<p>“because they trust the information my school supplies more than that of some distant international schools?”
That is mostly irrelevant. You need to realize that unless you get your green card asap, you will be at a disadvantage vrs all your american classmates who are probably applying to the same colleges!. The only exception may be at colleges that receive very few applications from international students, and students from your school[ i.e.- those much lower down the USNWR list- some lesser known LAC’s for instance]. So you need to research extensively to find colleges where your international status and prep school background would make you different from most applicants.</p>
<p>“the schools i am looking at right now are Columbia, UPenn, Dartmouth, Chicago, Cornell. the target/safe schools being NYU, UMichigan.”
These are colleges that already receive THOUSANDS of applications from Chinese students. NYU and Michigan are NOT safeties for you. you need to look a lot further to find a safety.</p>
<p>but menloparkmom, the worst students from my school go to schools like NYU and Michigan…so i am pretty confident that they are safeties for me…again, my school is really competitive, we have an average SAT score of around 2200, we are ranked top 5 by Forbes</p>
<p>“the worst students from my school go to schools like NYU and Michigan.”</p>
<p>If they are also international, then you have a point, but if they are AMERICAN and NOT from China or another country that has thousands of applicants for the same US schools that are on your list, then you need to talk to your GC, ask specifically where International students from your school with your stats have been accepted in the last 2 years. YOU dont seem to realize that at schools like Chicago, where the overall acceptance rate is low [lets say it is 20%] YOU dont have a 20% chance of acceptance. As an international student- you may have only a 15% of 20% chance. = 3% Then divide that in half for your sex, and that will give you a closer guess of what your actual chances are. Approximately 1.5%. Which means you MAY have a 98.5% chance of rejection. Get it?</p>
<p>I know at Michigan, where the overall acceptance rate was 40%, the international acceptance rate was 11%. Which is for all applicants from over 100 countries. So get some real safeties lined up because a 11% acceptance rate, divided in half for each sex means Michigan is not a safety. Its a reach.</p>
<p>If your school has a separate specialist just for college placement, that would be the person to speak with.</p>
<p>But to repeat, it is significantly easier to be admitted if you are considered a domestic applicant (which you will be if you have a green card). It also is significantly easier to find school-year employment, summer internships, and jobs after graduation if you have a green card. I cannot fathom why you would think for one minute that remaining international is to your advantage. I also cannot fathom why your parent(s) who must have green cards themselves (or be in the process of getting them) would think it makes sense for you to remain international. Normally when parents complete that process, the minor children are processed as well. </p>
<p>If your parents have green cards, and you don’t before you are 18, it will be significantly more difficult for you to get yours once you are no longer a minor. Sit down with the UCIS website, and read up on the process. You do not want to wait too long to do this.</p>
<p>OP, both happymomof1 and I have been through the college application process with our kids and we have both been on CC for years. If you think you know more than us, as this statement suggests-" apparently you are assuming a lot of things"
go right ahead and try to apply as an international.
We are trying your eyes to the reality of college admissions these days. You are the one making [ erroneous] assumptions.</p>
<p>"what oldfort said make sense though? "
oldfort was talking about a AMERICAN student. Applying to AMERICAN colleges.
Get your green card and you will have all the benefits of having done well at an American prep school.</p>
<p>I actually do not totally agree with what is being said here, or what people thought I said. </p>
<p>OP will definitely be read in context of his prep school, not with Chinese from China. Some schools are need blind when it comes to admission, but not when it comes to FA to internationals. Some schools have admission quota (like MIT), and some do not (like Columbia) when it comes to internationals.</p>
<p>OP does not need FA, it will be a hook relative to other international students if a school wants to attract more international students (possibly Tufts?). OP will not add that much diversity because he was educated in the States. OP is also an ORM, which means his stats would need to be much better in order to gain admittance.</p>
<p>I don’t think there is one answer which would fit all schools. OP needs to contact schools he is interested in to find out their policy.</p>
<p>Not clear how colleges will categorize OP. I would imagine that colleges each have their own criteria for defining “international”, just as I have found prep schools do. Some schools will define int’l by the student’s passport, regardless of where the student did secondary schooling.</p>
<p>I concur with u that OP should contact schools he is interested in to find out their policy</p>
<p>@Menloparkmom,<br>
A U.S. green card has its perks, but the VERY VERY heavy baggage it comes with is liability for U.S. taxes on foreign-earned income. As far as I know, the U.S. is the only country that imposes this onerous policy on its citizens & residents.</p>
<p>Yes the green card makes you liable for taxes here, but unless the student is personally in the possession of income-earning investments that is not an issue for him. What I don’t understand is how (as a presumably minor child) he thinks that green card or not is his own decision, rather than being his parents’.</p>
<p>happymomof1 - I think it is a family decision. If their parents get green cards then their family income would come under scrutiny. I also wouldn’t be surprised if many of those students have a fairly large portfolio outside of the US.</p>
<p>Yes, with a green card you would need to pay taxes, and that is why green card holders are elegible for FA.</p>
<p>You do make a good point. I hadn’t thought of it quite like that. I had taken the initial information about “green card eligible” to mean that the parents were already employed in the US and were well into the green card application process.</p>
<p>I’m an international applicant, outside of the US, and I have to say, WHY haven’t you gotten your green card already? It’s so difficult for int’ls to get accepted into top American colleges, I don’t see the point in applying as one when you have the choice not to. If you have a green card, you will be in the domestic pool, which accounts for 90% or more of admitted students! Trust me, there is nothing in it for you. Unless maybe you were from Ghana or Kyrgyzstan or some other country that rarely sends applicants.</p>
<p>The mathematician in me wants to correct something menloparkmom said in post 24:
There is no reason to divide the admission rate in half to account for gender allocation.
Imagine a college has 1000 applicants for 100 seats, and everyone offered admission accepts; assume that men and women apply and are accepted in equal numbers. The overall admission rate is 10%. The admission rate for men is also 10% (50/500) as is the rate for women.</p>
<p>"The admission rate for men is also 10% (50/500) as is the rate for women. "</p>
<p>.uh, no.
when the overall admission rate for ALL applicants is 10 %[100/1000],
AND If students of either sex are admitted equally, members of EACH sex have a 5% chance of winning of one of the 1000 overall spots that are open. realistically each sex has a 50/1000= 5% chance of acceptance.</p>
<p>and the overall admittance rate is all that is being discussed here , and is what people refer to when discussing acceptance rates.</p>