Chance Me - Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Stanford, Berkeley, Wharton ect.

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Applying to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Stanford, Berkeley, Brown, Wharton UPENN, Cornell and MIT (possibly). I’m an international student (as you can see from my username). Please don’t just tell me the immense difficulty of getting accepted as an international student and the low statistics from my country (I know!) Just want an honest opinion.

ACT: 34C
SAT II: 800 Maths II, 780 German, Chemistry 790
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): Don’t have GPA in Oz. Receive 7/8 A’s - A’s more difficult to achieve here as subjects are generally harder.
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): Not disclosed, guessing top 5% out of the 300 cohort.
AP (place score in parenthesis): All self-studied, first started taking APs in Year 11, started studying in Year 10. Taken Macroeconomics [5], Microeconomics [5], World History [5], Calculus AB [5], Calculus BC [5], Pyschology [5], Statistics [5]
Senior Year Course Load: Did the very hardest subjects, all are ATAR. Specialist Math incl. methods. English Stage 3, Human Biology, Chemistry, Economics (we have a limit of six, which we carry on with throughout year 11 and 12.)
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): Not that major. Didn’t receive any awards in Year 9 or 10. These are my final awards.

  • United Nations Voice Competition - 1st Place State Winner
  • My First Speech Australian Parliament Competition - 1st Place National Winner
  • CPA Business Plan Competition - 1st Place National Winner
  • Time Magazines ‘Time 100’ Most Influential Teenagers of 2015 (Hasn’t been released but editor contacted me to tell me also not sure if I should put this under awards)
  • Spotify Young Entrepreneur Finalist
  • Participated in Y Incubator. Got $120k funding or my startup. Lived in Silicon Valley for three months.
  • Gave local Ted X talk.
  • Yale Young Scholars Program
    Some smaller entrepreneur awards and mentions in Business Insider, Entrepreneur ect.

Extracurriculars: Pretty standard and basic.
Local council youth network: Attended fourtnightly meetings. Organised activities within the community.
Mock trials - From Year 10 - 12.
Debating - Year 8 - 12.
Tennis - Year 9 - 11.
Peer tutoring - Fourtnightly, 1hr sessions.
Gifted and Talented Art - Year 8 - 10. Saturday morning workshops - compulsory.
Working on my business if that’s considered extra curricular.
UNICEF Ambassador. Travelled around Australia and advocated for girls rights. Helped with marketing.

Job/Work Experience: Never got a job. Co-founded a gaming startup (I’m the non-tech co-founder). Startup has over 1 million members and brings in $8 million annual revenue.
Volunteer/Community service: Peer tutoring, local youth network events sometimes. UNICEF work because I’m an ambassador. Probably around 200 hours total.

Summer Activities: Working on startup, studying for ACT, Y Incubator program, self-studying German

School Type: Public
Ethnicity: Eurasian
Gender: F
FA: No. Family hasn’t got much money, but personally from my company I have enough.
Intended Major: Economics

2

Welcome to College Confidential! I’m sure you are a wonderful applicant. Your ACT and SAT Subject Test scores are within all those college’s range, but so are the vast majority of the student’s who are rejected. Therefore, your acceptance or rejection is going to be determined by the content of your essays, guidance counselor’s Secondary School Report, teacher recommendations and alumni interview report – and we are not the people reading those. So, no one here can chance you!

As you are new here, please read this blog from an MIT Admissions Director. Everything in it pertains to all the schools on your list: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/939227-reminder-no-one-not-even-me-can-give-you-an-accurate-chance-at-mit-p1.html

The next thing I would do is to read this: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/1420290-chance-threads-please-read-before-posting-one-p1.html. Best of luck to you in the Admissions process!

3

I agree with everything Gibby said, but would like to add that coming from a family which “hasn’t got much money,” but being able to self-fund your education is likely to be noticed. Good for you!

Another thing: while the Yale summer program is portrayed as non-evaluative and perhaps the students who attend are self-selecting, DS (who attended the program and is currently a Yale freshman) finds that a good number of his YYGS cohort are at Yale now.

I’m sure that you’ll end up at a great school that fits you. Good luck.

4

Several things:

  1. ALL of the Ivies and Stanford are a reach for anyone, even for you.

  2. I assume that you can afford full price based on your gaming income, so that’s a MAJOR plus, especially as an international applicant.

  3. Being an entrepreneur is also a MAJOR advantage to you. These colleges will see you as a potential big donator later, and that is a HUGE plus in your favor.

  4. Your test scores are strong, your AP test scores are crazy good, your class ranking is good, and your ECs are outstanding. If ANYONE could be considered a Match at those big time schools, it would be you. Still though, all the Ivies and Stanford are a reach (though I do believe you will be accepted to at least one of them).

  5. Why not also apply to Dartmouth and just apply to all 8 Ivy League schools?

  6. You should pick at least one safety school.

  7. You are the strongest candidate I have ever seen post here asking to chance them.

Good luck! And, maybe I’m not the first, but at least let me continue this…I hope you choose to use that ultimately incredible wealth of yours to make the world a better place in some way.

5

Looks good. You should skip the undergrad and just go to the MBA program. Ok just kidding but a good fit for Ivies, I think.

6

I mentioned this in another thread, but you are a crazy strong candidate at any of those schools. The Ivies and Stanford are always a reach for anyone, but you will get into at least one of them. I don’t see why any of them wouldn’t take you…your scores are great, you can pay full price, you have a successful company which screams “BIG DONATIONS” later on. I have yet to see a stronger candidate ask to be chanced for the Ivies here.

7

You’re obviously intelligent, and you have fantastic experience. Definitely categorize all your work for the UN and for your company as extracurriculars. Make an emphasis on how you went beyond just your own community and also that you taught yourself German and got 5’s on all your APs having never taken the classes. I would bet you are going to not only get into most of those schools but also receive likely letters. Cheers!

8

You have great stats and ECs. Assuming you do not have any hidden “skeletons in the closet”, I guess you will get into at least a few of your choices, such as UCB, UPenn Wharton, Columbia. As for HYPS, well sometimes they like entrepreneurs, sometimes not, so who knows? Let us know what happens. Good luck.

9

speechless.

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Is this a joke?? Like are you a real person is this application real are these real things that were accomplished by a real human being??? Why are you bothering to go to school, what’s the point? This entire thread seems borderline sarcastic. Given these achievements i think you already know if you’ll get in. You seem to already have national, borderline international, recognition and you’re a co-owner of a multi-million dollar company. Like sure, you’ll get into these schools, but whats the point of wasting 65k a year? Seems so pointless and to no avail. What could they offer you that you havent/cant done/do for yourself? Good for you, you should be proud of your accomplishments, but also take a step back and realize you will likely have better opportunities somewhere other than the collegiate environment.

11

also no need to create 3 threads within 8 hours all saying the exact same thing. Comments on a pre-existing thread “bump” the thread back to the front page of its respective forum.

12

Thank you all for your advice and opinion - I really didn’t expect it. The reason I posted this was because I was on an Official Harvard Decision Thread 2018 and there was a person with similar stats - high gpa, 33 ACT, 800 Math II and 760 on Physics, 5s on all 8 APs, participated in Y Incubtor like me and got $120k funding for his biotech company, top 5 iPhone app developer, lots of national prestigious awards (Siemens Semis, Intel Semis, Intel ISEF), publish author and researcher, interned at Cisco and Facebook and didn’t need financial aid. Yet we was rejected to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, UPENN, Dartmouth, Columbia, Brown, Duke, Pomona, USC, CMU, Northwestern, Rice, UC Berkeley, UCLA and waitlisted at MIT, UIUC and Cornell. One would have thought he would be an instant shoo in.

@giraffeinatree I mainly want to attend college in the US because it is so different to in Australia. In Australia, I can’t even say we have college life or college experience.

I’m one of the UNICEF Youth Ambassadors, it’s a non-renewable thing which lasts for one year - I was ambassador throughout Year 10.

@stepay I am actually worried about my extra curriculars. Apart from UNICEF Youth Ambassador and working on my company their isn’t anything extraordinary. My team never won debates or mocktrials, I merely did tennis lessons - no pennants or tournaments, level is basic, I only did peer tutoring for one hour every fornight because the youth council was every fortnight. With the youth council all we did was organise activities within the community - in my opinion that’s nothing special. And I got into my school for GATE art, so Saturday morning workshops were compulsory until I graduated from it in Year 10.

Also, I’m concerned about the recommendation letters as my teachers haven’t really got much experience with writing these letters to US colleges. Also, do I have to tell my teachers what schools I’m applying to? Because when I tell people I’m applying to Harvard, Stanford ect. they look at me with incredulity. Additionally I don’t want to burden my teachers if they have to self-submit the recommendation letters individually to all the schools I’m applying to.

13

I have to strongly disagree with @gibby about something. While none of us sit on the admissions committee, I don’t agree that the conclusion is, therefore, that “none of us can chance you.”

I’m a Harvard alum who’s been interviewing applicants for 18 years— perhaps about 80-100 students at this point. I’ve seen a lot of really great students, most of whom get rejected. However, I’ve also seen which students I’ve interviewed who got accepted or waitlisted. Obviously, I also have had the chance to know and observe many Harvard students directly (having been a student there), and have many lifelong friends from my Harvard class. I think I have a pretty reasonable feeling about things at this point. In fact, I’m pretty sure of it.

I’ll try to make this as brief as possible.

I’m fairly certain that you’ll get in to every place you apply, even given your foreign student status. In fact, I’d be surprised if you didn’t get in everywhere. (I know, that sounds like I might be blowing smoke, but I have very good reasons for saying this.)

People often ask: “What is Harvard looking for?” Here is my own personal opinion, given all I’ve seen and experienced: “Harvard is looking for intelligent, dynamic individuals who have the potential to make a positive, lasting change in the world. Oh, and who aren’t jerks or psychopaths.”

I recently read this quote from Bill Fitzsimmons, Harvard admissions director, which kind of confirms what I’d already witnessed.:

Admissions officers are: “…trying to answer the unanswerable, and that is, will this person really make a positive difference in the world 25, 50 years later…”

How to find people like this?

From what I’ve seen, there are two basic types of admits: Those who have done spectacularly well in their high school experience, and those who have done spectacularly well in their high school experience but who have also ALREADY “made a positive difference in the world.” (The REAL world, I mean. The world “out there,” not high school.)

For the first type of admit, it is harder to make a legit analysis, I’ve found. There are a lot of really good students who’ve done really well in high school. Rec letters and essays and so on, and family circumstances, will have more weight there. For the second group, it’s a lot easier to analyze. You’re in that second group.

I mean, think about it: What’s the easiest way to find people who will make “a positive difference in the world 25 years from now”? Find those who have done that ALREADY!

(Now, before anyone gets discouraged, there are bunches and bunches of students who haven’t done this sort of thing and still get admitted.)

Yes, there is a basic academic hurdle. You have not only crossed that, but surpassed it. What is most impressive is that you scored perfect 5 on 7 AP exams entirely through self-study. That’s mighty impressive, and not “normal” even in the Harvard applicant pool. That’s great, and necessary, and impressive, but not why I think you’ll get accepted.

It’s your Y Incubator experience, and co-founding a multimillion-dollar company.

It is extremely rare for ANYONE to have started and grown a company from $120,000 in seed money to a company with revenue in the $8 million range— much less a HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT! That borders on the unbelievable— but guess what, it’s true. (Hell, even if your company had failed, just getting that seed money would have probably been enough…)

Hey, maybe your company grows to become the next Facebook. Or maybe you found another company out of your Harvard dorm room… and that becomes the next Facebook.

Point is, Harvard would love a person like you. You’ve ALREADY done what people DREAM about doing, and done it successfully.

Assuming you aren’t a raving psychopath…

Admissions game: over.

You also have several other very impressive accomplishments (some mean more than others.) Here are the others:

My First Speech Australian Parliament Competition - 1st Place National Winner
Spotify Young Entrepreneur Finalist
Yale Young Scholars Program
Time Magazines ‘Time 100’ Most Influential Teenagers of 2015

Even without your company, I would have predicted you’d be accepted. With your company, it is really a no-brainer.

I hope that this was helpful.

PS I hope you informed the admissions committees of the Time Magazine thing.

14

I don’t think I would be a shoo in because there was a person with similar stats - high gpa, 33 ACT, 800 Math II and 760 on Physics, 5s on all 8 APs, participated in Y Incubtor like me and got $120k funding for his biotech company, top 5 iPhone app developer, lots of national prestigious awards (Siemens Semis, Intel Semis, Intel ISEF), publish author and researcher, interned at Cisco and Facebook and didn’t need financial aid. Yet we was rejected to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, UPENN, Dartmouth, Columbia, Brown, Duke, Pomona, USC, CMU, Northwestern, Rice, UC Berkeley, UCLA and waitlisted at MIT, UIUC and Cornell. One would have thought he would be an instant shoo in.

Also the UNCIEF Ambasador thing was only for one year - non-renewable. I am actually worried about my extra curriculars. Apart from UNICEF Youth Ambassador and working on my company their isn’t anything extraordinary. My team never won debates or mocktrials, I merely did tennis lessons - no pennants or tournaments, level is basic, I only did peer tutoring for one hour every fornight because the youth council was every fortnight. With the youth council all we did was organise activities within the community - in my opinion that’s nothing special. And I got into my school for GATE art, so Saturday morning workshops were compulsory until I graduated from it in Year 10.

And the awards apart from the Spotify and Time Magazines aren’t that prestigious. The parliament competition is an online video competition and the Untied Nations voice competition is a competition held in each state in Australia.

Also, I’m concerned about the recommendation letters as my teachers haven’t really got much experience with writing these letters to US colleges. Also, do I have to tell my teachers what schools I’m applying to? Because when I tell people I’m applying to Harvard, Stanford ect. they look at me with incredulity. Additionally I don’t want to burden my teachers if they have to self-submit the recommendation letters individually to all the schools I’m applying to.

15

Your teachers should absolutely know the caliber of colleges you are applying to, and what those schools are looking for in terms of teacher recommendations. Many of Harvard’s feeder schools have teacher training sessions about writing letters of recommendations that are taught by Admissions Officers themselves. MIT has some advice on their website that you SHOULD share with your teachers: http://mitadmissions.org/apply/prepare/writingrecs

FWIW: Teachers submit ONE letter of recommendation through the Common Application that go to all of your colleges, so they should know the caliber of schools that your applying to, but are specifically asked NOT to address why one school would be a good fit for an applicant. You should go through the help section on the Common App Teacher recommendations and understand what you and your teachers need to do: https://appsupport.commonapp.org/link/portal/33011/33013/ArticleFolder/26/Recommenders

16

Wow I really hope my Daughter gets in to Harvard on Tuesday. Sounds like a blast. Good luck @aussie101, remember you can do great things with a degree from anywhere, even Yale or Brown.

17

@ormdad: Good luck to your daughter on Tuesday. My daughter was accepted to Harvard, but didn’t have the luxury of choices between Yale and Brown, although she did get into some other great schools like Northwestern, Wesleyan, Georgetown etc. As Harvard provided the best financial aid out of all of her options, Harvard became the best financial choice for our family. If your daughter is blessed with an abundance of choices, I would encourage her to attend the invited student weekends with an open mind and read some of the articles in the Crimson, including this one: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/9/1/pledge-freshmen-students-harvard/

18

@aussie101 I don’t know what to say about the person you mentioned who had better everything than you did and yet got rejected everywhere. I’m not saying you’re not telling me the truth of what you know, but I suspect you don’t know everything. Because, as you said, from what you told me I would have expected he would have been admitted as well.

The fact that he got rejected from 16 top places— even a middle tier top, like USC— is mighty suspicious to me… as are is his waitlist list. Waitlisted at UIUC? With that resume you listed for him? Highly suspicious if everything you said is true.

I think there was probably more going on there than you are aware of.

This is where the second part of the equation comes in: “not being a jerk or psychopath.” In this regard, I have seen students who have everything on paper be rejected because they were not very nice people. Some of that may have come out in his letters of rec from teachers, or his personal statement. He could have made some egregious comment in his essay, or a teacher may have totally slammed him for being arrogant. Lots of things.

Forgetting him, I agree with everything @gibby said about your application, especially about making sure your teachers know how to write a good letter to a US college. This is KEY. You need someone to say something to the effect that you’re one of the best students they’ve had in 20 years of teaching.

The US application process-- and expectation of teacher letters— is much different than AUS or Europe. Find teachers who know you well and with whom you can have a very frank discussion about this. Make it very clear to them what your goals are about attending a top US university. If they roll their eyes or are the slightest bit unsupportive, try to find someone else! You need someone who can be 100% in your corner… if possible. You need someone who can work with you and who is willing to learn how to write a good “US colleges” letter.

I might also consider getting a rec letter from someone from the incubator, the Yale program, or UNICEF-- as a supplemental letter. You can always have them submit a letter directly to the admissions office, bypassing the Common App.

19

Let me me a little more clear about the discussion here about letters of rec and essays and so on.

If you are a great student, one of the middle 50% that can do the work at Harvard, I think great letters and essays matter very much. They are used to try to figure out who is “better” among very good applicants. That is, they are used positively, to try to figure out who to let in. However, if…

you’re one of the top 5 or 10% of applicants, my experience is that letters and recs serve one real purpose: to look out for red flags as to why NOT to let this person in. If the letters are all pretty good and your essay is pretty good— not great, but pretty good— with a resume like the one you listed, you probably will get in. But if someone says something concerning, you’re done…

20

I should think your teachers would be clamoring at the opportunity to write letters of recommendation for this special thing you’d like to do. Teachers are like that when they have a good student.