<p>Hey,</p>
<p>There is an extremely popular idea in my country that only international students who have attained medals or recognition in international science olympiads can get into Ivy League universities. How true is it? How do students with significant accomplishments in other extra curricular areas stack up?</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>All your extracurricular and parts of your application matter. However, you should know that it often more competitive for international students due to the limited number of spots, so the more acclaimed you are beyond your local area, the stronger your chances are to these schools.</p>
<p>Winning a medal at an international science olympiad would make it much, much easier to get into an Ivy League school. If you apply to four, you’re basically guaranteed admission to at least one as long as your grades and essays are great and there are no red flags in your app.</p>
<p>
All of the European and Asian undergraduate students that I have personally met who were attending one of the most selective universities (Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, MIT) either had awards from international competitions, significant political ties (e.g. their parents were important politicians or the students themselves) or came from a family of wealth. </p>
<p>But I doubt that the pool of people I personally know is representative of all international students at the top colleges. (For instance, as a graduate student in mathematics, I run into more math majors than students from other majors; and it wouldn’t be at all surprising if universities had a preference for prospective math majors with a history of success in math competitions. That doesn’t mean that prospective business or history majors are expected to have excelled in academic comptitions as well.)</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I know someone who used to work in the admissions office at Princeton. He explained that during his time there, Princeton assigned two numerical values to each application, representing the academic and extracurricular accomplishments of the applicant. You got 4 points for an international-level accomplishment, 3 for national, 2 for regional, and 1 for local-level accomplishments. Students needed at least 5 points to be competitive for admission (e.g. 3 points for academics and 2 points for extracurriculars) but only a fraction of the 5-point applicants got admitted. </p>
<p>I appreciate all the replies.</p>
<p>what if someone have more than 10 points?</p>
<p>
Is that in reference to the (former?) Princeton system I referred to above? In that system, there is no 10-point score. The maximum is 8 points: 4 points for academics and 4 points for extra-curriculars. Though it’s hard to imagine who might score 4+4 points. How many international math olympiad medallists are also olympic athletes?</p>
<p>okay thanks for the information. Seeming i have two nationals, 1 regional good for ECs but nothing in academics only 100/100 in Board exam - a big thing in India</p>
<p>If that’s what you have, then you apply to the Ivies where your “fit” is best, you apply to universities with merit scholarships, you apply to top 50 LACs and universities that have financial aid for internationals. </p>
<p>I can only report based on my daughter’s experience and those of her 8 classmates who have been accepted into Ivy league schools (HYPBP) + Stanford but as far as I am aware none of them have attained medals or recognition in international science olympiads. </p>
<p>^ Are they international (needing a f1visa )??? Didn’t they have another type of national award or recognition ? Considering only 1-5from a given country are admitted they ought to have had sth…</p>
<p>This is very true. Most indians/ Chinese studying at ivies have international medals (IMO being the big one).</p>
<p>so what we could do to get selected, we who don’t have medals?</p>
<p>Be lucky.</p>
<p>But seriously, stop worrying about getting into Ivy league schools. Be realistic, and work hard. That is all.</p>
<p>lucky???
Work hard!!! I know i tried, but could not get medal in olympiad , but thats why am tensed to find out what could compensate that?</p>
<p>Write strong essays. Apply widely- top 25 universities top25 lac ( top 1%in the us ) but also top 50 and top 100
universities ’ honors programs , top 50-125 lacs etc…</p>
<p>i am applying to top 15 univs QS ranking US - computer science …okay i could do that strong essays.
In ECs i have nationals , research work and a own startup. would a start up look good on profile?</p>
<p>Yes all would be good.
Qs ranks graduate programs not undergrad </p>
<p>But chances are not so good because i don’t have olympiad, anything else i could do in EC to enhance my chances, i have leadership skill- proof of it, work with a company also.</p>
<p>For those need blind and meet full need ivys or any such schools that have that stipulation, getting top test scores and being the top 1-3 student in your school will give you top points academically. Yes, any other recognizable award and medal will boost that as well. We know a set of Korean brothers, both international, one at Harvard, one at Yale, who got close to perfect SAT scores as well as on the SAT2s and were both top students. Their other brother was just accepted to Columbia. </p>