Are you a senior currently applying to colleges? If that is the case and you haven’t been in contact with coaches about athletic recruitment it is very likely too late.
I would not say that recruiting international players in “not common.” It really depends upon the college and the sport. I will, however, that for any athlete, but a female in particular, identification of recruits begins junior year at the latest, and for many sports, it begins much, much earlier.
for a college, particularly a top school, to recruit an int’l for athletics, then those athletes are stars who are known before senior year.
I think this student may be thinking that being a team captain means something for recruiting. 99% of captains probably don’t get recruited anywhere.
@mom2collegekids I mentioned this star athlete, because he had a low SAT score, but he got in because of his hooks: being African American and an athlete they wanted for their football team. It also didn’t hurt that he came from a top HS. I was just trying to make a point that if your scores are low you better have other stuff the school wants
What it comes down to- if you have the extra 50 (?) bucks and a few extra hours of time apply. Nothing is stopping you from taking a shot in the dark. But what you don’t want to do is apply then spend hours drooling over the pretty campus online and falling in love with the school, then counting down the days until letters come out. This will just make it very depressing if you get rejected. I have a school, which I’m easily in the rage for gpa and act, but I’m not letting myself fall completely in love because it is my top school and I will be even more devastated if I get rejected. Instead I’m spending my time looking at pictures and “gawking” at the other schools on my list. This way if I can fall more in love with them it won’t hurt as bad if I get rejected from my #1.
Also people on here can seem to be pretty bitter. Obviously we all know, you included, that you don’t have as great of a chance as those with close to perfect scores, but who knows. Write kickass essays and give it a shot. Don’t let people on a paranoid website forum dictate if you apply!! Heck I know someone who started a chance thread, everyone told them they didn’t have a shot, then they got accepted…
@classof2017345 I think you may not be clear on the role of luck in the admissions process at schools like UPenn.
Admissions is not a formulaic process, but it’s not a lottery either. Students who don’t have the grades or the scores don’t just somehow get lucky and get admitted anyway unless there’s something extraordinary and exceptional about their application whether it’s a hook such as URM or recruited athlete (and even there, there’s a limit to how much a school is going to relax its academic standards) or a background and a story that leads the adcom to believe that this is a student worth taking a risk on, that this is a student whose academic potential far outstrips her achievements so far.
Here’s how luck works in the admissions process. An applicant is one of the many, many applicants with grades, scores, essays, EC’s and recommendations that put her in the running. One of her EC’s is that she’s first chair piccolo in the state orchestra and this is the year that the college’s orchestra is looking for a piccolo player. What luck! Her particular talent happens to meet their particular need this year. A year earlier or later and her piccolo playing wouldn’t have been as helpful.
If you have the time and money to almost certainly waste an application, go ahead. But if, as seems to be the case, you’re trying to limit your number of applications and are having trouble paring down an extensive list, you might be better off spending your time figuring out exactly what you love about Penn and looking for other schools that also provide what you’re looking for. Reaches should at least be plausible. At the very least, make your Penn app the last one you do. Do an excellent job on the apps for a well considered list of reaches, matches and safeties. When those are done, if you still have the time, energy and money for the Penn application, then you can do it.
Remember, the job of your application is going to be the convince Penn of why they should want you over all the kids they’re going to reject with better academic qualifications. And “I’m convinced Penn is the school for me” isn’t going to cut it. You’re hardly the only one. What makes you special? What are you going to bring to Penn? Last year they had over 37,000 applicants and only admitted 10% of them. Why should they pick you?
You’re international AND your stats are subpar for this dream school. Lemme guess… you also need financial aid?
Unless your parent is a head of state, or your parent is going to donate a $50 million new dorm bldg, or you’ve got Olympic-level athletic skills, some other mega-super hook, or an amazing life story (like you were an orphaned child soldier in Sudan who escaped and started a human rights group and directed an award-winning documentary film that was a finalist at tbe Cannes Film Festival), then your chances are zero, and you’re wasting your time, money, and emotional investment.
@Futuremed17 - It’s not bitterness that causes people to give the advice they’re giving. It’s knowledge of the process and a desire to help persuade one more to not make an unrealistic decision that he or she will regret later. They’re free to ignore that advice, of course.
OP comes from a low income family and her single mom has 2 younger children to send to college after her. In July, OP was awarded a scholarship to a private high school and they were trying to figure out how to scrape together the $5k balance. I think she needs to be careful about what colleges she spends her mom’s money on.
OP is focusing on chances of admission when she should be focusing on finances. It sounds like she can only afford a need blind, meets full need college, but I don’t think her stats are high enough to make her competitive for them. If she wants to go to college next fall, she needs to focus on colleges in her own country.
My country doesn’t have colleges and finances are not an issues as every student with good credentials are guaranteed a scholarship. Yes some small division 2 schools on my list have been looking at me and I started this process years ago. I have decided to remove all reach schools from my list , thanks for all the “help”! END OF THREAD. No more comments please!
Suggesting posters here are bitter because they are trying to advise this young woman realistically is not at all accurate.
It takes significantly more than wanting to be accepted at a school to be admitted. The level of competition at colleges that are academically elite will humble all but very few students.
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I have decided to remove all reach schools from my list , thanks for all the “help.”
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Good news. The thread did help you.
Yes it does.