What are my Chances of getting into MIT, Stanford, Princeton and Yale or maybe even Caltech?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>INTERNATIONAL APPLICANT APPLYING FROM SOUTH-EAST ASIA</p>

<p>Academic Results:</p>

<ul>
<li>Achieved 4 A's in AS GCE A-levels. (Maths Physics, Computing, Economics)</li>
<li><p>A2 level Predicted grades are 4 A*s.
-Note: (4 a-levels is max no. allowed in my school")</p></li>
<li><p>SAT scores:</p>

<p>SAT I = 2360, </p>

<p>SAT 2 = Maths 2 = 800, Physics = 800</p></li>
</ul>

<p>Extra Curricular Activities:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Model United Nations(MUN) CCA for 2 years. Have attended and was part of the security council in an International conference held in Bangkok, Thailand and debated. </p></li>
<li><p>Took Part in "The Borneo Project" – A two week Residential Expedition to Borneo in support to community-led efforts to defend and improve forests, sustainable livelihoods, and human rights of the local people.</p></li>
<li><p>President of the schools Charity Fundraising and Awareness Club for Autism and Autistic children.</p></li>
<li><p>Self-Volunteered for Mental Health Clinic and local Autism to help children with disabilities. Attended once a week for 3 hours for 2 years(and still counting)</p></li>
<li><pre><code>Inter-School House Debate Winner/Champion
</code></pre></li>
<li><p>Volunteered for Teaching local kids through a reading buddy programme at a local school, working with Year 8 and 9 students and helping them with their English. (1 year and counting)</p></li>
<li><p>Penan Support- Awareness group leader, to support the Penan contacts by raising awareness, supporting their education, health and conducting various ways of fundraising.</p></li>
<li><p>Captain of my School "House" consisting of 100 students.</p></li>
<li><p>Vice Captain of the School's Cricket Team for 2 years.</p></li>
<li><p>Member of the School's Swimming Team for 3 years.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>NOTE: I am going to be receiving teacher recommendation letters (not too sure how many). any suggestions on how many or what type they should be would be helpful.</p>

<p>PLEASE feel free to leave any opinions, suggestions and criticism below and advise me on Grades/Subjects/CCAs etc.</p>

<p>ANY help is GREATLY Appreciated.</p>

<p>Note: I come from a low-income family. So I will apply for Financial Aid in every university.</p>

2

<p>Look at the individual school websites to see how many recommendations to send. Yale, for example, wants two from teachers (plus the school report from the guidance counselor can be thought of as a rec also). They strongly discourage additional recs unless they can discuss aspects of you that the others can’t. I can’t imagine a circumstance where I’d send more than one supplemental essay. </p>

<p>You should investigate which schools provide Financial Aid to internationals. Perhaps those in your list all do; I don’t know. </p>

<p>Please realize that gaining admission is difficult to those schools for anyone, and more so for internationals. Good luck, but be sure to have other options. </p>

3

<p>While your academics and standardised test scores are great, your ECs aren’t up to the mark. Remember, a lot of people apply to top colleges from SE-Asia every year. Most of them who are accepted at the colleges that you have asked to chance you for have done a lot of great work in the field that they intend to study. </p>

<p>From what it looks like, you intend to study engineering, right? You do not have a single activity which shows your interest towards that. This will hurt you a lot.</p>

<p>Asking for FA at Stanford and Caltech will be another blow.</p>

<p>Finally, can you be a bit more specific? If you are from countries such as India or China, your chances are pretty slim at MIT, Stanford and the likes. If you are from a country such as Nepal or Burma, a little better app and good essays would suffice.</p>

4

<p>Thanks for the reply. Im From Brunei by the way.</p>

5

<p>Thank you for your advice man. Really appreciate it. I’ll try to sort the recommendation letters out.</p>

<p>Apart from that, “Realistically speaking” considering my Academic results and CCA list, Do you think I’m in good shape to be considered by these schools?</p>

6

<p>@PetyrBaelish‌ - Based on your qualifications and your command of written English, I would think you are the type of international candidate who has a realistic chance of being accepted to these schools. That does not mean you will be accepted, but if you submit strong applications, you will have much better chances than the average international.</p>

<p>I would recommend that in addition to Stanford and Caltech, you apply to all six colleges in the US that are need blind and meet full need for internationals, these are Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, Amherst, and MIT. Some are already on your list, but not all. Due to the quirky nature of college admissions, it’s possible you could be accepted by Harvard, Dartmouth, or Amherst, but none of the schools on your original list.</p>

7

<p>@humblefool Thank you for your reply</p>

<p>Unfortuanately my school does not offer many activities relating to science and technolongy. and the ones offered are very basic, therefore i opted to choose for the more demanding and challenging ones.</p>

<p>Also living in a country like Brunei which is technologically behind most countries. Its hard to find Outside-of-school activities too. :-S </p>

<p>However, I managed to book something but since I haven’t done it yet did I not include it in my profile. I am going to attend a Technology workshop at Monash University in Australia in June next year to get some Hands on Practical experience. </p>

<p>Now with that said, apart from the above mentioned ways, can you advise me on how to improve my Extracurricular activities list in an engineering approach as you mentioned, so I can really demonstrate my qualities and talents to support my results.</p>

<p>I am going to attend a Technology workshop at Monash University in Australia in June next year to get some Hands on Practical experience. </p>

<p>Thanks</p>

8

<p>@PetyrBaelish‌,</p>

<p>See, even I come from a not so good school. I wasn’t given opportunities in Science and Tech. I had to go out, research ideas, mail hundreds of professors with a request to work in their lab and a few of them replied, interviewed me and let me work. I did my project and it got published and I also went to the ISEF.</p>

<p>What I mean to say is, the more effort you put into doing something that you love, the better. </p>

<p>For example, if you like programming, you can learn a programming language, teach kids at your school how to program, take part in programming contests, build things(apps, games etc.) </p>

<p>In short, do anything that shows immense interest towards your passion. However, you do not have a lot of time remaining until you apply RD. So, I suggest you to work on other parts of the application before doing any other EC activity.</p>

<p>I do not know anything about the workshop.</p>

<p>Second, coming from Brunei helps. as @BldrDad‌ mentioned, apply to all the need-blind universities. Since you are from Brunei, colleges looking to add to their diversity will be happy to take you in. </p>

<p>So, what should you do now?</p>

<p>Write great essays. Get great LORs. If you have the time to do something related to your passion about Science and Tech, do it too. But do not compromise on the essay. They are the single most important thing that can make or break your application.</p>

<p>Best of luck!</p>

9

<p>Your stats are perfect and you have a pretty good, if not excellent shot. But these colleges are a crapshoot and it’s impossible to say if you have a chance or not. It all now depends on your essays and letters of recommendation. Aside from the 6 need-blind colleges, here is a list of the most generous LAC’s: <a href=“To all international students asking for huge amounts of aid - International Students - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/international-students/1698406-to-all-international-students-asking-for-huge-amounts-of-aid-p1.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

10

<p>I think your stats are exceptional, but you have about the same chance of admission as any other extremely well qualified candidate.
These schools are a reach for anyone.
With your stats though, it is likely that you will be accepted to at least one school on your list.
Good luck!</p>

11

<p>“With your stats though, it is likely that you will be accepted to at least one school on your list.”</p>

<p>Not ture…</p>

12

<p>@humblefool‌ - I think you have given @PetyrBaelish‌ some excellent advice, but I am going to disagree with your on their ECs not being up to the mark. I strongly believe the importance of ECs is often overstated in these forums. Colleges are not rewarding people for their participation in ECs. Rather, they are using these ECs to help them find interesting people who are likely to succeed academically while making a positive contribution during their college years and beyond.</p>

<p>It may seem counter intuitive, but the most important aspects of ECs are passion, leadership, and how they distinguish the applicant from their peers. I personally found the OPs ECs to be a fascinating mix and would enjoy learning more about their involvement in these activities.</p>

<p>@PetyrBaelish‌ - I’d recommend you look closely at the colleges in the thread @Ghfdw17 posted. There are some great colleges there, even if they are not as well known as the schools in your list. I believe if you apply to most of the 8 schools mentioned above, as well as some of this schools on the list, you odds of admission to one of them, coupled with a generous financial aid package, would be very good.</p>

13

<p>Thank you everyone for their replies. I was a bit concerned my ECA list. @BldrDad‌ @humblefool Can anyone tell me what is the required number or list of ECs for these schools. Should I only include specific roles. Will mine suffice? Do I need more/less? Should I include every ECA I took part in? I have some others for which I’m just a casual member.</p>

<p>Finally, Does it has to be related towards my degree course in Uni, and what if I’m not sure what course to specifically do in Uni.
(I have a mindset of doing some technology related course in Uni though, However I’m also interested in Economics related fields.)</p>

<p>Thanks again! </p>

14

<p>@PetyrBaelish‌</p>

<p>Having great stats, activities and pretty good ECs AND coming from South-east Asian country is a good combination!
Not only your EC looks pretty good but also the fact that you did all those in countries where ECs aren’t so abundant as US will be a good boost.</p>

<p>The schools you listed are very unpredictable, but I think you may have some good shots.</p>

<p>However, I also recommend you to look for schools that give automatic merit scholarships based on scores and GPA just for the worst scenario. I think you need to apply for schools like Clemson University or U of Alabama/Auburn University as back ups.</p>

15

<p>@PetyrBaelish‌ - You should include all ECs you believe strengthen your application. Listing too many is unlikely to hurt you as long as you first list those for which you have had leadership roles or consider important. You should take great care with this section of the application - my advice is to describe each EC as it were a job description on a resume or CV. If you are just a casual member, describe your involvement as best you can, or omit it if you don’t think it is relevant.</p>

<p>All of these schools (including MIT) practice holistic admissions and require you to take courses in a wide variety of subjects, thus they favor people with diverse interests and capabilities over those who are strong at a single subject - the exception being academic superstars.</p>

<p>Few selective colleges in the US require you to apply for a specific course of study, and for most (some exceptions being Columbia, Duke, and CMU), you apply to the college as a whole, not to a school within the college, then chose your major later - be it biology, chemical engineering, economics, or philosophy. Many will ask you to list a prospective major, but it’s unclear whether this affects admissions decisions or not.</p>

<p>In my opinion, your will enhance your odds by emphasizing how you differ from other applicants, rather than trying to craft a perfect application that could as easily have come from Des Moines as Brunei.</p>

16

<p>BTW keep in mind Caltech is very horrible with financial aid and they would reject an applicant if they do not have sufficient funds for that student. 26 out of 107 students receive aid from them at an average of $43,263. But with perfect scores on Math and Physics you may have a chance. </p>

<p>Stanford is not need blind and not very generous but you do have a chance there. About 100 out of 500 students receive aid and I’m pretty sure you are above the 75th percentile.</p>

<p>Look at University of Pennsylvania, they currently give $14,000,000+ as aid to 300 international students. But it is one of the universities where you should apply to a specific course and not to the university itself. </p>

<p>Brown University although not need blind, gives aid to 211 out of about 650 international students an average of $46,653. </p>

<p>Williams is just as prestigious as Ivy League institutes and is very generous. It’s one of the best LAC’s in the US.</p>

<p>Macalester and Middlebury are LAC’s which are not need blind but VERY generous with their aid. More than 70% of their international students receive aid at an average more than $40,000. </p>