I feel very bad at the moment. I don’t know why i was rejected by so many places. What is wrong with me? It must be my personality because my scores were pretty good (2370, 780 and 750 SATs and all 5s on APs and AAA*AAA on A levels). Does this mean that all the admissions people predicted that I was not able to succeed in the future? That my personality was not special enough to make it into their school?
I applied to all eight ivies and the best I got was a waitlist at Penn. Is it because I am asian? Is it because I am international? Is it because I’m asking for full aid?? Yet I’ve seen people in those situations get into top schools. What is wrong with me? My essays were pretty good (had people read them over) and I’ve done a lot of ECs and leadership e.g. performed at Carnegie, represented the country in a sport, sang in choir and debated all throughout high school, coordinator for a national youth trust, national finalist in pageants, modelled, held down part time jobs all throughout high school-- amongst other things! I’ve also attained Top in the World Awards for A levels, national scholar awards in 4 subjects, 4th in the national economics competition, AP Scholar with Honor, etc etc. My mother never went to university either and we are low income.
So what did I do wrong?? Where did I go wrong? Did they not see any potential in me?? I want to work on Wall street-- does the fact I won’t have the brand name Ivy education mean that this is now a pipe dream? or that if i do get to Wall street I’ll be stuck in some low position because of the lack of prestige of my degree? If I can’t even get into a university in the US, what are the chances I’ll be able to work there? Why would anyone choose me when I have ‘xx’ uni on my resume versus someone who has “princeton”?
I am very sad right now, although I keep trying to tell myself that admissions is a crapshoot. but it can’t be so if every one of them rejected me–there must be a tangible reason. It hurts even more because I am seeing some people getting into UPenn with 2100 SATs and no ECs and Leadership just because they are full paying and paid for a consulting company to write fake ECs and essays for them. And now I just ate so much junk food I’ll probably get lumpy and lose my contract but I feel so bad I just keep eating and the cycle just makes me feel bad again.
Where are your safety schools and your matches? The schools you applied to - all the Ivies have all have acceptance rates of less than 10% and turn away more perfect and close to perfect stats kids than they accept. Yes, there are many asian applicants. I’m sure you probably did nothing wrong in your application and its not a personal decision that the schools made not to accept you. You do realize that the odds are slim right? Not just for you, but for pretty much everyone? The only thing you did wrong was apply to all 8 Ivies based on prestige instead of building a balanced list of a range of reach, match, and safety schools based on fit.
Don’t eat your feelings. Go for a walk or run. Go outside and get some fresh air.
Internationals who need financial aid often need to apply over two years.
Your list was too restrictive though - unless you applied to more colleges than those
Your profile is excellent. You’ll get into a college somewhere if you take a gap year.
And, like so many others in this forum, it seems like you didn’t apply to any match schools. All top colleges are a reach for all studetns, no matter what your test scores, grades and ECs. Please stop the pity party. If you live in the UK, you maybe should have thought of applying to college there, and if a US school came through, you could have and a bird in the hand. Take a gap year and use it wisely. What has happened is that you thought your stats would assure your future success, but you didn’t plan well. You had no back up plan, and that is your mistake. You probsbly will not let that happen again, becasue you are clearly intelligent. Best of luck to you.
Do you mean permanently? International students need to expect to return home after their VISAs expire. I think they get a year after graduation to get work experience, but that’s all.
You don’t need to attend an Ivy to be successful. There must be other colleges that will help you get a job when you return to your country. Your stats are very good, so take a gap year and apply to different schools.
^ To this end. you may be better off attending a great UK school and work for a financial services company there and hopefully transfer for a stint in NYC. You’re simply not allowed to get a degree here and then waltz into any job you wish without regard to immigration rules. And Wall St firms aren’t going to sponsor you for a work visa when there are tons of great US applicants.
Take a gap year and do something constructive with it.
Apply again and include some universities that are more statistics driven than “holistic admissions” driven (like MIT, University of Chicago, Wash. U in St. Louis, Vanderbilt, Rice and Carnegie Mellon) and some non-Ivy Wall Street Feeders like Stanford and Duke.
Also include some top Liberal Arts Colleges (“LACs”). Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore and Pomona are the LAC equivalent of HYPS. Not only do these colleges provide an outstanding education, but they get less attention from international applicants.
Think about what it is that US universities find attractive and how you positioned yourself through your essays. Statistically you are in good shape, but somewhere in your essays and recommendations there was likely a disconnect.
Stanford, Duke, MIT, UChicago and the Top LACs (particularly Williams and probably Amherst), are Ivy equivalents and will give you as much of a shot at Wall Street as any of the Ivies, and more than some.
Finally, take a look at the following link which might prove helpful assuming you reapply: