Chance Me!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi! I’m a rising senior looking to apply to 5 Ivies, UChicago, Duke, Yale-NUS and a couple of match schools in USC and Vandy. Safeties would be UNSW, UTokyo and Duke-Kunshan.

Context

  • International student (Malaysia)
  • Asian male
  • Competitive private school
  • Applying for need-based financial aid.

Fields of Interest

  • PoliSci
  • Creative Writing
  • Economics
  • Philosophy
  • Probably gonna apply undecided, as I’m not too sure which major I’d like to commit to.

Standardised Testing

  • 1550 SAT
  • Taking IELTS in November, expecting an 8.5-9 as I did C1 Advanced previously and got a grade A (equivalent to IELTS 8.5)
  • 10 A*s in IGCSE / 10 subjects taken

GPA and Rank

  • No GPAs, as we’re only issued letter grades, but I’ve consistently gotten a mix of As and As throughout my high school years, with 1 B in my sophomore year.
  • My school doesn’t do class rankings either.
  • Predicted 4As for A-Levels

Courses

  • Currently taking A-Level Math, Chem, Eng Lit and Econs.

Awards

  • 1st place for a Commonwealth Short Story Competition organised by the British Council
  • Did ICAS (basically an academic subject-based competition) organised by UNSW Australia and won gold 10 times in Writing/Comprehension/both over a span of 7 years
  • Royal Commonwealth Society Essay Competition 1 gold, 3 silvers and a bronze over 5 years
  • 2 time published author in a national newspaper
  • Participated in a 1-year journalist programme for said newspaper
  • Finalist for a FedEx International Trade Challenge with a service proposal suggesting ways to combat vitamin A deficiency in 13 million Bangladeshi women
  • Winner for UNESCO Bangkok / UTokyo essay competition
  • World Scholars Cup Globals (international academic decathlon) top 8th out of 800 teams
  • World Scholars Cup Regionals 1st overall Champion team, 4th overall Champion scholar

ECs

  • Head Curator for a university TEDx club
  • Year Rep and member of student government for 3 years
  • School U16 Basketball Team
  • School U16 Volleyball Team
  • ABRSM Grade 7 piano
  • (Note: the ECs offered in my secondary school were limited, and in college I couldn’t join other clubs because of the pandemic)

LORs

  • Hopefully decent, I have 2 teachers who know me well and are familiar with my personality/academics writing them
  • TEDx Club President LOR should be good as well

Essays

  • I have a solid idea of what I’m going to write about, should be fine!

I’m applying REA to Harvard.

I’d appreciate it if you guys could chance me for Ivies and my match schools (even though my matches have sent letters expressing interest, they’re pretty competitive and I’m not sure how I’d fare compared to a typical applicant to those schools).

2

USC (assuming Cal and not Carolina) and Vanderbilt are both reaches.

As an international student needing aid the odds are very low.

3

For Ivies, UChicago, and Yale, I think that you are pretty close to the typical international applicant. Your chances are probably not all that much better than the acceptance rate for international students. Yes, this does mean that you are an exceptional student. I am confident that you will do well wherever you end up.

If you are recruited for sports that would be different (I am assuming this is not the case).

If you get to attend one of these schools, you will most likely be invited to some form of welcome event for international students. If so then you should attend. You will meet some very impressive people from all around the world. Many of them will also be very interesting and very pleasant to talk to.

4

Have you thought of universities in the UK?

5

I have! I’ll be applying to Oxford and a few other unis in the UK for PPE as well.