I am an international student from Tunisia.
My family income is low(>2000$ per year). So I will need a huge amount of money.
My application will like this:
SAT I (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): 1360(600E/760M, 6/5/6 essay) ‘‘a problem’’
SAT II (subject, score):710 Math2, 770 Physics
Unweighted GPA (out of 20): 17.6(National bac exam: top 99th percent of the country)
Rank (in school): top 10 (200 students)
School rank: top 5 nationally
Honors courses: Math, physics, and biology / no APs
Senior Year Course Load: Math, physics, biology, computer science, philosophy, English, French, Germany.
Awards :
-top 5 in math competitions for the last 2 years, invited to participate in international math olympiad
-National Baccalaureate
-2 national exams to get to pioneer schools( prep school and high school)
-Regional chess championship(9th and 10th grade)
-school spirit activities 10-11-12th grade
-honors on summer language courses (11th-12th grade)
-League of legends national tournament team: finals (do u think this would work as an award ???)
-soccer competition(10th grade): semifinals
Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description):
*lab work (my lab is at home ^^): more than 1000 hours over the last 4 years: is this considered as an EC?
*math clubs(9-10-11-12th grade): leading member
*volunteer group(12th grade): co-founder: help the hospitals of our region, clean streets, raise awareness about the health…/ started 3 members–>16 members.
*internships: department of water, pharmacy in a local health center, physico-chemico lab
Job/Work Experience: supervisor in a small factory (needed the money to buy new equipment for my lab, fired after 2 months XD )
Summer Experience:
*Language summer school
*guide a group of Tourism
*volunteering(cleaning the city)
Essays:
*will talk about my passions for physics through experiment to build the time machine ( crazy but this the reason I am applying to us colleges)
Gender: male
School Type: pioneer high school
first generation student
any advice ??
(I had lived in a dorm for 4 years since I was 12 years old because of pioneer schools. Shall include that in my application?)
According to Harvard’s International Statistics Office there are 3 student’s attending Harvard College (the undergraduate school) from Tunisia. That means Harvard accepts about 1-student a year from your country. See: http://www.hio.harvard.edu/statistics
Now, Harvard doesn’t publish the number of students applying each year from countries, but if you are the only student applying this year from Tunisia, you might have a decent chance. However, if 20 or 30 students are also applying from Tunisia, then your chances are not as great. That said, your 600 English SAT score is going to tell the Admissions Office that, if admitted, you might struggle with the reading and writing work load on their campus – and that is not a positive factor in your application (sorry). Best of luck to you!
No. They “English” section of the SAT is really a critical reasoning assessment. TOEFL is just testing your English language ability. For Harvard, one does not substitute for the other. Indeed, Harvard does not even require TOEFL.
Additionally, the TOEFL is not an exam where the higher the score the better. All that matters is that you hit the threshold (usually 100). It’s like a drivers’ license; when the cop is giving you a ticket, he won’t care if you passed the driving test with a 100 or with a 70, because you’re still getting the ticket.
@gibby Worth pointing out that the statistics on that site are fairly inaccurate - I know for a fact that there are several students attending from countries on that list from where it states there are 0 students attending (I am one of them). It appears to actually have a number of inaccuracies, for example it states that only 33 students from Australia currently attend the College but in FIP I remember distinctly that there were over 25 in my class alone (some might be dual nationalities, but if there are similar numbers in classes above and below, this would still far exceed the 33 students listed).
IMO, it’s directionally accurate, or at least “close enough” for this discussion. As noted, if the student is a dual-national, where both nationalities are not US, only one nationality will be captured. If the student is dual-national, where one is US, they are not counted as an international student.
I’m just slightly confused - as I believe many college AO’s will be - you qualified for the International Math Olympiad while not getting perfect scores on both the math section of the SAT I and Math II SAT?
I struggled with the problem solving question the sat because I didn’t understand their meaning
for example I was confused: twise X as many as Y . Does it mean x=2y or 2x=y xDD
^^ You scored a 760 on the Math section of the SAT, and a 710 on the Math SAT Subject Test, so your math scores are NOT a problem.
It’s your English score of 600 that is the issue, as that score will “tip” Admissions, which does not require the TOEFL, that your English proficiency – your ability to read and comprehend English – is lacking (as demonstrated by your confusion by the wording in the Math problem above).
Your English score demonstrates to Admissions that you would struggle with the reading and writing workload on their campus. And Admissions does not want to admit a student to their college who might fail. For example: go to https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/strategies-essay-writing and click on the first entry “How to Read an Assignment” and see if you understand everything.
@1NJParent Still though, I did a little research and it seems that everyone (with one exception three years ago) in the past three years of Tunisia’s IMO team has got at least four points out of 42. IMO (no pun intended), that’s significantly harder to do than getting a 710 on Math 2 - you have to have missed about 15 problems to do so.
@ripmycollegeapp You’re absolutely right. Solving even a single problem in IMO is orders of magnitude harder than getting an 800 on SAT Math 2. However, unlike in countries like China, Russia or US where there’re lots of candidates going through rounds of preliminary competitions, some countries don’t have many candidates competing to be on their national teams. Once selected, they’d probably go to another country for training. They’re unlikely to win metals but weeks of training should pay off.
