Match Me-Looking for US Target/Safety/reach schools as a student studying in the UK [international, GCSE 99999998877, political science, can full pay]

Chance Me / Match Me!
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International Student (Hong Kong China Passport but I’m studying in the UK)
*attending private boarding school
*Asian Male

  • third generation to college

Intended Major(s)
Political science, is definitely something humanities related
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Predicted Grades for GCSEs:
-History: 9
-English Literature:9
-English Language: 9
-Religious Studies: 9
-Maths: 9
-Ancient History: 9
-Chinese: 9
-Biology: 8
-Chemistry:8
-Physics: 7
-French: 7

Awards

  1. Short Story published
  2. 2020 Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition Gold Award
  3. 4th place, Top Finalist and Honourable Mention in the Trust for Sustainable Living 2023 International Student Essay Competition (Secondary category)
  4. Highly Commended Essay in the 2023 Minds Underground Medicine Essay Competition
  5. Highly Commended Essay in the 2023 Minds Underground Young Minds Essay Competition
  6. Second runner-up in the Hong Kong 100 Fun Christmas English Writing Contest
  7. 2023 School McEachran Prize (english lit and speaking) Junior Category Winner
  8. Highly commended in the 2023 School Junior Essay Prize
  9. School Junior Debating Prize Winner
  10. Trust for Sustainable Living Debate Winner-Secondary Category
  11. One Outstanding delegate award at Model United Nationals (MUN), 1 Highly commended delegate at MUN, 1 commended delegate at MUN and member of a highly commended delegation at MUN

Community Involvement

  1. School Volunteering Publicity Team
  2. Volunteering at Primary School
  3. Volunteering at Elderly Care centre for those with cognitive disabilities
  4. Using VR technology to raise awareness for refugees in Hong Kong

Extracurriculars
Leadership:
-School Eco Committee Leader
-House representative to Eco Committee
-House Debating Team Captain (won school competition)
-Member of Inter-School Conference MUN Organising Committee
-Ambassador for School’s delegation to MUN Conference
-School Chapel Choir and Grade 6 Proficiency at Hong Kong Schools’ Music Festival (Piano)

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Do you have a budget for annual college costs from your family? Otherwise…this is a shot in the dark.

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These factors only apply to US domestic applicants (and “third generation” is a non-factor). You’re going to be competing with the international pool.

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Most important…you need a budget. If you are hoping for need based or merit aid, you need to check to see IF the colleges actually give these to international students. And remember, many colleges are either need aware for admissions or don’t meet full need for international students…or both.

If your family can be full pay at $80,000 a year or so…then this is not a concern.

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my family can afford it so budget is not a concern. won’t need aid. can full pay no problem so as I said cost is not an issue

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budget stretches to as much as I need, cost really isn’t a concern. I just wanna look at what kind of school I can get into with these stats so far

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@skieurope can you translate this student’s high school grades into what the equivalent U.S. ones would be?

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Yes. With the caveat that AO’s are familiar with grading scales and students should not convert unless told to.

But for those unfamiliar, 7-9 are in the A-range

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Can you give us a little more direction? Geographic preference? Size of college? Weather? Urban/rural/suburban? Religious or secular.

@2008 if this is your real name, I would suggest you change it. Here is how:

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This is excellent (for the US scale: 7 is an A, with 8 and 9 distinguishing between the top 25%, top 10%, top 2% nationally).
However, in order to apply to US colleges, GCSEs are not sufficient; you need to complete the IB diploma or A-Levels (3 academic subjects or Maths/FurtherMaths+2 but in your case it would make sense to stick to Humanities/Social science).
A-Levels could be Philosophy, Political Science, and one from Religious Studies&Ethics, History, English Language&Literature, Chinese, French… (whichever you like best).

Since budget is not an issue, you would likely apply to Top 40 universities/top25 LACs. It even helps at need-aware universities, as does your choice of major.

For political science, American University, UMD (applying to Honors), Dickinson would be safeties if you continue this level of academic achievement and express interest (ie., create a college email address, open the emails they send you, click on links of interest, communicate with the college starting in the Spring of Year12.)
Macalester, Kenyon, Tufts, Hamilton, GWU are probably 50-50.
Georgetown and other Ivy+ universities are all in play for you.
However, because these reject almost all who apply, the uncertainty is extremely high (no one can predict that you WILL get into one of them because a lot of factors we don’t control are factored in), you will need a list with 2 solid safeties and a couple matches before you focus on your reaches.
CommonApp will open Aug1 just before Year13 and hopefully at that point you’ll have a good list.

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If you choose to apply to UMD, do so in the early round. They accept the vast majority of their students in their early round of admissions.

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Note that political science places under the academic division of social sciences (with fields such as economics, sociology and anthropology). The humanities represent another major academic division (composed of fields such as classics, philosophy and literature). Nonetheless, should you want to study political science, this site may offer you ideas for colleges to consider:

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I would check out some of the schools on this list…there are some really good schools (not sure about specifically for your potential major interests), and a high percentage of international students seems favorable for you for admissions and student life purposes.

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/most-international

These might be good for safeties if any match your major interests.

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/slideshows/universities-with-the-highest-international-student-acceptance-rates?onepage

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Don’t really mind about the size and weather of it, preferably urban or suburban but I don’t mind rural if its a good college

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I was thinking English Literature, History and Politics for A-Level, would that make the cut?

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Some schools that you may want to look into include:

Some schools you may want to consider, sorted by approximate difficulty to get into, include:

Highest Probability

  • Seton Hall (NJ): About 6100 undergrads

Higher Probability

  • American (D.C.): About 8500 undergrads
  • George Washington (D.C.): About 12k undergrads

Medium Probability

  • Brandeis (MA): About 3600 undergrads
  • College of the Holy Cross (MA): About 3k undergrads
  • Connecticut College: About 1800 undergrads
  • Fordham (NY): About 9900 undergrads
  • Occidental (CA): About 2k undergrads
  • Trinity (CT): About 2200 undergrads

Lower Probability

  • Dickinson (PA ): About 2200 undergrads
  • Lafayette (PA ): About 2700 undergrads
  • Lehigh (PA ): About 5500 undergrads
  • Macalester (MN): About 2200 undergrads
  • U. of Richmond (VA): About 3200 undergrads

Lowest Probability

  • Claremont McKenna (CA): About 1400 undergrads, but part of the Claremont Consortium which has about 5k undergrads in it
  • Emory (GA): About 7100 undergrads
  • Georgetown (D.C.): About 7600 undergrads
  • Hamilton (NY): About 2100 undergrads
  • Johns Hopkins (MD): About 6100 undergrads
  • Middlebury (VT): About 2900 undergrads

If you get a better sense of what you might want out of a college experience, let us know and we can fine-tune our suggestions.

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Philosophy would be considered harder than Literature but if you love Literature and are reasonably certain you can get an A/A*, it fits with your choice of major.
History and Politics would be solid choices if you want to study Political Science in college (at uni).
All 3 subjects are well-respected and match what you want to study so as long as you love them and continue to get As, you’re good :+1::+1:

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Well I probably want to start my career in the UK or in Asia, so its best for a college that has a certain prestige attached to it (higher up on the rankings even if its not necessarily academically better)

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basically ones with higher employee reputation

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Which rankings would you be using?
USNWR National Universities and National LACs? National Universities and Regional Universities? National Universities only? Forbes?
If you want to start your career in the UK why not try for Oxbridge, St Andrews/Edinburgh, and a couple others that would be well-known in the UK - the process as you know is quite different from the US process and more predictable - or are you doing both and giving yourself time to choose based on both results?
An issue is that what’s known and reputable in the US may not be well-known in Asia, colleges with strong “employer reputation” may run the gamut, etc.

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