Please give me a chance

Colleges and Universities A-Z Grinnell College
1

<p>Hi Guys,</p>

<p>I'm an international student (from South Africa) looking to apply to Grinnell ED and asking for near-full financial aid (yes, I know the pool is competitive)</p>

<p>I would like some input as to what my chances are of being admitted and receiving that kind of aid.</p>

<p>Objective:
• ACT: 32
• SAT II: 690 French, 710 Math II
• Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): N/A , Did the IB
• Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): School does not rank, but around top 5-10%
• AP (place score in parenthesis): Not Offered
• IB (place score in parenthesis): Predicted 40/45. English (6), Maths HL (6), Economics HL (7), Business SL (7), French (7), Physics (6)
Actual score: 36/45 (due to external factors such as losing our residence permit)
• Senior Year Course Load: Full IB Diploma
• Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): Duke of Edinburgh, School French Award, Open Water Diving Certification, IGCSE Distinction Award, IB Distinction Award
Subjective:
• Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Debate (Harvard MUN- Brussels, Belgium - Rep. Peru), Young Investor’s Award, Rajiv Gandhi Science Competition, Open Water Diving, Created own web design business (Innolounge), School Prefect (2005-2006 and again in 2010-2011), Guitar for 3 years, Gymnastics for 2 years, Duke of Edinburgh award programme, school fashion show, started own website for young south Africans looking to study abroad.
• Job/Work Experience: Working for my father’s company for two years, now working full-time as trainee accountant at an accounting firm.
• Volunteer/Community service: volunteered at local government school (painting & repair), cleaning beaches and rivers, teaching younger students with learning difficulties (peer-mentoring), participated in school charity walk
• Summer Activities: Internship, managing my online business
• Essays: Not sure; I thought that they were engaging and personal
• Teacher Recommendation: Very good
• Counselor Rec: Didn’t read… probably generic
• Additional Rec: Okay/ Generic</p>

<p>Other
• Country (if international applicant): South Africa
• School Type: (Small private school of around 700 students)
• Ethnicity: Caucasian
• Gender: Male
• Income Bracket: < $60,000
• Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): URM International (not sure about this), first-generation?</p>

<p>THANKS IN ADVANCE GUYS FOR ALL YOUR HELP AND SUGGESTIONS!</p>

2

<p>If you were applying as a domestic applicant, I’d say you looked great. See the latest Common Data Set for Grinnell. The problem is that there are no stats broken out for international applicants who require significant financial aid - but you can safety assume that the competition is intense and the stats correspondingly higher. That means that any ‘chancing’ would probably not be based on anything other than ‘a feeling.’ Not very reliable. </p>

<p>I assume you are applying elsewhere? There are no safeties for international applicants who need a lot of financial aid.</p>

3

<p>Hi M’s Mom, thank-you for your reply. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens, Grinnell is by far my first choice!</p>

4

<p>Make sure they know they are your first choice. The FA piece is the toughest, but it’s worth a try for sure.</p>

5

<p>Others should weigh in here because I don’t know about Harvard’s FA for international students, but I don’t see a downside to applying there too. Your passion for multiple ECs seems to fit their profile, as far as I know it.</p>

6

<p>I don’t want to be discouraging, and I think you should apply. I agree with M’s mom that if you were domestic you would look great. But the admit rate for international students this year was 7.5%, vs approx. 40% for domestic students. And, as part of the need blind discussion, the school has been pretty explicit that it is looking at the international pool as a source of full/high payers. The good news is that Grinnell has discussed increasing the international enrollment from the current 12%, but it is for the purpose of increasing the number of full/high payers. Grinnell is already need aware for international students, vs need blind for domestic.</p>