Int'l chances for Ivies/selective schools

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hey guys,
I'm here looking for a glimmer of hope to hold on to regarding college admissions. Note in advance: I'll be applying to a LOT of colleges (fee waivers) because it's better to be safe than sorry me thinks.
Firstly, a little background info: I think it's important to mention that I live in a very small city with little to no possibility of involvement in volunteering, and work is hard to find when you're my age (the best you can get is manual labor in a factory. pretty depressing, right?)
Thanks in advance for taking the time to look over my statistics and tell me if I have a shot.</p>

<p>Applying to: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Dartmouth, U Penn, Duke, University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Brown, Cornell, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Middlebury, Wellesley, Vassar, Wesleyan, Washington and Lee, Hamilton, Harvey Mudd, Bates, Colgate, Occidental, University of Richmond, St. John's College in Maryland, SOKA University and Pomona. All of these offer a lot of aid to admitted internationals.</p>

<p>School Type: Public, top 10 in country
Location: Romania
Race/Gender: Caucasian
Prospective Major:Pretty much undecided. Something medicine related, like pre-med, pre-dental or pharmacy
GPA (1-10 scale) : 9.97
Class rank: 1 of around 400</p>

<p>**SAT I Scores<a href="one%20sitting">/b</a>
SAT I Math: 660
SAT I Critical Reading: 710
SAT I Writing: 770</p>

<p>SAT II Scores
didn't take yet, will take in US History and Biology</p>

<p>Extracurricular Info
*Mostly in the European Youth Parliament:
-ambassador for my delegation in 2009,
-county coordinator 2010-2011;
-chairperson at the regional sessions and also at the Balkan exchange forum of 2011,
-took part in training in Bulgaria for a week this February</p>

<p>*I have been to the National English Olympiad every year, having been first county-wise. I was 29th nationally in 9th grade, 18th in 10th grade and 15th this year</p>

<p>*I am president of the student body council, class president and treasurer and president of the english club.</p>

<p>*several other regional awards in English, art and music</p>

<p>*I've been playing bass guitar in a band for 3 years, and have been in the school and highschool choirs since 5th grade. </p>

<p>*I've volunteered for the red cross when they were present in my town, and also in a center for disadvantaged children, helping them with homework and learning english. I am also volunteering with the Volunteer Brigade, an organization that helps with organizing big music events in Romania (we have Bon Jovi, Judas Priest and a whole lot of other great bands to work with this summer! Yey!)</p>

<p>*Volunteer in the ACCEPT association, an LGBT organization in my country. I went to the seaside with them last summer for a couple of weeks, handing out pamphlets and condoms to spread awareness of HIV/STDs</p>

<p>Work Experience
* Have been a bar singer for 2 years, every Saturday nights from 8PM to 2AM
* Sports website editor for a year plus various other copywriting jobs</p>

<p>Income bracket: <$15k. Will be applying for financial aid (haha clearly)</p>

<p>I know they are all high reaches, but I won't give up just because I don't have eye-popping EC's. I have a different background, different opportunities, and I'm going to present my case as fully as possible in my essay :D
Any additional information you guys might want, just ask :) Thanks so much!</p>

2

<p>I know it’s a long post, but pwetty pwease?</p>

3

<p>You need to take one subject test in math and one in the sciences. Otherwise you would be ineligible for admission at MIT. You also need to raise your SAT I math score substantially if you’re serious about applying there. In fact, given that you have no science-related extracurriculars, I really can’t imagine what your motivation for applying to MIT and Harvey Mudd may be.</p>

<p>US History is a very hard test for internationals who have never studied US history as a separate subject in school. World History may be easier for you; it definitely was for me.</p>

<p>UChicago’s acceptance rate for aid-seeking internationals is lower than Harvard’s. It may give a lot of aid to the internationals it does admit, but they’re very very few. Same goes for the rest of your schools; applying for aid will put you at a disadvantage at all but six of them.</p>

<p>St. John’s College does not pledge to meet full need. I think Occidental might not either.</p>

<p>Anyway. You asked for chances, so here they are:</p>

<p>Practically all of these are reaches bar Wake Forest, Colgate, Occidental, Bates, Hamilton, W&L, St. John’s (which may not give you enough money), and maybe Wellesley–which are matches/high matches/low reaches–and MIT and Harvey Mudd are just not happening as you simply don’t have the profile for them, imo.</p>

<p>Apart from the schools I listed, I can definitely see you at Vassar, Richmond, and Wesleyan. The rest are a crapshoot. You have great ECs (just not for science schools), but you also have things going against you (i.e. aid-seeking international), so I expect your results to be very random and largely determined by these schools’ budgets and fancy. There will be more schools that want to accept you than schools able to accept you.</p>

<p>I wouldn’t be surprised if you were rejected by any of the schools on your list. That being said, I wouldn’t be surprised if you got into some of your high reaches as well.</p>

<p>Good luck and please consider cutting down your list! 32 schools is too much, regardless of how worried you may be.</p>

4

<p>Oh, and also, you can’t study anything medicine-related at St. John’s. I mean, there are some lab courses, but there’s only one major and that’s liberal arts/classics. Why do you want to apply there?</p>

5

<p>Thanks for the lengthy reply! Yeah, you’re right, I don’t know why I even considered MIT and Harvey. Partially because MIT specifically asks for either the M1 or M2 subject tests, and I’m not that good at math, especially in English. </p>

<p>That being said, I will indeed look into cutting down on some schools, after I look closely at their academics and requirements. This list was just as an idea for what I’m shooting for. </p>

<p>From what I gathered off Occidental’s website, they do meet full demonstrated need to about 4-ish international students each year. So I’m not going to give up just yet on beautiful LA. </p>

<p>And I do agree that it’s entirely a crapshoot. I’ve heard of people getting in at Harvard and being rejected at say a SUNY. It entirely depends on what your luck is that day haha.</p>

<p>Thanks again for the reply! I will definitely try my best to bring up that math score this May, not for science oriented schools, but in general. Because indeed, being a need seeking international makes things way more difficult</p>

6

<p>Regarding St. John’s. I’m not really set on a major, but medicine would be nice. So St. John’s is on the list just in case.</p>

7

<p>Well damn, there really aren’t any other majors at St. John’s. Hum.</p>