<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>I am currently an undergraduate at Stanford, who has done heavy research on college admissions since in High school. Below is the information I just emailed my old college counselor. Please keep in mind that the information may be biased, but they are basically the facts and practices I have come across. </p>
<li><p>THe way the admissions works, they look at citizenship. Most “asians” they accept are actually “American citizens” who happen to grow up or have lived abroad for some time of their life. The same applies to most east asians, ie. Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, and people from Hongkong. This is not to discourage international students from east asia to apply for top schools, but to give them a more realistic view. I believe there is only 1 Taiwanese citizen student in Stanford undergrad, and only one Japanese student in class of ‘12, but that student is an American citizen.</p></li>
<li><p>In admissions, they count the students’ citizenship (due to federal funding and financial aid). However, in the number of international students recorded, they count people who live abroad but are international students. By doing so, they are able to greatly increase the “proportion of internaitonal students”, increasing diversity while not giving up federal funding by accepting the same amount of foreign students. At Stanford, at least 1/3 of “international students” are American citizens. (or at least the ones I came across, which is an awful lot since I attended international orientation)</p></li>
<li><p>Yale has no Taiwanese student, not even American citizens that live in Taiwan. This is a fact from a fellow friend who grew up in Taiwan, but is an American citizen. He was deciding between Yale and Stanford, and talked to officers in both schools. </p></li>
<li><p>Ivy league and other top schools not giving out merit-based aid is a lie. Athletes get “merit” scholarships from recruiting, except it goes into their “need-based financial aid”. My friend had to negotiate with the school, that if he dropped out of the team his “need-based financial aid” will be significantly less. Also, MIT says they don’t recruit, but I happen to know a girl who got in last year in early November, because they wanted her to swim for them. I also know some friends who got scholarships from agencies that work directly with Stanford University. Those scholarships look at financial background, but is also heavily merit-based. I don’t remember the name of the agency.</p></li>
<li><p>This is from personal experience. Almost all international asian students who get in top schools are internaitonal [insert subject] olympiad gold medal winners. (especially at MIT) This is due to the education system set up in Asia, where it is very hard to do any extracurricular activities and little incentive to organize, say a community service project. Very few international students can get in by going through the “American-student route”, which is “being well-rounded, join a few clubs, hold a few leadership positions, write excellent essays, and do community service”. (Obviously, everything I say is based off the assumption that they take hard classes and ace them). That said, even for international students that are not asians (at Stanford), almost all of them go to an English-speaking secondary school (American school, British School, International School). I’m not sure about other schools. </p></li>
<li><p>Disproving myth: “Stanford favors Californian applicants”. This is because a large amount of people like to go to college at least at the same region/side of the country. Although this is politically incorrect, most of the more competitive applicants in the west coast come from CA (just like how most competitive applicants on the east coast come from NY). This is not directly due to the fact that Stanford favors Californian applicants. </p></li>
<li><p>Advice for international students: Please don’t gamble on applying for financial aid when you can pay! I did that for U Penn, and got rejected from Jerome Fisher’s Program and the School of Engineering. Not to sound arrogent, Penn School of Engineering is a very easy school compared to many other top engineering schools in the nation. As for MIT, there is a quota of 8% of internaitonal students, which translates to 3-4% acceptance rate depending of the number of applicants. So need-blind doesn’t help. The only schools that seems to treat international students equally are Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, but I have little information on them so I can’t comment further on whether they practice what they preach. </p></li>
<li><p>For the most part, affirmative action doest not accept underqualified minorities. They just reject very very qualified whites and asians. For simplicity’s sake, let’s say one has to reach 90 to be “qualified” for a college. Generally 70% of the applicants are “qualified” to do well in the school (I didn’t make this number up, this came straight from MIT’s press 2 years ago). Affirmative action takes place to accept underrepresented minorities that are 91, while rejecting a white applicant or asian that may be 98. Now, I understand this sounds harsh and a large number, but let’s imagine the number is 99.1 and 99.2. Perhaps that makes it psychologically more comfortable to absorb this information. So while affirmative action may hurt some people’s chances, they DO NOT compromise on the qualifications of underrepresented minorities, at least for the most part. A lot of hispanics and black people I came across at Stanford are very talented in their area. </p></li>
<li><p>A lot of internaitonal students that recieve scholarship money, recieve them from outside sources. For example, Malaysians and Singaporeans can apply for scholarship money to come to the US for college, and most that do come are on scholarship. I am not sure if colleges count those as “international students who recieve some sort of financial aid” on their statistics, because it is very misleading.</p></li>
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<p>I do hope you might find some of the information helpful, while keeping the balance between being idealistic about college admissions and realistic about the practices that do not match what is said on their website. For example, during Stanford’s information session at my high school, I asked the regional rep whether applying for financial aid as international student would decrease the chance. I basically cornered her with words, but she still refuse to admit it would, only said it “might be a little bit tougher”. </p>
<p>Lastly, I would like to end by a quote I stole from a friend here at Stanford, “Most politically incorrect comments are very true, except they don’t apply to every single person in that category. That’s what make them politically incorrect and people don’t like them. But they are still true for the most part, just that there are some exceptions”. The same applies for college admissions. While the practice may seem what is is, there are always exceptions, such as the 20-30 international students who recieve financial aid from Stanford’s pocket. </p>
<p>Best of luck for everyone who’s applying this year.</p>