Colleges list for international student

College Search & Selection
1

Hi again! I posted in this forum a month or so ago, but I’m back because I have some updated stats and a more finalised college list.

College list:

  • BU
  • Columbia
  • Cornell (AAP, URS)
  • NYU
  • UMich
  • WUSTL

To go over my stats again:

  • Asian (ASEAN, of Chinese heritage)
  • Female
  • Full-pay international

Scores:

  • SAT first and only sitting: 1510 (780R&W 730M) 7-7-7 (21) essay
  • IELTS: 9.0 overall (English is my first language…)
  • British 11th grade national exams: AAAA (achieved AS levels, A is the highest grade)
  • 12th grade: AAAAa* (predicted A levels, A* is the highest grade)

ECs (copy and pasted from previous thread):

  • Consistent passion in helping disadvantaged kids from low-income backgrounds (4 years of work such as volunteering to give tuition, organising and performing in charity concerts to raise funds for needy schools, etc)
  • Government internship in education planning division, helped make policy improvements to ensure low-income children do not fall through the gaps in the system
  • Was selected for a public policy discussion class (pretty selective, about 25 students in a class of ~1200) and was also selected for national leadership conferences on governance and public policy
  • Professionally exhibited work at a national arts festival as a photographer, documented stories of elderly people and their life experiences. Besides that I’m generally just really interested in talking to people and getting to know their stories so I set up two different ‘Humans of NY’-styled photography projects in my school too
  • Editor of school magazine, again about connecting with people, understanding the people that make up my school community and sharing their experiences
  • 5 years in Odyssey of the Mind (creative problem-solving & drama competition), was team leader in 10th grade. Won 2nd at National finals thrice and was ranked within the top 7 in the world twice. This is an American competition btw, so we travelled to America for the world finals. Volunteered as a national judge in 11th grade after graduating from the programme.
  • 8 years in the school choir, probably not so important but we won international competitions and have toured Europe before.
  • Dissertation on human rights (the death penalty in my home country)
  • 3 weeks internship in a top national law firm

As you can probably tell from my ECs, my interests lie in understanding the people that make up our community (especially urban areas as I’m from a big city) in order to figure out ways to best help them and how cities work. Not 100% decided yet but I’m intending on majoring in a Social Science, possibly Political Science/Public Policy or Urban Studies - something along those lines :slight_smile:

Considering I’ve already been accepted to a few decent UK unis (but none that I’m exceptionally keen on so far), what do you guys think of my list? Is it okay considering my stats and ECs? And most importantly, can I afford to narrow it down? Apologies for asking so many questions but my school college counselling office had already closed for the holidays when my SAT score came out :frowning: I know that writing good essays are really the main point of a good application but I was just wondering whether I’m going in the right direction with this college list, especially with the deadlines looming.

Any advice at all would be much appreciated and thanks in advance!

2

Overall, you have good stat and strong ECs. It is a viable college list. I think 6 US schools are fine given that you have already been admitted to a few UK schools. But if I were you, I would also look into a few liberal arts colleges such as Middlebury, Wellesley, Amherst, or even Williams, and expand the list to say 7 or 8. Once you are admitted to one or a few of them, you should attend their admitted student day and decide which one you like the most. LACs are often overlooked by international Chinese students.

Williams is probably the most competitive one among them. For people living in New England, many view Williams and Dartmouth as peer schools; that is, many like Williams more and probably equally many like Dartmouth more. Wellesley has a big name in Chinese community for a century (because of Madam Chiang) and has a high % of Chinese students. Middlebury is another high quality school that is particularly strong in foreign language, including Chinese. They all have a nice campus and a safe community.