I’m an international applying to Harvard and some other Ivies. During the 1st and 2nd year of high school I had pretty strong grades. After that, I’ve started the IB and had a very bad year due to mental health problems (and as consequence I had very low results). Now it got much better, I’m actually being very good and planning on having one of the highest predicted in the school and very good grades in general.
I know the process is holistic and that they evaluate everything. At the same time, I wanted to know if not having a rising trend in terms of grades and having 1 year of bad grades would affect my chances?
Harvard, Yale, and a few other top schools generally limit the International enrollment to about 10% of the student body. As a result, International applicants have a significantly lower chance of admissions and have to be the absolute best-of-the-best from their countries. “Holistic” means that after taking high school grades and standardized tests scores into consideration, they also look at other factors to choose between the outstanding applicants who’s grades and test scores are high enough to put them in the running. If, by “a very bad year” you are describing a year of very low or near failing grades, then you are, I’m sorry to say, pretty much out of the running.
Why do you want to apply to Harvard and Ivies in general? Do you have information on other schools? Often people apply to Ivies because those are the schools they have heard of, and they want prestige. You can get a great education and have a great experience at countless other schools.
^^^ @Multiverse7, that’s not correct. The reason almost every international student wants to attend Harvard (aside from the name recognition) is because Harvard is only one of five (1 of 5) US colleges that offer Need-Blind and Full-Need Admission to International Students.