Chance me for Boarding Schools/ International Applicant

Prep School Admissions Prep School Chances
1

Hello everyone! I’m a Kurdish applicant from Turkey, applying for top boarding schools in the USA. Milton, Exeter, Andover, Groton, Berkshire, Choate, Deerfield, and Suffield. I’ve been so stressed lately, after seeing amazing applicants with great backgrounds on here. I will write down what I have on here, and please rate my chances!

  • I’m in 11th grade, and applying for 11th grade.

  • My grades are really good, we didn’t have exams because of covid this year. However my overall grade from last year is 96 out of 100 in our grading system. It equals to straight A’s I think.

  • I couldn’t take SSAT, but I’m taking The Duolingo English Test this week. I believe I’ll get a pretty high score.

  • I think my recommendations will be good since I have a strong connection with my teachers and they really love me.

  • Since English is not my first language, I’ve had struggles in writing essays. But I’m still improving. I’d say my essays are alright but not great. Yet I believe I have a few outstanding essays due to their topics.

  • I know Turkish, Kurdish, English and basic German.

  • Here we don’t really have many extracurriculars offered. But,
    I’m the president of the student government, have an active role in theatre club for almost 2 years, and I play a national instruement called Darbuka. I used to play violin a couple years ago. I started a club where we organize events at school to spread awareness about world issues.

  • I was volunteerly teaching English to students who are going to primary school during summer.

  • I do very well in Math and physics. I want to become pilot someday. Politics and world history are a few of my passions, and had a great conversation about them with a few of the admission officers during interviews.

  • All of my interviews went very well, and I stayed in touch with the most of admission officers. My best interviews were Exeter, Groton, Suffield, and specially Deerfield.

2

Well, based on this post, your English seems fluent enough! Your extracurriculars are fine considering that they display some leadership skills (initiative is important for the schools you are applying to). Your interviews will give you a nice boost and will show off your academic ardor (which is another important quality). As long as you displayed your passion and personality (write like you talk) in your essays, then you’ll be fine! It would also be helpful to have a few backup schools.

You seem like a very strong candidate! But this is coming from an applicant applying for 9th grade so don’t rely on my advice. You seem like a better applicant than me though, so good luck! (Long story short, my interviews stunk)

3

Thank you so much! Don’t feel bad because of interviews tho, I believe you can make it up. Good luck:)

4

How long have you played the Darbuka? Putting something like that you “used to do” is not a good idea (looks like you’re trying to pad your application). Your community service is very good though!

11th graders are very rarely accepted, good luck!

5

Thanks for your response! I didn’t put the violin part to the application anyways, it just came to my mind while I was writing the thread. I’ve been playing darbuka for nearly 6 years!