Chances for Chicago, Northwestern, Stanford, UPenn, Cornell, Berkely.

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I am looking at Chicago, Northwestern, Stanford, UPenn, Cornell and UC Berkely in specific. I recognize that I have no real safety schools and it would be helpful if you guys could suggest good universities with strong economics programs which fit my stats. </p>

<p>Gender: Male
Ethnicity: Asian (Indian)
Type: International Student</p>

<p>Predicted grades for IB:</p>

<p>HL Economics 7
HL Business Management 7
HL Math 6</p>

<p>SL English 5
SL French Ab. Initio 7
SL Chemistry 7
Bonus Points: 2/3
IB Total: 41/45</p>

<p>Not sure how the IB grades translate into GPA. School doesn't rank us, but I know I am in the top 5%.
Taking the highest course load possible.
Standardized Testing:</p>

<p>SAT I - Math 720, CR 670, Writing 620. Total: 2010 (1390)</p>

<p>Retake in November or worst case December.</p>

<p>SAT IIs taking Chemistry & Math II in October, aiming 800 at Math II and 700+ Chemistry.</p>

<p>Academic Awards:</p>

<p>-UK Senior Math Challenge Silver Medallist: Top 10% of the world.
-Kumon Math Program - Gold Medallist 4 years consecutive and member of the Advanced Student Honor Roll.
-Winner of the Principal's Award at school for achieveing Academic merits in 7 out of 8 subjects.
-Academic Excellence Award winner - 9th and 10th grade.</p>

<p>Extra-Curriculars:</p>

<p>-Model United Nations - 4 years.
Positions held: Assistant President - Special Conference Sub Committee 2, Chair - Security Council, Chair - General Assembly 1, Deputy Chair - General Assembly 6. Organized a conference with a team of 3 others for middle school kids: Coordinated it ourselves.
Awards won: "Best Delegate Award" won 3 times in 5 conferences.</p>

<p>-Debating Team - 4 years.
Captain for the past year, won "best speaker" award 7 times during the year.</p>

<p>-Student Council - 1 year.
Position held: Chief Treasurer and Leader of Fundraising Committee. Organized school prom and winter dance; Completed the budgeting for the entire council as well as balancing the accounts.</p>

<p>-Cricket - 8 years.
Vice-Captain of team for the past 4 years. Recently won "Most Improved Player" and nominated "best bowler" for the calender year having taken most wickets for the team.
Used to be a member of the country's national cricket team before starting IB (way too hectic).</p>

<p>-Mathematics Peer Tutor - 2 years.
Position Held: Senior Tutor; Helped other high school kids with math problems during lunchtime and after school on a voluntary basis</p>

<p>-UN Day: Indian Folk Dance Performer.
Never learnt dancing in my life, Spent the past 4 months training every weekend to perfect the steps.</p>

<p>-Weight Training Club - 1 year.
Woke up every morning at 6 and went to school at 6.30 to train, weight lifting - rigorous exercise.</p>

<p>-Frisbee Club - 1 year.
This was more of a fun thing, rather than being professional. Learnt a few new frisbee tricks and the art of playing ultimate frisbee.</p>

<p>Community Service:</p>

<p>-Institute of Mental Health - 2 years.
Position Held: Volunteer Leader; Coordinated activities and organized groups to volunteer at the institute of mental health; Organized fun badminton games with the patients and befriended them over the 2 years.</p>

<p>-PE Service Group - 1 year.</p>

<p>Work Experience/Internships:</p>

<p>-Interned 2 weeks at a consultancy firm in India which involved maintaining and auditing financial records of client firms.</p>

<p>-Will be interning this December at a micro finance bank in India to learn more about development economics and self-financing. As a part of the internship, I will be visiting many villages with an experienced economist to monitor the income situation of the poor and the status of poverty-alleviating mechanisms in these rural areas.</p>

<p>I am looking at applying RD without any financial aid for all except Chicago EA. </p>

<p>Intended Major: Economics.</p>

2

<p>With low SAT scores all of the scores on your list are reaches. Try looking at some small liberal arts schools.</p>

3

<p>Tbh I think you’d stand a better chance into the likes of Oxbridge and other British universities :)</p>

4

<p>It isn’t all about scores, plus you’re international, so there is a unquantifiable leniency that is awarded to your standardized test scores.</p>

<p>As long as you have honest and opinionated essays, I’m sure you will get into your first choice - UofChicago - because that’s where their primary interest lies.</p>

<p>However, for the UCBerkeley, you may have to pick up your scores. UCalifornia schools are very number-orientated.</p>

5

<p>Berkeley - reach</p>

<p>If you can, however, improve your SATII to 800, Berkeley would become low reach.</p>

<p>And I agree with Jess15. You have better chances at top UK unis (Cambridge, Oxford, LSE, Warwick, UCL) than at top American schools (HYPSM, Ivies, Berkeley, Chicago).</p>

6

<p>Your IB scores are alright for these colleges, but your SAT scores are on the low-end, and being an international doesn’t help, unlike what AudreyH said. I got 2260 and four perfect scores in SATII and was still rejected by three out of three colleges in your list. If anything, there are higher standards for internationals, especially “overrepresented” minorities - Indians and Chinese. Your awards and ECs are fine, but they won’t help your case much.</p>

<p>You need to add a few matches as well as safeties. Here are a few colleges I can think of that have good economics programs:</p>

<p>New York University
University of Rochester
Duke University
Carnegie Mellon University
Washington University in St. Louis</p>

<p>I’d advise you not to try Berkeley or any other public schools. They’re very numbers-focused, and being an international from Asia will certainly not help your case. </p>

<p>And finally, as other posters have mentioned, consider UK universities, many of which have excellent economics programs (LSE, Oxford, Cambridge in particular).</p>

7

<p>Your stats look good, but some of those ECs are not appropriate for a common app. The dancing thing, for example, because you’ve been doing it for only 4 months. I understand that weight lifting is rigorous, I lift weights too, but please don’t put it on your app. For Ivy league schools, it just looks silly. Same for frisbee club. And anything that you’ve only been doing for a year. That pluss the fact that you are ORM,international,and low test scores, you probably have no chance at these schools. I agree with eak325, smaller liberal arts colleges would be a better fit. Good luck.</p>

8

<p>Herunar, </p>

<p>The admit rate for international applicants at Berkeley about 10 year ago was only 6%. (I was rejected at Berkeley but admitted at a lot of Ivies and Duke, Mudd, Chicago, Bowdoin and Rice.) A couple of years ago, the admit rate at Berkeley for international applicants has increased to 10%. This year, it has increased more than twice as last year’s. It’s now 22%. So the chances of getting into Berkeley is higher now compared to a couple of years ago. If the OP can increase his SATII to 800, his chances at Berkeley improves drastically. He also needs to write a good essay because Berkeley reads essays at least twice. </p>

<p>International Students <a href=“http://students.berkeley.edu/admissions/freshmen.asp[/url]”>http://students.berkeley.edu/admissions/freshmen.asp&lt;/a&gt;
Applicants - 4,750
Admitted - 1,044
(% Admitted) - 22%
Enrolled - 524</p>

9

<p>Thanks for the opinions! Funny enough, I am applying to UK - (Oxford, LSE, UCL, Warwick, Nottingham) but since the offers are conditional, I would like to have some good unis to fall back on. </p>

<p>I guess all I can do right now is work on the SAT IIs, the SAT and my college essays. Hernunar thanks for the list of unis. </p>

<p>Davidoga, I will keep that in mind and remove those activities from my CommonApp.</p>

10

<p>From what i understand, you’d have to enroll into a US university in spring of your senior year, before receiving your IB scores. So you’ll have to make the decision whether or not to go to US b4 knowing your final IB scores. Of course you can always use your predicted IB scores to gauge the risk.</p>

11

<p>SAT score is pretty low for some of those schools, everything else looks fine</p>