<p>Hi fellow internationals,</p>
<p>I know a lot of us feel that admissions are stacked against our favour. If you were at all-American citizen who studied for all 4 years in a US high school, would you have aimed for better universities and colleges that you applied to now?</p>
<p>Just a thought. I know I would. I might even have been so brazen as to go all out for Harvard and Yale if my academic advisor in high school supported me. (we do not have academic counsellors in my country).</p>
<p>yes i would aim for the ivies and top univs. i have grades and ec’s but was too lazy to study for sats but i took only french and world history. i applied only to lac that are sat optional and have good FA</p>
<p>My list would’ve been very different on account of different FA policies. I couldn’t exactly have aimed higher though. 
But the middle and tail end of my list would’ve been very different.</p>
<p>Honestly I would have aimed lower. </p>
<p>I would have crossed out some Ivy need blind schools that I’m not THAT fond of and added some other schools that offer no aid to int’ls.</p>
<p>^Yeah, I’d have done that too actually.</p>
<p>Lol, I probably would have aimed LOWER, not higher. </p>
<p>Tbh, I don’t think “the odds are stacked against our favour”.</p>
<p>I feel lucky in that I had an excellent (fantastic in fact) university in my home country which I was already accepted at, and in a program which offered great opportunities and was a great degree in and of itself. That already takes the pressure off applying overseas, and left me fairly relaxed throughout the whole process.</p>
<p>In addition, I never had that same “college-obsessed mentality” that many domestic students face (naturally, because colleges are a bigger deal in the states) and that, I think, when I applied shaped my attitudes and motivations - which came through as sincere and unpretentious in my applications and interviews. </p>
<p>My college counselor didn’t know a whole lot either, but tbh, if you have access to the internet, there’s a wealth of information that’s more than enough to allow you go guide yourself through the process, and also explain to your teachers and guidance counselor as well.</p>
<p>Yeah, the FA odds really are. The impression I get from reading posts and just general TV media is that if you have decent enough grades and ECs and referrals, as a US student you could easily get an almost full-ride scholarship or financial aid package, either from the college or various American organisations.</p>
<p>And a 10% (generously speaking) international student population doesn’t help matters. I expect a significant proportion to come from China and India (because of big population and because the those countries are rising fast).</p>
<p>^I meant having a academic counsellor who knew you and could realistically point you in what rank of college to aim for and guide you through entering your best-suited dream school. Internet is 1 thing, but I guess we have to be pretty self-confident and self-aware when selecting our colleges on our own.</p>
<p>But I agree with you. My country also has rather reputable universities, so the US application process has been almost like a learning-vacation experience for me as well. Even if we don’t enroll in US, at lease now we have knowledge of more US colleges besides “Harvard and Yale. And Princeton”. Will serve us well in the future if the conversation calls for knowledge of US colleges :)</p>
<p>Well, I don’t think so. I would have maintained a similar application list.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t have applied to my safeties.</p>
<p>@theskylitup</p>
<p>that’s great. in my home country, i will know whether i got in or not in june but im pretty sure i’ll get in coz not many people apply to math coz it is considered to be one of the most difficult schools here. furthermore, i have excellent grades and this university has great math proffessors so im sure i’ll get better math knowledge at home than at LACs. there are days when im dying to go to the states and there r days when not even harvard could make me go. im really undecided but if i get in with good FA ill go coz i dont want to miss the opportunity of meeting the new culture, ppl and its a tremendous experience. if i dont get in, its not the end of the world but rather a sign that my path is in my country.</p>
<p>wish you all the best, hope ur wishes come true!</p>
<p>Despite what you can come to believe by reading what US applicants post here at CC, the largest number of US college students are studying at community colleges, and the second largest are studying at their home state public universities. Even those students who have good college advising in their HS, good grades, good ECs, etc. often end up at a community college or a home state public U. Some want to stay closer to home. Some have a job they don’t want to leave. Some like the program of studies or the football team or whatever.</p>
<p>However, in many, many, many cases, the overriding reason is money - the very same reason why many international students choose the list of colleges that they apply to. The college or university has to be affordable for the family.</p>
<p>Well, as a dual citizen (US + EU nation) born the US, but went to HS in europe… I think that all in all my chances of admission to a place like Harvard/Yale were actually increased slightly by coming from abroad. </p>
<p>I was told that in reviewing applications, many unis put a ~100 point handicap on the SAT scores of students from under-represented nations… particularly in western Europe. It also makes me a binational candidate from a third country. It made me trilingual instead of bilingual. It gave me the insights of a third culture. </p>
<p>The only thing that was perhaps lost on me in not going through the US HS system is that I might have been MORE prepared for my SATs… maybe scoring above 2300 instead of above 2200. I would have been taking APs instead of IBs, I would have taken a diverse and challenging course load instead of taking the forced course load of my nation’s national curriculum. I would have excelled further in my EC’s, simply because US High Schools are designed around having an infrastructure in favor of EC’s.</p>
<p>All in all I think it is a question of how you play the cards you are dealt. I think i made a few mistakes, but also made many good moves. My chances are either the same or are slightly higher. So I aimed for the top. But we’ll see 17 days right?</p>
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<p>You get the best of both worlds - domestic consideration and overseas experience. Most of us internationals don’t have citizenship of the US so we are disadvantaged in both admissions and financial aid when we apply for US colleges.</p>
<p>There are many factors that would play a part so it’s hard to say. Studying in the US would have allowed me to take ‘Honor’ classes and be part of ECs that would have probably allowed me to aim higher. </p>
<p>If anything, my only disadvantage as a student from a developing country is the extremely different education system.</p>
<p>Well first of all if I had graduated from a high-school in the states I probably would have scored higher on the SATs. My list would have been totally different, without 1 or 2 schools, that are my top choices right now. I dont think I would have applied to all the Ivies and that, just 1 or 2 (Yale and Dartmouth). The main difference though would have been my high-school record. In my country we dont have ECs at high-school. Anything you want to do that is not a regular class you pretty much have to look and pay for, and when you live in a small town, there are limited options, and some of them are pretty expensive. So yeah, the main difference would have been ECs.</p>
<p>Every got the thought that ‘they want internationals but don’t want you’? (sounds like a song lyric)</p>
<p>basically, what i’m trying to say is: some nationalities could be unofficially valued higher than others. like if you came from a small, exotic, mostly-pretty-poor area where literally no one else within a 10 mile radius of you is applying to US, you are a gemstone. But if your country is almost first-world, etc… well, you may not be so highly valued.</p>
<p>
I don’t think that’s true. The vast majority of international students in the US are from Europe and East Asia or India. I also happen to have a few international friends from poor African countries. I do not have the impression that it’s that much easier for them to study in the US. One friend told me that her parents are doctors and engineers and that she was accepted to study medicine at the most prestigious university in her country. Now she is attending a non-top 20 LAC on full financial aid (her family is well-off in her own country, but the exchange rate sucks).</p>
<p>Students from first-world countries can generally contribute something to their education. My African friends get even their books and airfare paid by the college because they couldn’t afford them otherwise. Accepting students from third-world countries is really expensive for the colleges, hence they may be reluctant to do it.</p>
<p>Things would be INCREDIBLY different.
First of all, I would probably have asked for significantly less financial aid, which would make it easier for me. Moreover, there are many schools I liked a lot but didn’t apply to because they were giving little or no financial aid at all (for example, University of Miami and UNC Chapel Hill).
Secondly, the sports. I’m not the most talented player, but I have great passion especially for soccer and tennis, and I would have done my best to make it to some of the teams. In my country, high school sports are almost undeveloped. For example, there was a handball tournament a few weeks ago and what happened - P.E. teachers made a list of participants, they were freed from school classes for a few days to prepare for the tournament. I saw their preparation once - they were just taking random shots on the goal. There was nothing like combinations, tactics or whatever. This shows how “well-organized” high school sports are. In fact, the system here is quite different. There are professional clubs with youth programs where children play. I played tennis for a while, but it was too expensive for my family to pay for my practices, so I stopped. My point is that if I was a high school student in the States, I would definitely benefit from athletic programs.
Last, there are much more opportunities for US students to get involved in projects, programs and s.o. run by the school. It’s very rare here.
Based on everything I said above, I think that I would have aimed higher if I was a US student.</p>
<p>Definitely.
1)I wouldnt be limited on the schools that give 100% need (there is a bunch of them, not very much but much more than need-blind for internationals)
2)My scores from the language parts of SAT would be higher.
3)I would have ECs just like other American student, whoch means that much more than now.
4)Generally, it would be much easier to compare me with other applicants - right now it’s very difficult cos the schools have very little applications from students from my country and they cannot really understand our grades etc.</p>
<p>I would’ve definitely aimed lower if I was a US student. I mean, I would’ve still applied to MIT and Caltech, but would’ve applied to more middle and low ranking universities as well purely because it would have still been possible to attend them, what with federal aid and generally more generous institutional aid.</p>