Getting into Stanford

<p>I have posted this at Stanford forum but received no reply. So be low is my posting.</p>

<p>My son is a grade 10 international student at one of the boarding schools in MA, U.S.A. Stanford is his top choice for engineering in the future. Below are my questions.</p>

<p>-Would an international student studying in the U.S. have an advantage or disadvantage, compared to his friends studying in their home country when he applies to Stanford or Ivy Leagues schools, in terms of seat allocation?
-One of my friends plans to send his grade 10 daughter who is studying in local school to a summer course at Stanford. Would this help improve the chance in the future? Anyone of you guys did summer courses at Stanford or any top schools to add into your portfolio?</p>

<p>Thanks for your answers.</p>

<p>richbrite</p>

<p>I don’t think American boarding school vs school in home country makes a difference per se because he will be an international applicant either way. However, if it is a very selective boarding school and your son does well, it certainly won’t go unnoticed by colleges. The resources available to him might also help him develop a better application: for example, he might have access to activities and competitions that would have not been an option at home, and his teachers will know how to write an excellent letter of recommendation.</p>

<p>I think being local to Stanford will help your friend’s daughter (most colleges, even Ivies, seem to give an edge to local students) and taking summer classes will help her because she will be a lot more advanced than the typical high school student her age. Taking a summer class at Stanford vs another college? Not so much…</p>

<p>The US boarding schools complicate things for applicants to top colleges. First, they are filled with qualified legacies who will get first dibs at top colleges. Second, they have many highly qualified URM candidates not to mention recruited athletes.</p>

<p>So for an international, who already has it harder, if they have no hook, getting into an ivy will be very tough unless they are top of class with near perfect SAT scores.</p>

<p>Stanford is totally honest in that a summer program there gives no advantage.</p>

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<p>I believe there are no advantages or disadvantages. Of course, international students are definitely going to be held to higher standards than typical American students, and much higher standards than American students with hooks (legacies, developmental admits and such). Therefore, previous admissions data at the top boarding schools might be highly misleading and/or entirely irrelevant to an unhooked international applicant since there are so many hooked American applicants there.</p>

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<p>I did EPGY at Stanford but I don’t think it gave me any advantage compared to my peers.</p>

<p>Guys, thank you so much for your replies.</p>

<p>Summer courses at colleges do not give an advantage to the students other than showing interest and ability, which can be done in other ways. Schools will look well on students who take courses in the summer, but they also look well on students who work summer jobs and do other things as well. Taking a summer course at a specific college because you want to go to that specific college does not help.
Schools do not always give any boost to local students - it is more the case that they get a lot of local students applying. I’ve read that most students go to a college within 500 miles of home.</p>

<p>Well, some college admission guide (it might have been “A is for Admission”) explicitly said that colleges, even the most selective ones, will give some boost to local applicants. It also explicitly said they a student who just moved to the area one or two years ago would not get that bonus.</p>