Chance me please! (i know a lot of these are reach schools and are too high up )
Pomona, Claremont Mckenna, Williams, Barnard, Vassar, Emory, Hamilton, Haverford, Franklin and Marshall
I am an international student from studying at a premier IB school. I lived in the US for several years
I get a 37/42 in IB which is a 39/45
I get a 6/7 in 5 of my subjects and a 7/7 in one
i got honours throughout my school life - 7-10th grades
My GPA is a 3.75 (UW)
weighted GPA is much higher because of course rigour
My SAT is a 1500 - hoping to superscore in my next attempt to get a higher score
eng - 720
math - 780
I have some extracurriculars
basketball (varsity)
marathons - raised a lot of money for charity
piano grade 7
leadership positions
community service
2 internships at big companies
compose my own songs - i sing and play the piano
Prospective major - english or psychology (both strongest subjects)
not looking for financial aid
i dont know which colleges come under dream. would williams and pomona be too high ? what colleges would come under target and safety
Im mostly looking at small LAC’s
There are awesome LACs all over the country with differing social and academic vibes, sports and party scenes, weather, and surroundings. Based on your preferences, we can help you narrow down the great many quality options into a mix of reach, match and (almost…) safety schools that fit you and your budget.
So:
Do you have any preferences regarding academic calendar -- semesters, quarters, trimesters?
Do you require an open curriculum or are you ok with some distribution requirements?
Would you prefer to go to school in a big city, a smaller city or town, or in a rural location?
Do you have any location/weather preferences? Do you prefer four seasons or sunshine and relative warmth (little rain or snow) all the time? Do you care which region the school is in? (the better question is, would you rule out a school based on weather or location?)
Do you need a big party scene? Would a big party scene turn you off?
Are you a big sports fan? Do you want a school with a lot of school spirit, excitement for the sports teams, etc.?
Are you more interested in spending time doing things in a city/town, or doing things outdoors? (related to #3)
Does political activism excite you or turn you off? Or do you not really care either way?
Do you need much financial aid? How much money is your family willing to spend per year?
The answers to these questions – if you do have strong preferences related to them – will help us to help you form a list of schools that fit you well.
LACs without a huge (known) party scene – at least by reputation – and not huge rah-rah sports factories. I’ll leave out schools with D1 sports. No big environmental or academic preferences other than that they offer English and Psych – double-check them for Psych:
Reach:
Williams
Amherst
Swarthmore (Swat)
Pomona
Claremont McKenna
Low reach:
Bowdoin
Middlebury
Wellesley
Haverford
Carleton
Vassar
Smith
Wesleyan
Hamilton
Colby
Grinnell
Barnard
High match:
Reed
Oberlin
Bryn Mawr
Bates
Macalester
Kenyon
Scripps
Pitzer
Match:
Franklin & Marshall
Mount Holyoke
Gettysburg
Sewanee
Skidmore
Whitman
Occidental
Trinity College
Connecticut College
Denison
Dickinson
Rhodes
St. Olaf
Low match:
Beloit
Lawrence
Earlham
Centre
Hampshire
Sarah Lawrence
St. John’s College
Hobart & William Smith
DePauw
College of Wooster
Agnes Scott
St. Lawrence
Willamette
U of Puget Sound (UPS)
Wheaton (IL)
Kalamazoo
Knox
Wheaton (MA)
Hendrix
New College of FL
There are high quality schools at all of those selectivity levels.
Safeties: LACs ranked below about 90th on the USNews ranking.
Now it’s up to you to do a lot of reading so you can start making your list.
With respect to your dream school, that spot should be reserved for the school that most appeals to you, more so than that which would be technically the most difficult to get into. You might find that you’d prefer the slightly more accessible Vassar or Hamilton to Williams, for example.
It can also be helpful to look up the percentage of international students attending a given college. At some small LAC’s, the admit rate for international applicants is tiny, with many applicants vying for very few international spots. Others are much more international-friendly (especially for full-pay internationals, as international admissions often aren’t need-blind even at schools where US admissions do not consider financial need). Plus, it can be nice to have a larger international cohort, though you may not feel that need as much as a student who’s never lived in the US might.
Macalester is a LAC with a particularly large and growing number of internationals (now around 16%); and its location in the Twin Cities gives students access to many activities and cultural resources. It could be a particularly good one to have on your list.
Also consider smaller private universities that take significant numbers of international students.
Brandeis University, with only 3600 undergrads, isn’t that much bigger that the larger LAC’s, and 21% of its student body is international.
(Wesleyan, with 3000 students, is considered a LAC, and has 10% international students - also a potentially great option.)
University of Rochester, Rice, Brown, Yale and Tufts all have under 7000 undergrads and have more than 10% international students.
Lastly, you might like the College for Creative Studies, which is a self-contained program within UC Santa Barbara (requires an additional competitive application) with a wonderful Writing & Literature program https://www.ccs.ucsb.edu/majors/writing-literature (Students can also take classes and double-major or minor from the offerings of the larger university… which is ~9% international.)
Just a quick question–is that your predicted IB score or have you already received it?
Also, psychology tends to be a more popular, and thus more competitive, major at many of the schools you listed, so that might be a factor into admissions, which is something to keep in perspective.
One key thing that I’ve noticed recently about being accepted into college is the idea of being a package, where the elements of your high school profile intertwine to construct an overall idea of what kind of direction you’ve demonstrated you want to take. Essentially, you want to look focused in a certain direction as it gives the school a better idea of what kind of future you envision for yourself and what kind of person you’ll be on campus. For example, a person who stated that they want to study journalism, received high marks in their more literary focused classes, taken part in writing competitions and clubs, worked for their school newspaper, etc., has a very clear path for themselves. To the schools, you look focused and passionate about your subject and they’ll be much more confident that you’ll stick to this path and be successful with it.
Trying to package yourself in some way might be a good idea, but don’t try too hard to fit all your extracurriculars or the classes you’ve taken into a certain narrative, especially if it’s not reflective of your actual future. If you don’t know what you want to do, you still want to demonstrate to colleges that you have a general idea of what you want to do with your life.
idk, this is what worked for several people that I know that go into some of the schools you’ve listed.