<p>Hi guys. I am a desperate Chinese with really low standardized test scores: SAT 1: 1750; SAT 2—Math 1: 700, Math 2: 700; TOEFL 75. (Plus I need full financial aid.) Do you know anyone with the same stats getting into Brown and other Ivies (I am also applying to Harvard, Yale, Penn Wharton, Cornell, Stanford.)</p>
<p>My essays are really unique—I worked hard on them.</p>
<p>I am pretty sure that most schools like Brown want you to have at least a score of 100 on the Toefl. Your scores are definitely a stretch but who knows</p>
<p>TOEFL is too low.</p>
<p>Oh please, no one can tell you if you’d get into the schools on your list (Harvard, Yale, Wharton, Brown, Stanford, Cornell) if you had a perfect score on all of your standardized tests. Such quantitatively ‘perfect’ people are routinely turned down (less often at Cornell, but still); but as others have mentioned, your scores are on the low side, so if you want to study in the US, consider adding some safeties to your list.</p>
<p>Actually it’s not that much of a secret that applying for FA as an International drastically reduces your shot, so if you scores are low AND you applied for aid you can guarantee you are out of the running, especially this year…and people with perfect academic records may be turned down, but I doubt randomly. There’s a rhyme and reason to everything.</p>
<p>I’d say do your very best to improve those scores a little, and as srrinath said, add some safties to that list, and apply to more internationally need-blind institutions. I think those schools require a minimum TOEFL score of 100 though, so work on that.
Good luck</p>
<p>Thank you guys very much for all your judgments. I had an alumni interview with Brown yesterday and he said “Your language is very great!”</p>
<p>I do not hope too much. I just tried my best. Let the admission committee decide the result!</p>
<p>Probably not going to happen…</p>
<p>There is a certain perception in parts of America, but especially in Asia that the only good schools are ivies, Stanford, MIT, and Caltech. This is not true by any means. Your scores are perhaps too low for these schools, but most American students with 2300+ SATs can’t get into these schools either. I know that the USWNR rankings are very important in China, but look at other highly ranked schools (schools that are actually ranked even higher) that will provide you with the same quality education, if not better. Look at UChicago, Northwestern, WashU, Rice, Johns Hopkins, Emory etc.</p>
<p>I have a CR score of 750 and a W score of 750 and I was deferred. Asking for practically full financial aid too. </p>
<p>Honestly, don’t think you have that great of a chance. If your English language skill is truly great, I hope that your interview will be enough to outweigh your weak standardized test scores, but I doubt it. If Brown is concerned about your proficiency, I think that’ll seriously impact your chances. Good luck though! The rest of your application might be impressive enough to get you in :D.</p>
<p>Thank you so so much!
I wish all the best for you in the application process, too!</p>
<p>Hey pleasewharton, I don’t want to be this frank but chances are you will not get into any Ivy League school. You should instead focus on institutions that offer full-rides and the major you’re interested in (I’m assuming something math-related). </p>
<p>I would look into state schools with rolling admissions and apply to those that interest you and those at which you have a good chance at a full-ride (and this may have to be an academic full-ride because not too many institutions outside the Ivy League offer financial-based full-rides).</p>
<p>
Spoken by someone who no doubt speaks from first-hand cultural experience.
I’ve had that conversation from a Chinese national who himself characterized the Chinese obsession with the USNews rankings as “infantile.”
Anyway, Pleasewharton, get past your parents’ aspirations for you and get realistic. If you were rich and connected and negotiated the quid pro quo, you might get in – no, you would definitely get in.
But you’re not rich and your scores are too low and you’re a very run-of-the-mill candidate.
Brown and the others on your list get hundreds of Asian applicants.
What were you thinking?
You have no chance. None.
Apply to the University of South Florida in Tampa. You’ll get in.</p>
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<p>Ted, I’m sorry but I have to call you out on this one. In general, International Applicants face much lower odds, especially if they apply for financial aid or have lower TOEFL scores. This should be communicated. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, many would find your post insulting and excessive. What authority do any of us have to tell the OP he is a “run-of-the-mill candidate”. What is a “run-of-the-mill candidate” anyways? </p>
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<p>Are you saying that Asian applicants are “run-of-the-mill candidates” and that the OP is such simply because he is from China? All we know about the OP is that he is from China and has a somewhat lower TOEFL score. It is unfair for us to judge him as “run-of-the-mill” just because of his scores or demographics. Short of applying to Brown just because “Emma goes there”, we should not call anyone “run-of-the-mill”. </p>
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Never question someone for pursuing their dreams. And never say never. Moreover, it is insulting to tell him that he is way out of his league and needs to apply to a random state school just because it is easy to get into.</p>
<p>I’m not Chinese nor Asian American, but I nevertheless find your post very insulting. Don’t take my reply as a personal attack, but just be more sensitive next time.</p>
<p>@floatingriver.
I take all of your points and I meant no offense.
By “run of the mill” I meant the bare, raw test scores he has given us in his very short original post.
He may indeed be a gem, personally.
His test scores, which is all we have of him, are mediocre, run of the mill.<br>
By “hundreds of Asian applicants” I meant exactly that, no pejorative implication whatsoever.
And I’ll repeat it: the schools this person is applying to get hundreds of Asian applicants, including Chinese.
He will be competing with those hundreds for a small fraction of a small fraction: 10 percent of 10 percent. The international students’ fragment of an aggregate admit rate of 7 percent (Harvard) or 9 percent (Brown) or 12 percent (Penn).
You do the math.
Half a percent? One percent?
And those other international applicants have higher test scores than he does.
And they can pay.
It does this applicant no favor at all to be less that honest.
In fact, it does him a disservice.
Look again, if you will, at the six – ONLY SIX – schools this guy’s parents (no doubt) have made him apply to: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, Wharton, Cornell.
My post was aimed at his parents as much as him.
He and they need a bath of cold water. They need to start over with a different list.
They won’t do that if people say “follow your dreams.”
Because that would be the cruel hoax.</p>
<p>I’m with tnedifnocegelloc. </p>
<p>I honestly think that if that is really your list, OP, you won’t be going to college in the States next fall. I don’t know what the rest of your application looks like, and there is a chance that it could make all the difference, but realistically, your chances are so low. </p>
<p>But even if you were to convince your parents to let you apply to less selective schools, it’s really hard to find safeties if you’re an international asking for aid (especially because your standardized test scores won’t be getting you any merit scholarships). The schools that are really way less selective don’t do financial aid for internationals at all and the schools that are more selective do offer it but place you in an even more competitive pool. But I guess since most deadlines have already passed, there’s no point in discussing where you should have applied. If you end up doing it again though, look into Macalester. </p>
<p>I thought state schools = federal grants =/= internationals, tnedifnocegelloc? </p>
<p>But yeah, I really wish you luck. I ended up applying to 14 more schools after being deferred from Brown. I love every single one of them so much, and will be veryyyy happy if any of them accept me. Some of them are actually on Page 2 of US News LAC rankings <em>cue dramatic music</em>.</p>
<p>^ Thanks for the corroboration, Heart.
And good luck in your second round. Macalester’s a great college and comparatively rich.
In fact, these days I’m counseling kids to go to liberal arts colleges, because the admissions-marketing culture really is corrupting the USNews front-page schools.
That corruption is palpable at Brown, which was a gem in the 1980s, but is like all the rest now.
Go to Macalester or Grinnell. (And bring warm clothing.)</p>
<p>Dear tnedifnocegelloc,</p>
<p>Thank you very much for your thoughtful posts and pieces of useful advice. I really appreciate all of those!</p>
<p>But, hey, I am a girl. Did I sound like a boy? 
And, for your information, my parents did not make me apply to the schools in my list. I saved the money and went through the application procedure on my own.</p>
<p>I don’t know if your essays can make up your low SAT scores. Although Brown doesn’t take SAT scores that seriously, I doubt if you’ll get accepted. </p>
<p>This is my guess:
Harvard (rej), Yale (rej), Penn Wharton (rej), Cornell (rej or waitlist), Stanford (rej), Brown (rej or waitlist or acceptance if your essays are truely exceptional)</p>
<p>
Actually, Brown is a certain reject because Brown has the lowest level of financial aid to international students and the OP needs money. Also, the popular notion that “Brown doesn’t take SAT scores that seriously” is nonsense. Brown takes SATs very seriously and says so explicitly in its admissions guidelines.
On March 31, 2010, Brown will accept only about 8 percent of its regular decision applicants – I say again, 8 percent, or about 1 in 12. Brown is fourth hardest of the eight Ivies to get into and has been for many years. The notion that it is somehow an “easier” Ivy to get into is urban legend rubbish, as generations of disappointed applicants have discovered.</p>