International student taking the IB: What schools should I be looking at?

Chance Me / Match Me!
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<p>I'm a student studying in Singapore taking the International Baccalaureate. As with all students wanting to go to the U.S. to study I have stars in my eyes and am planning to apply to the best; but I'm not sure if my application will be strong enough.</p>

<p>Our applications are based on IB predicted grades, and whilst we're never told what they are, I have an idea of what I might be predicted. I take 4 highers, so it's a bit unusual:</p>

<p>HL Economics: 7
HL Physics: 7
HL Computer Sciences: 7
HL Maths: 5
Ab. Initio French: 7
SL English A Lang/Lit: 7</p>

<p>Total: 43/45</p>

<p>SAT I: 2300
SAT Maths: 800
SAT Physics: 800</p>

<p>The main problem here is that I'm getting a 5 in HL maths and I fear for what colleges like MIT, Columbia, Princeton or Cornell will think of this. Frankly I think that my extracurriculars are good, I've founded a startup and an online editorial (Economics and Politics mostly) and that my essays will be reasonably inspiring, but my question is will that 5 in HL maths kill my chances? What schools should I be looking at, taking into account I'm an international applicant and that I'm taking four highers?</p>

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<p>HL is highly regarded so a 5 is fine. And 4 7s is definitely incredibly impressive.
So don’t worry about it.
Will you be applying for financial aid?</p>

<p>Obviously, you can shoot for many superb schools. So finding a dozen dream schools shouldn’t be difficult. Unfortunately, even for applicants of your level, odds are about 1 in 10, so you need to work “from the bottom up”: first safeties, next relatively-safe-top-schools, and finally your dream schools.</p>

<p>First, you need to find 2-3 safeties. Depending on whether you will need aid or not, our suggestions will vary.</p>

<p>Right now, without any further testing or anything else, you qualify for a full-tuition scholarship and entrance to the Honors College (along with Honors Residence Halls) at the University of Alabama. If you want to major in engineering you also get a $2,500 stipend.
Any LAC ranked 40-75 is a safety, too (and would likely net you merit aid at the very least), and any LAC ranked 25-40 is a match. For national universities I would say any school ranked 37 and above is a safety and any school ranked 20 to 30s is a match.
The other schools are “reach for everyone” even though you’d be very competitive in the pool and would likely be admitted to one of the 1-25LACs or 1-20 Universities. All regional universities are safeties (Villanova, Butler, Trinity, Elon…)
So, once you have 2-3 schools that you’re sure you can get in and afford, and a couple schools that you’re reasonably sure you’ll get in and can afford, you can apply to as many “reaches” as you want. If you’re interested in MIT, Columbia, Princeton, and Cornell, apply to all 4 but only after having selected your safeties and matches. :)</p>

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<p>MYOS1634, thank you so much for that quick and thorough reply! I wasn’t expecting such a response haha :)</p>

<p>Yes, my University Counsellor harps on about my choice of safeties and matches — my school only will support 10 applications so it’s definitely something to think about. Looking at previous placement data from my school I find that American universities are far more difficult to get into than Canadian schools, say, so I’m considering those as my safeties.</p>

<p>I’m very lucky in that my parents have no problem with funding my education, and I don’t believe I’m eligible to apply for need-based aid anyway.</p>

<p>So far my list is (in order of preference/chance of me being flatly denied):</p>

<p>MIT (Absolute dream school for as long as I can remember),
Harvard,
Stanford,
Princeton,
UC Berkeley; UCLA; UCSD (California school system counts as one application),
U Chicago,
Yale,
Cornell,
Carnegie Mellon,
University of Toronto.</p>

<p>Other schools not on my ‘apply’ list but that I’m thinking about:
McGill,
Williams College,
Amherst,
Columbia,
UBC (Vancouver),
Brown.</p>

<p>My logic is that hopefully ONE of the reach schools will take me, but if not, I’ll have U Toronto or UCSD to go to. Toronto is Canada’s premier university and ranks pretty highly for a safety, and they accept more than 45% of applicants from my school. That stratospheric acceptance rate for a top school makes me worry though :/</p>

<p>Do you think this is sensible? Should I swap out some of the more impossible schools for matches and safeties?</p>

<p>Thanks so much for all your help by the way! :)</p>

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<p>4 HLs is definitely impressive, especially since you got 7s in 3 of them. I don’t think it’ll hurt to much, but it would be helpful if you can bump your predicted grade in Math up to a 6 if possible. In any case how do you have your grade out of 45 already (for our school, predicted grades are out of 42)? </p>

<p>Every college you listed is excellent (what’s your intended major though, that may help decide to cut a certain college out or add one in). However, your list (the so-far one) is wayyyy too reach-ish. Even with your stellar scores, you may have trouble getting into one since all have pretty low acceptance rates (other than UToronto). You should in my opinion throw in a couple safeties as MYOS said - currently you have none.</p>

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<p>Indeed, point taken.</p>

<p>I think I will look for some safeties to add in, but if I’m pretty much guaranteed acceptance into two schools (UToronto and UCSD, considering some 50% of applicants from my school get accepted to UCSD), why not use the other 8 slots to shoot for the moon? Doesn’t spreading my risk over as many reaches as possible increase my chance of getting into at least one?</p>

<p>I’m really not sure. I’m loath to apply to any sure ‘safeties’ because I know I really won’t be happy spending so much of my parents’ money on a second-rate (and incredibly expensive) education in America. If I’m going to make the commitment to fly halfway around the world to study, shouldn’t it be at a school that makes me happy? But yes, you’re right, I need somewhere to go in case I don’t get a place anywhere else.</p>

<p>Regarding the predicted points /45, my school awards 3 predicted bonus points if you’re getting 39 or more points /42.</p>

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<p>What are you planning to apply for at uoft? If Toronto has a 45% acceptance rate this is due to two things. First, Canadian universities are incredibly grade driven (ECs and essays only count for getting in off the waitlist). Indeed the university application system for Ontario universities lists the grades required for different department at UofT to the percentage point. Because of this Canadian students self select, they only apply to the universities that they have the grades for, as such they generally apply to much fewer universities (I applied to 3 for my undergrad which was about average), hence the overall acceptance rate is higher because generally there are much fewer under-qualified applicants applying because they know beforehand they will 100% not get in. Secondly, different departments at UofT have very different requirements. For example a B+ student could easily get into Arts at UofT but faculties such as Life Sciences and Engineering are almost exclusive to A students. This is common at most Canadian universities, where it is often harder to get into a more selective department at a less selective university than it is to get into a less selective department at a more prestigious university.</p>

<p>I hope this answers your questions about why Toronto’s acceptance rate appears to be so high, and I agree that with your grades and scores even the more difficult faculties are likely well within your reach (like life sciences or engineering), however I am not sure I would go as far as to call them iron-clad safeties.</p>

<p>FYI I see you mentioned McGill, its admissions process is similar to UofT’s: Grade driven and purely numerical, with sciences, engineering and pre-med being much harder to get into than arts, social sciences or education.</p>

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<p>@Nameless, that’s probably true, but he mentioned in his second post that U of T accepts more than 45% of applicants from his school… and considering that he’s probably ranked really high with his 43/45, I wouldn’t say it’s far fetched to say that he’d probably get in. However, I still think he should apply to another safety or two.</p>

<p>@OP, I know the word “safety” seems to connote negativity for a lot of people, but it really shouldn’t. What it means is that you’re applying somewhere where you really WANT to go, BUT you also know that you’ll almost certainly get in. If you won’t be happy applying to a certain school then don’t apply there at all.</p>

<p>For example, although this year i’m applying to a bunch of great engineering colleges like Stanford, Cornell etc, i’m ALSO applying to UMass Amherst… not because it’s easy to get into but because I know that if I don’t get into my other schools, i’ll still be really happy going there. So when you say that you’re going all the way to the US to study for 4 years and you don’t want to study at some college you won’t be happy at, I agree completely! However, that’s not what a safety is in my opinion. I know i’ve said this like 20 times in this post alone but a safety is a school you WANT to go to</p>