students wish, counts as 1).

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Are you a US citizen, or do you have a permanent resident visa to live in the US?

If so, then are you also a resident of Massachusetts?

What job do you intent to do with a degree in comparative literature?

My daughters and I have dual US / Canadian citizenship so we do have some experience with working in both countries. However, we were all STEM majors of one sort or another so comparative literature jobs are not anything that we would know about, or be able to compare in one country versus the other.

Others are entirely correct that getting a bachelor’s degree from a university in the US does not allow you to stay permanently and work in the US. In my experience, getting a bachelor’s degree from a highly ranked university in the US and getting a master’s degree from a different highly ranked university in the US does not make it easy to get a job in Canada either.

And yes, McGill is both very good for literature and very well known in the US. I would expect the same to be true for Toronto and UBC although I do not know anything about their literature programs. I did have one daughter who got her bachelor’s degree in Canada (at a small primarily undergraduate university) and who then got a job in the US. However, she was born in the US and has US citizenship and did not need to think about a visa to work here (and she was asked about this several times).

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Agree. The OPT works well for students who are on the STEM track and for companies begging for workers. The internships are valuable work experiences, but a number of those OPT’s are not sponsored after the OPT contract has been completed. The government is strict on sponsorship.

As far as I know, there hasn’t really been a lack of Humanities applicants in the US, searching for jobs.

While I was a lead supervisor, I was often approached by friends of my supervisees who had BA’s in Lit, Journalism, Art History, and other humanities-based majors, requesting job leads. It’s sad when they want to work and can’t find jobs or do find jobs that don’t provide livable wages.

A good friend of mine teaches Comparative Literature at a small university in the Midwest. Her students are always on the hunt for jobs that will lead to careers in writing. There are piecemeal tasks, but full time jobs are difficult to land.

These aren’t majors that the government considers lacking in applicants for an OPT or CPT.
Basically, when you apply to a US university, and you are accepted, that university will educate you for 4 years, but they will not guarantee to provide future employment nor training. You will be expected to return to your home country when your education is completed.

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