Does an International Student Need to Be Internationally Acclaimed to Get in the Ivy League?

Student Lounge International Students
1

I have seen this common notion elsewhere that an international student must have international awards to get in. Is this really fair to say though? I have seen countless examples on this forum of students who internationally have won the Intel ISEF contest and get declined, and students with ‘average’ achievements being accepted. Is it fair for us to say that you must win internationally to get in?

I am hoping we can have a discussion on this, and here are my thoughts: International countries generally have a higher volume of applicants, those being qualified, and those that are ‘not’. The universities only have so much space, and since the volume is so much higher, the acceptance rate is lower, creating this narrative that it is harder. For some tech schools like MIT, yes, they do have a quota so that makes it harder, and some other schools are need aware when admitting. But if you look at the need blind schools like Princeton (or Harvard?) I would have to imagine that they are looking for well qualified applicants that ‘fit’. So for some years Princeton may have 13% international, some years 15%.

This of course also depends on what specific region an international student attends. From my own experience in Canada, I have known a ton of older students who were brilliant and would have had a chance in getting admitted to the ivy league, but choose to stay in Canada since we have fairly good universities (UBC,Mcgill, etc), lots of scholarships for these high achievers, and low cost of schooling. Added to the fact that the students would have to prepare for the SATS, and the acceptance rates are not great, they choose not to. As a result I would imagine (again nobody knows unless in admissions), that the acceptance rates in Canada may be drastically different, since it may be that low scoring student who does not have a chance who is the one guy who applies from a province, or they may be higher since it is that one girl who wrote the great essay. If you would have to average, I would imagine that it would be roughly the same, and I would hypothesize it would be similar in places like the United Kingdom and France.

Then on boards like this, that one high achiever who was perfectly qualified gets denied, and everybody says that it was since he was international. On results threads we see less internationals, and I have seen on these boards extremely highly qualified applicants domestically and internationally get denied so I do not think we can make a reasonable assumption through that.

Of course in other countries with higher population density, and where the country is still developing like India or China, there is a much higher volume where again their are few spots for international or domestic, so the rate would be lower.

Anyways, that is my little ramble. I hope nothing has come across as offensive, and I hope we can have a discussion. If any college counselors, or those admitted to ivy league universities have something to say, I would find that extremely interesting.

2

An int’l student who wants a realistic shot at attending a college in the US should expand his/her slate of schools beyond just ivy league schools.

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I can only speak from personal experience, but all of the international undergraduate students that I have met at Stanford were “outstanding” in an obvious way, at least once you got to know them. There were the international competition winners, the inventors, the athletes, the politically connected, the kids of wealthy donors, etc - nobody seemed like a did-well-in-class applicant who just happened to get lucky.

That said, not all highly selective universities are created equal. Some even have a reputation for admitting large numbers of international financial aid applicants - without financial aid. (And every year again there are posters on this forum who are sooo excited that they got into that one Ivy school, if only they could pay for it…)

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To your title: no, they don’t. That’s a short hand way that people on CC use to try and get across to international students just how intense the competition is. US students struggle with it, and they see it in their schools. International students- esp those who are high achievers in their home regions- have an even harder time with it.

For reference, look at the numbers for 2 schools that a lot of internationals ask about: Stanford and MIT (I know, neither are Ivy League, but they are at that level, and I had the stats handy!)

Last year Stanford had 42,167 applicants, and accepted 5%; MIT had 18356 and accepted 8%. Internationals were about 8-9% of those accepted.

Across all 4 years of undergrad there are about 588 total international students (out of ~7000) at Stanford and about 433 (out of ~4512) at MIT, drawn from about 90 countries (for Stanford the most frequent countries represented are the UK, China, Canada and South Korea).

So, when cc’ers say ‘you have to have an international prize’ or ‘you need to be one of the top few students, not just in your school or region, but your country’ they are trying to help students be realistic. If you are a huge star in your area it may be hard to realize just how big the pool of really talented students is.

Of course, like anything with enough resources, conviction and work, you can get there other was as well. For example, [url=<a href=“https://www.1843magazine.com/features/the-long-march-from-china-to-the-ivies%5Dthis%5B/url”>https://www.1843magazine.com/features/the-long-march-from-china-to-the-ivies]this[/url] article talks about the process some Chinese students go through.

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@GMTplus7,

I should revise what I originally said, I said ivy league to simplifiy, but what I meant was the top universities(Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Chicago, Duke, etc).

@b@r!um

That is interesting that you would have experienced that, I would personally have imagined there would be a mix like out of the domestic pile, but I guess you saw otherwise.

@collegemom3717

Yeah, that is what I would think. But at the end of the day, I am not sure if that does more help than it does hurt international students. I still think that it must depend on which country, and what particular school you are applying to, for example in the article it mentioned 200 people getting accepted among 40000 (0.5% admission rate!) which would definitely suck. I guess that makes it also rather significant to point out that India probably has a similar number of applicants, so these two massive countries probably effect the admission percentages, and why you see a lower international acceptance rate (same spots, more people from big countries). The other massive disadvantage I guess is learning about what standardized test to take when, how to write the essay, etc. Which can especially be hard in emerging countries where this is a luxury, and for the wealthy.

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“I can only speak from personal experience, but all of the international undergraduate students that I have met at Stanford were “outstanding” in an obvious way, at least once you got to know them.”

I’d say the same for the student I know at MIT but not just the internationals students…all the students I’ve met there. I would not say that of all the students at the school another kid went to but that was true for both international and US residents at MIT. I would think that so for Stanford too but don’t know.

7

No, but he/she must be very accomplished.

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@lostaccount

That is what I meant to say. I do not doubt that there are unique and outstanding but I would guess at the same level as domestic students.

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Yeah, the MIT students pretty much blow me away with their achievements and also with being down to earth and just nice-no pretense-but that is true of both international and US residents. Maybe it would be less true for schools where there are legacy and other types of students who get in on the basis of things besides their own achievements but given even the US competition, the domestic students are amazingly accomplished as are the internationals.