<p>I am studying in Australia, still have two 2.5 years left of high school.
How do you get into any ivy league universities?
From what i hear you have to get extremely high scores in SAT's, an excellent school record be a prodigious musician, athlete or excel in a particular field, be a prolific community worker...etc.
I am clearly screwed. I have good grades at school, and study at one of the best schools in Sydney, however my interests are fairly limited, I'm not the leader of 5 clubs and am not a prodigy in any particular field.
What do i have to do to even consider applying to an ivy? Would factors would they consider from an international applicant?</p>
<p>OK, tell me this. What is one thing you’re passionate about?</p>
<p>I reckon you should really push your SAT as high as it’ll go (23+) and hope for the best. Next, make sure your grades are as high as you possibly can manage. Work on good essays and recs and I think you’ll have a good shot even if you’re not particularly outstanding in any one field. Two and a half years is enough to make a big difference… And yeah tetris makes a decent point too</p>
<p>why do you want to go to an ivy league school anyway? in what aspect does university of sydney lack in comparison to an ivy league school?</p>
<p>prestige, bro</p>
<p>Everyone knows the Ivy league while the same cannot be said about the University of Sydney or any other university out of the top 20…</p>
<p>University of Sydney is a very good university in a great city btw</p>
<p>…but would you ever prefer going to it over Brown? Think about it.</p>
<p>@salashille: It’s about showing sustained interest in a narrow range of fields, rather than having a hodgepodge of divergent ECs on your app</p>
<p>salashille: If you can think of one essay-length answer to tetrisfan’s question that immediately springs to your mind, then you have a shot at the Ivys. If you can’t think of any particular thing that you love enough to have a nuanced opinion about, then even perfect SATs may not be enough.</p>
<p>On the contrary JCX, its never about your interests. You can easily pull off a decent essay about some non existent passsion, blow up and greatly exaggerate an interest till it becomes the only reason you live, etc. It helps if u have a passion, but if u don’t, its not the end of the road by any means.</p>
<p>You’ll have to hire a consultant for that sorta thing. Or a bunch of friends. Too expensive, if you ask me.</p>
<p>I think you should compare yourself with other applicants from Australia, the country matters. Do you know anyone else from Sydeny who was accepted? Perhaps your school can connect you with someone.</p>
<p>Wow, I have the exact same question except I have about 1.5 years left of high school. I know to get into ANY good uni in the US you would need to have good SAT scores and good extracurriculars. Here in Australia we are cleary screwed because there are no extra curriculars and it just isn’t part of the culture of teens here. There are no such thing as clubs at schools here and to get into university you simply need the grades you need to get into a particular course. No rigorous application process, essays, recommendations,etc. I don’t even go to a good private school, I go to a public high school here and no one thinks about college, let alone know what ivies are. If I knew that extra curriculars are such a huge part in high schools in the state and an important part in going to college say, 2 years ago, I would definitely have built up a semi decent resume by now but I didn’t. Is it possible to start building up extra curriculars in the time I have left so I can have a shot at getting into nice colleges in the states? (non ivies obviously)</p>
<p>^ btw i think it’s a common misconception here that Ivy League represents the most prestigious universities in US. But it’s NOT TRUE. There’s schools like Stanford and MIT which are easily better than non-HYP Ivies.
Please do your research on what you want from a American education first.</p>
<p>To add, some Ivies are way ahead of the others in terms of teaching excellence. Even Harvard doesn’t compare to Yale when it comes to undergrad education. Some Ivies specialize in some courses; Harvard is quite lowly ranked when it comes to engineering. So, as 1234d said, do you research. No one university is good at everything.</p>
<p>Stanford and MIT “easily better than HYP”. Yeah right…</p>
<p>The only way to get admitted is to apply…can’t think of any other way.</p>
<p>phyz: i said better than non-HYP ivies. please read before you type.</p>
<p>Sorry… My mistake 
But yeah I guess many places do trump non HYP ivies</p>