<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>I'm an international student from Pakistan looking to apply to the US in the coming admissions cycle. These are my stats:</p>
<p>SAT I: 2290 (1490)
SAT II: Will take in October.
IGCSEs: 5 A<em>s 6 As
Predicted A2 grades: A</em>A*AA</p>
<p>ECs:</p>
<p>Debating - 3 yrs; Executive Member, Debating Society; Winner/Finalist in several tournaments; shortlisted for national team; best parliamentary and declamation speaker award in my school.
MUN squad.
Drama - President; Lead Role + Director of the school play.
Journalism/Writing - Chief Editor, Literary Magazine; Paid Freelancer for a national daily newspaper, July 2011 till date; Best Essay Writer Award in my school.
Research Intern at Legal Think Tank; Community Service - Microcredit NGO; National Outreach Program, Teacher.</p>
<p>I'm looking for a solid safety school, a place where I can be confident in gaining admission. I'm not asking for financial aid, however I do wish to receive a merit scholarship, a full tuition one preferably. Which of the three schools in the thread title are the best for what I'm looking for? Emphasis on academics especially in the social sciences i.e. Econ/Int'l Studies. Any other suggestions would be welcome. Not picky about Location.</p>
<p>Curious - why those three colleges in particular?</p>
<p>theyre ranked in the 50-70 range andgive substantial merit aid</p>
<p>Sent from my GT-S5660 using CC</p>
<p>For International studies, check out Macalester and Earlham Colleges. They are the #1 and 2 most international (by ratio) LACs in the country, and give out substantial need-based aid (and I know Earlham gives some merit aid as well, check Macalester’s website since I’m not as familiar with their aid). You could be confident in getting admission to both. They both have excellent abroad study programs and very diverse student bodies (Earlham has 22% international students or so from 82 countries - Macalester has similar numbers).</p>
<p>I go to Earlham - I know that there’s at least one Pakistani student here, and there are quite a few from that geographical region. I don’t know about L&C, Rhodes, or St. Lawrence, other than that a friend at L&C loves it there.</p>
<p>Yeap, already applying to Mac, but it doesn’t give merit aid, and it doesn’t seem like a proper safety to me? does that make sense?</p>
<p>I’ll look into Earlham as well. Thanks!</p>
<p>Rhodes has no application fee, supplement, and seem to have a very good international studies program, with economics. Plus, they have a lot of internship programs, etc. I think I’m going with Rhodes. One thing I’m unsure about; Is Memphis ultra-conservative? Is there very little diversity?</p>
<p>Actually you’re right I think - I guess I wouldn’t say Macalester or Earlham are safeties (though they probably would be if you were from the US)… admissions can be strange for international students.</p>
<p>You /should/ get into Earlham, though. Not sure about Macalester’s admission rates.</p>
<p>Earlham has 70ish percent admit rate so thats doable. But Mac took 35% this year.</p>
<p>@Princeton, I think that’s acceptance, not admittance - and I’m not sure if it applies to international admissions. Last year was a record year for # of international students that applied, and I heard that they turned down more than usual. Still, with your scores you should be able to count on being accepted here.</p>
<p>About Memphis, like most major cities it isn’t /super/ conservative. It is in a pretty conservative area, though.</p>
<p>yeah true.</p>
<p>but Rhodes is apparently a more international school than most southern schools are. Plus, it’s honour cose prohibits all kinds of discrimination, so i guess that means it’s pretty liberal, no?</p>
<p>What the university says and what it does are not necessarily the same thing. I don’t know anything about Rhodes, but a simple way to assess the diversity of a campus community is to go to the campus website’s “campus organizations” page and see what kinds of clubs/student groups/organizations they have to offer. This isn’t perfect, but I’ve found it to be revealing at times.</p>
<p>Things to look for: Interfaith groups, Atheist/Secular groups (SSA is a good example), Black Student Union, College Republicans, College Democrats, etc. If they have a good variety of those, they are probably “walking the walk” (though also ask students to make sure that what they have on the website /actually exists/)</p>
<p>Edit: also, if you see those it probably means that there is a good amount of diversity among the students as well, not just tolerance on the part of the administration.</p>
<p>And another thing about Earlham - Scores are more important for international students than they are for domestic, but the admissions office places a strong emphasis on interviews. Honestly, I don’t know if international students do interviews, though I’d assume that there are phone interviews. Take these seriously - we’ve denied competitive applicants before for poor interviews.</p>
<p>they have college democrats and GSA. they also have several religious clubs.</p>
<p>That’s good to hear. It’s always difficult for international students since campus visits are typically impossible… Try to find students to talk to, that might be the best way to get a feel for the campus without actually going there.</p>
<p>This is my almost final list. Have to cut a few.</p>
<p>HPYS
Columbia
Penn
Wash U
Emory
UCB
UCLA
UMich</p>
<p>Amherst
Pomona
Middlebury
Macalester</p>
<p>Rhodes</p>
<p>thats 16. Wash U, Middlebury and Rhodes have no supplemental essays. and Mac and Rhodes have no app fee for me.</p>
<p>Your list seems very reach heavy. Those are all highly selective or more selective schools. I suggest adding a couple less selective schools and deleting several of the highly selective ones.</p>
<p>I might add UVA in Columbia’s place? Would that be better?</p>
<p>Out of these, which do you think I have a decent chance of getting into?</p>
<p>I am no predictor, so I won’t try. Originally, you were looking for safeties. A safety should be one where you are guaranteed acceptance and that you can afford.</p>
<p>One that comes to mind is the University of Kansas. It’s in a great college town, has a very good journalism school (from your ECs thought this might be of interest) and a great debate team.</p>
<p>Another option would be the University of Alabama. They offer some really nice scholarships. It is aso in a nice college town.</p>
<p>Which schools would one be guaranteed acceptance to? Where one is above the 75th sat percentile and where the acceptance rate is 50+% i suppose?</p>