I am an international student from Japan and English is my third language. For these several months, I worked my ass of f and raised my SAT score to 1530(730v, 800m) However, my essay score came out and it was, surprisingly, 15. I am worrying whether this extremely low score can eliminate my chance towards prestigious colleges. Currently, I am thinking of Columbia, Rice, Stanford, UCB, Dartmouth, Brown, Williams, Swarthmore, Reed, Pomona, Vassar. I’d really appreciate any advice…
You have a great chance of getting into those colleges with a 1530, the essay does not hold that much weight compared to the overall score. Your sat score is great. Don’t worry too much.
Ivy League schools tend to have an acceptance rate of under 10%. some on your list are ballpark 6%… No one has a “great chance” of getting into them.
The schools you have on your list are reaches for any unhooked applicant. Be sure to create a college application list that includes reach, match, and safety schools that appear affordable and that you would be happy to attend.
Don’t worry about the essay. It has minimal importance compared to your actual score. There are much better things to worry about.
So what are your safety schools? Anyone applying to all ivy/top-tier schools needs safeties.
International applicants may have a different mindset – they already have safety schools in their home country, so they are only applying to the top US schools.
I’ve already applied to Lawrence as my “safety” school, and if I cannot get into any of them, I would just go to Japanese local unis(they are super sweet to students with 110 TOEFL scores, so it’s basically auto-admit). My matches would be Reed/Vassar(I am a boy)/Oberlin and I would definitely be happy there. 