Hi, I’d like to know my chances of getting in MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Caltech, UChicago, Princeton, Cornell, Yale and Johns Hopkins, or just the ones you know about. My intended major is Physics, leaning towards Astrophysics/Astronomy, although I also really like Neuroscience.
I’m a high school student about to start her senior year. I’m from Spain born and raised, so I’m a white hispanic female. I’m an only child, my mom went to what would be the equivalent of a state college and my dad only has high school studies. My mom was the first one in the family to go to college. I come from a low-middle class family and went to a school that’s sponsored by a public voucher system, so I had to pay a bit for going there but not as much as a private school. The education system in Spain is pretty bad compared to the rest of Europe, with a dropout rate of about 25%. University applications are only based on test scores and aren’t very competitive because there are no internationally renowned universities.
In my school and area (a working class neighborhood) there weren’t many opportunities for me to pursue my passion - science. There are no afterschool clubs that have anything to do with science, much less research opportunities. We barely even visit the lab at school. That’s because in Spain humanities and social studies are much more popular than science. The scientific community has been stuck since the 80’s, if you want to be a scientist you have to emigrate. Still, I managed to pursue my interest in science by attending two summer courses at two local colleges, one about neuroscience and another one about complex systems, just this summer. I’m also going to participate in several science and math competitions.
My grades are all 8’s, 9’s and 10’s (in a scale from 0 to 10), with a junior year average of 8.7. In Spain “middle school” lasts for four years, and “high school” is only two years, the equivalent of junior and senior years in America. “High school” is not mandatory and serves as a gap course between “middle school” and college, which is why there’s a huge gap between “middle school” and “high school”, and not a lot of people attend “high school”. I took the science specialization course (we also have art/humanities and social sciences specializations too) and despite having an 8.7 average, I have the highest grades in my class, which is made up of everyone doing the science specialization. I don’t know about school or grade ranks since we don’t have that here.
A strong point is that I’m in the process of earning a Dual Diploma, which means I will have the Spanish and the American high school diplomas. I’m taking the classes that students in Spain don’t take but are mandatory in America (eg. American history, American government) and with those and the classes that are common in both systems I will have a GPA, but I don’t know what it is yet. All I know is that in all my American classes I have only A’s so far, so I expect a high GPA. I will be the second or third student in my school to earn this Dual Diploma, since most people drop out because they can’t handle studying for both regular school and the American classes (it’s two additional classes each school year, and in a language that’s not our mother tongue). Thanks to this program, I speak English fluently. This is my third tongue, since I speak Spanish and Catalan, a regional language, as my mother tongues. I also studied French for two years before figuring out I wanted to dedicate myself to science.
I haven’t taken the SAT yet, but I have taken a practice test and got 1550 so I expect to get a near perfect score in the real exam, since I will have studied. I got 120 on the Internet Based TOEFL exam. I will take SAT Subject exams in Math Level 2 and Physics.
My teacher and counselor evaluations will be strong since they’re being written by teachers who know me and I know will write interesting letters, and the counselor, well, there’s only one at my school so it is what it is. I guess 8/10 or so.
My essays are going to be about the eccentric way I got into science, growing up in an environment where no one I knew liked science, and in a country where scientific investigation and education are very lacking. Explaining how I got into science is long and complicated, but trust me when I say it’s probably a story that would make you laugh. I guess I have a pretty unique story in that sense, so that’s a bonus. Another thing I’d like to talk about is how my interest in science (as well as music) allowed me to overcome hardships and inspired me to want to investigate ways to help others.
I have volunteered in a few ways, although I haven’t done too many hours because of lack of opportunity (again, since only test scores are considered in Spain, there aren’t many volunteering opportunities for minors). For one, me and two classmates did a research paper for school on the psychosocial bases of sexism, and since our teachers were very happy with the results, they asked us to talk about sexist micro-agressions (the focus of our research) to middle schoolers in a few small conferences for three consecutive years. I also volunteered at a nursing home, I went there and gave out snacks and chatted with the elders. Eventually I started “touring” different nursing homes, social centers, etc. and doing cool science experiments with elders and children alike as an introduction to science, especially since we can’t trust our education system to do so at school. Since I’ve enjoyed this activity a lot, I plan on starting a YouTube channel so that everyone can learn science, no matter where they are.
I also attend piano and singing classes since music is really important to me.
I would need financial aid, since I know most schools are need-aware for international students. My parents are below the 50K income range.
Let me know if I missed any important information, since I’m just learning about the American college application process. Sorry about it being so long but I think context is very important in my application.
Thank you!