<p>Does Harvard rise the standard for international students? Besides, I heard that international students need around 140 scores above the standard SAT score for an equal chance at Harvard. Thoughts?</p>
<p>I’m not sure where you read that information, but it’s incorrect. When you apply to Harvard, you need to be realistic – the competition is absolutely fierce, and that’s especially true for international students. Every year, Harvard admits about 1666 freshman and about 11% of them are international students. So, in reality, as an international student, you are competing for 1 of 183 beds – and thousands of students from China, Japan, Korea, Russia, Spain, France, Germany, Australia and the rest of the world are your competition. To receive one of those 183 beds, you must have great stats and beat out all other international students, but you are not in competition with students applying from the United States.Those kids are in competition for the roughly 1483 beds that don’t go to international students.</p>
<p>Thanks gibby. But what about regional or national quotas? Does H really have those things?</p>
<p>For U.S. students, Harvard strives to have at least one student from every state. But they don’t try to do that for international students. Many countries are represented, but there aren’t any regional or national quotas.</p>
<p>Agree with Gibby…moreover, top schools like Harvard, Stanford, Princeton etc unfortunately average accepting about 10-11% international in each of the entering class…you have to understand you will be competing with the top students from China, Korea, India, Germany, Great Britain, South American countries, etc for those limited slots…</p>
<p>…so if hypothetically we use 10% for each school then Harvard has about 166 beds out of 1666 beds, Stanford has about 170 beds out of 1700 beds, Yale has 132 beds out of 1320 beds, Princeton 130 beds out of 1300 beds…and so on…</p>
<p>…and remember you will have more international students applying from countries like China, India, and Korea than other countries by sheer competitive nature of those countries…</p>
<p>…what we cannot answer is whether there is an unspoken or soft “quota” as to how many each school will accept from each “individual” countries or regions as you say…</p>
<p>…only the admissions staff for each “particular” admission cycle can answer that…depending on the applicant pool with diverging interests/academic achievements/personal stories…all coming to play.</p>
<p>…as an example, if you have 5 international Olympiad winners with top credentials applying from Germany just to either Harvard or Stanford…it is highly unlikely that all 5 will be accepted to that one school…rather, it is more likely 1 will be accepted from that group out of 5…now, if the 5 international Olympiad winners were strategically smart they should apply to 5 separate schools they are strongly interested in attending and the odds increase that each “student” will have at least one acceptance from their top choices…</p>
<p>…successful admissions to these schools often depends on the “INTANGIBLES” that each particular school is looking for at any time during the admission cycle dependent on the strength and diversity of the overall applicant pool that they have…</p>
<p>…hope this helps. Best wishes and good luck.</p>