<p>I am aware that there are big drawbacks to being an international applicant to top schools (very competitive pool, iffy financial aid, etc). Are there any advantages to an international applicant who comes from a really underrepresented country (0 at Yale, 1 at Harvard) and who has adequate/great stats? Also, will this person be compared to the whole international pool or will there be a contextual review?</p>
<p>Yes, there’s a huge advantage to coming from a country with few applicants.</p>
<p>which country are you from ?</p>
<p>Schools play pokemon: they want to catch 'em all. So, you have an advantage if your country, or state, is underrepresented. However, you’ll still be compared to other international applicants. Then again, if your country is known to have fewer resources than other countries where many internationals come from, I don’t think most schools will expect you to be a globe-trotting, superstar international competition winner. But if your stats’re good, they’re likely to throw a pokeball your way.</p>
<p>im international student too and I dont understand because some people tell me its easier to get in and some tell me its harder. </p>
<p>I have lived in the US for 13 years but snce I am a citizen of Japan, I am considered an international applicant. How does this play off?</p>
<p>But yeah if you are from a country like that it will definately be easier</p>
<p>Japan=disadvantage, small African nation=advantage.</p>
<p>If you have a green card you’re a US resident, and so you get to apply as a US student.</p>
<p>If your a resident you can apply as a Domestic applicant.</p>
<p>I hope being a Latvian will help me. There are very few applicants from my country :)</p>
<p>yeah that would help. ughh i hate being Japanese. The thing is, I dont really find it logical to compare me with someone whos actually applying from Japan because I have been living in Texas for 13 years lol. Im not a permanent resident either so i guess so.</p>
<p>Being an URM international applicant is only beneficial when you are a competitive applicant in their applicants pool. If the school is out of your league you could be Martian and still have slim chances.</p>
<p>And no, there’s no disadvantage in the decisions process for international students, it’s only a disadvantage in the financial matters. But that’s understandable.</p>
<p>PS. I’m no expert, it’s based on reading similar topics and some reasoning.</p>
<p>
That might be true in some places but probably not everywhere. Take MIT. They are need-blind for international students so finances should not play into the equation at all. Their domestic admission rate is 12%, the international admission rate 4%. Unless you want to argue that international applicants are generally less prepared than US applicants (I suspect the opposite), there is a bias against internationals in general.</p>
<p>If MIT admitted international students at the same rate as domestic student, their student body would be 20%-25% international. (And the higher admission rate might attract even more international applicants!) I can see why they would want to discriminate against international students.</p>
<p>There might be some exceptions, but since I could count need-blind + full-need colleges as less than a dozen, my generalization wasn’t that misleading.</p>
<p>I think your statement would be true for colleges with relatively few international applicants. However, internationally prestigious universities (Ivies, Berkeley, NYU, etc) generally have lower international admission rates because they receive a lot more applications from overseas than they want to enroll international students. In these instances a foreign passport might be a disadvantage in and of itself. Note that finances rarely skew international admission numbers at the top schools because they are frequently either need-blind or have no financial aid for international students at all. </p>
<p>On this website, I think it is important to draw distinctions between the top universities (prestige), the top liberal arts colleges (financial aid), and an average college or university. Your generalization is probably very true for liberal arts colleges and lower-ranked universities but not for the prestigious universities, which many CC posters are interested in.</p>
<p>hey i am from germany and i’ve spent a year as an exchangestudent in the us and got perfect grades. is my nationality a disadvantage?</p>
<p>Mareile: It is especially hard for Asians to get in. For Europeans it is easier (and maybe even more so for Continental Europeans). Please make sure that the admissions offices fully realize that you’ve already experienced a successful year in a US high school. By accepting you they’re taking less risk concerning ‘fitting in’ and homesickness.</p>
<p>Actually I don’t really understand with the ‘if you’re Asian’ thing… Asian is not only Chinese and Indian, but people here is like stereotyping it… How about other Asian countries?</p>