I am an international applicant too!!! I feel like it is a good idea to get some ideas from magazines and stuff, but in terms of legit copying them because they just sound THAT good…I dont think Id do that lol i started brainstorming last month…like really chill brainstorming. Ill officially start in late june most probably. DONT BE NERVOUS!!! 
we are all here to support each other
The biggest mistake made by internationals who do not know English thoroughly is to inappropriately use “big words” in their essay. Please, the essay is often not a deal breaker. Just keep it simple and honest. And you don’t have to spend months or even weeks on it either.
@compmom @yayaylearner cheers guys
Which other schools will you guys be applying to? Like backups
Yale, MIT, Stanford…jk…no my backups are USC (south carolina) and clemson.
@yayaylearner where are u from? I am from Nepal . I reckon I will be applying to NYUAD, Swarthmore, Lafayette, Bucknell, Rochester IT, Tufts … and what about u?
Im from Canada 
I might apply to the rest of the ivies…but idk yet because it is quite costly to apply to even one. @unifeva
hi friends!! excited/nervous for this journey to begin
@yayaylearner ya. Fair enough. And I am going to apply in U of T too. I will also try for the lester b pearson scholarship. :>
That is awesome! U of T is absolutely beautiful and is a well-known institution @unifeva I hope we all end up somewhere we will love next Fall~
Yes we do. Best of luck folks!!
what’s the purpose of sending in standardized test scores early? provided that your main goal isnt to use up the 4 free score reports, is there any advantage to having them start a folder for you early?
Hey guys.
Wondering if we could share stats, EC’s, etc…I noticed the '21 SCEA thread did the same
No.
I’m an international applicant from the UK! - I sent in my SATs, to use up the free score reports, but I’m a bit worried that my scores are going to be a bit low as I didn’t really have time to prepare/decided to wing it. Everyone was so intense on the day haha.
What EC’s does everyone else have? - It’s so weird listing them, as UK unis don’t really care.
I run a small-scale (like micro) tutoring business, and I mentor for maths/run a french club at school. I also run the main floor of a kitchen/bathroom showroom on Saturdays (long story).
But my main niche is writing - I’ve won quite a few national/international prizes (enough to fill up the ‘honors’ section anyway lol), I edit prose at a litmag and I’ve published a poetry chapbook; also been published online and in print with a couple of vaguely prestigious journals.
I’m allergic to sports; I think I have one regional badminton prize and that’s it. I have a couple of silly silver medals in Maths challenge (two rounds before the Olympiad, lol) and a silver medal in the UK Linguistics Olympiad. Also, I play rubbish grade 8 piano and can’t really sightread. I don’t think I’ll include these ones.
How should I decide where to apply early? Im torn between Harvard and Yale… Would one SCEA confer more of a “chance boost” than the other? Any other factors to take into consideration??
Yeah @azforpres if other people are interested, I’ll share as well.
@FreePariah, conventional wisdom is that SCEA does not give that much of a boost vs. EA (which does), and I doubt if there is any meaningful difference in advantage at the 2 schools you mentioned. If you are a legacy, it is probably better to SCEA to that school.
You can consider 2 different strategies. One is to apply to your true first choice school. If you get in, you can skip all the other applications (or almost all of them) and have 0 anxiety the rest of senior year. The other is to apply to one of your top choices which may not be as high of a reach as your very top choices. If you don’t get in (rejected or deferred, especially if you get rejected by a school that has a high deferral rate), it might indicate a weakness in your application, perhaps a weak essay or recommendation that you may have time fix by the regular admission deadline, and certainly that you need to recalibrate your safety, target and reach list. Along those lines, applying to a good/competitive state institution with rolling admissions early is a good strategy for these same reasons, and you still have your one SCEA application in your pocket.
I can’t decide if I should do Harvard SCEA or the Questbridge NCM. Isn’t the NCM like sending several EA’s to different colleges at once? So wouldn’t that increase chances of getting accepted?
Hey, guys. Thought I’d mark my place here early so I may update come December.