So I’m an international student who wants to apply at Harvard’s CS department and here are my stats:
UW GPA: 3.88
SAT: 1540 (R&W - 750; Math - 790)
SAT Subject tests (both Math): 750 both of them
Experience of 3 years and 8 months of working as a developer for tech startups. I’m an Android dev and have good testimonials from guys with 20 years of experience in the IT field who actually hired me. I worked remotely with a company from the US, one from France and many others from the UK and Australia on smaller projects.
I have 3 live apps on Google Play and with one of them I actually applied to a startup incubator. It has 1000 downloads, barely 170 active users (because I found out I need to make a web platform with this tech I made).
Have been studying Machine Learning for one year (Andrew Ng’s course, couple of books read) and now I take datasets from Kaggle and play with them (in Python).
Build an app for diabetic people in my town. Made a focus group, showed them the app and they actually liked it. It helpes them keep track of their glucose and ketones levels and it also offers nutrition advice.
Read a ton of books about psychology and persuasion and built a mini online course for freelancers. I ended up helping 20 people get 3x the rates that they were previously charging as well as better contracts than before.
Spoke at a freelancer seminar in my capital city and inspired people to take action and raise their rates.
I love archery, trained for about 10 months but had to give up because my family couldn’t afford it at the time.
Volunteered in 2 summers at a local oratory for children. We organized a wide range of educational activities.
Oh and my family makes $40K per year (before taxes).
That’s about it. I know that Harvard kids are geniuses so I really don’t know if I might give it a shot…my GPA is low…
Stop right there! Not all international students are created equal.
International applicants do NOT have the same odds as US applicants. Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford and MIT (among other colleges) limit the number of international students to about 10% to 11% of an incoming freshman class. That means that Harvard admits about 160 to 190 international students per year – and most of those students are from 6 countries: Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, China, Japan and South Korea.
To see how many students from your country are currently attending Harvard, go to: http://www.hio.harvard.edu/statistics. From the pull-down menus, select STUDENTS, HARVARD COLLEGE (the undergraduate school) and YOUR COUNTRY. Be sure to divide that number by 4 to get an idea of about how many students are admitted each year from your country.
Harvard doesn’t publish the number of applications from each country, but there could be more than 1000 students applying to Harvard from your country in any given year for a limited number of slots. To be admitted you have to be the best-of-the-best from your country. Those are terrible odds, no matter what your stats.
In addition, you should be aware that all student’s apply to Harvard College as Liberal Arts Majors, and do not choose a major, called a concentration, until their sophomore year. So, whatever students select as their “intended major” when they apply to the college has absolutely no bearing on what major they will ultimately graduate with.
Colleges ask about your “intended major” to see how committed you are to your interests – the idea being that your commitment, energy and drive is a transferrable skill. So whatever student’s write down as their “intended major” they should make sure they have documented evidence in the rest of their application of their commitment to that major.
Can we clarify the term “diabetes” ? As the parent of a kid with type 1 this is a pet peeve. Are you (and xfewds) referring to type 2? Do you know the difference? And please don’t use the term “diabetic.” Think about it. “People with diabetes” is much better.
What exactly does your app do? Either of you. Curious.
Anyway…you seem like a great candidate. Have you looked at Brown?
xfewds, why did you feel you needed to make an app for your own diabetes? Are you on a pump and a CGM? You can now track your blood sugars in real time, with a graph, arrows for up and down movement of blood sugars, a number, and alarms for highs and lows. If you felt the need to create an app, I am assuming you are not on a CGM and suggest you try it.
Still waiting to hear details of this specific accomplishment listed by the OP.