When I apply to Harvard in the Fall, I will most likely be an international student applying from the US.
So, I know that Harvard considers your application within the context of where you graduate, so am I compared with everyone else in the US, regardless of my citizenship?
Also, Harvard states that it has no quotas on international students and is need blind for internationals, so does this mean that my citizenship status has no affect on admissions since I am applying from the US?
Most U.S. colleges, including Harvard, limit the number of international students to around 10% to 11% of their incoming class. With a freshman class of about 1660, that means that Harvard admits about 160 to 190 international students per year – and most of those students come from Canada, The United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Japan, Korea and China.
If you don’t have a green card – meaning that you are not a current lawful US resident or US Citizen – you will be applying to Harvard as an international student, so you will be competing against all other International students and not US students.
If you go to the Harvard International Office Statistics page (http://www.hio.harvard.edu/statistics) and select from the pull down menu STUDENTS, YOUR COUNTRY, HARVARD COLLEGE (the undergraduate school), you will see how many of your countrymen are currently enrolled at Harvard College. Divide that number by 4 and that’s the number of student’s Harvard accepts from your country every year. As you can see, your odds as an international student are NOT the same as a US student (sorry). Best of luck to you!
@gibby Haha well that’s a bit saddening.
Well after this admissions cycle, I’m almost guaranteed to receive permanent residency. If I get shut-out everywhere this Fall, do you think it’s beneficial to take a gap year and reapply? I heard that colleges tend to reject students who are rejected initially, but take a gap year and reapply in the hopes that they will be reconsidered.
I want to skip the application process altogether this year and just apply as a domestic student next year, but my GC strongly advises me to just apply and see what happens, and then if I am rejected everywhere, to just reapply next year. My concern was that if I was already rejected this year, it would be harder to gain admissions the second time around. But, because I will be applying as a domestic student instead of an international student for the next admissions cycle, do you think my case would be different than the typical applicant who reapplies after being denied?
You don’t have to attend to Harvard, Yale or Princeton to get a good education and a wonderful paying job. I posted this a while ago.
Not knowing your stats, I would think you could be accepted to some great colleges next year. They may not be HYPSM. But, if you took a gap year and then applied to HYPSM, you might still be rejected.
My advice: Apply to a broad range of colleges in the early round as an international student so that you have at least one acceptance in your back pocket come December and apply to HYPSM in the RD round.
@gibby Of course I agree, and I’m not just applying to HYPSM. I should’ve mentioned this earlier, but the issue is that I would also require financial aid (NPCs show that I would contribute $5K-10K if I was domestic). I want to study business or economics undergrad. So, I looked at BC’s Carroll School of Management and Northeastern’s D’Amore-McKim undergrad program, and both offer either none or very little financial aid to internationals.
I wanted to apply to my local state university, which has both a decent economics and business program, where I would be happy and attend into the Honors Program. But, like the others, it states that it will offer NO financial aid to internationals.