I’m an international student - Dubai. I have all A and A+ except two Cs in Arabic and Islamic, which is good for me considering I don’t know Arabic that well but have to take both subjects in Arabic at local standard. I’m going into senior year (2015-2016)
SAT Scores:
M: 640 + W:640 + CR:640 = 1920
TOEFL: 112 out of 120
GPA: 3.67
I’m planning to do the Literature and Biology subject tests after summer.
I’ve done 4 shows with a theatre company and have volunteered with them for their children shows and rehearsals, which go on for 12 hours at a time. I am also going to start logging community hours during the school year. I run a blog- not that popular, but also have a personal website that has everything that I’ve done - work wise. I was class rep the previous year.
I’m working on two original novels and love to write and read, and am currently the first student at my school to take two subjects at that are supposed to run at the same time, so the second class is me self-learning. I really want to do AP/HON?/IB but my school doesn’t provide them. I’ll be doing the free online AP Lit from edX. I’ve done a couple MOOCs online and participate in the annual short story and poetry writing competition, but have never won.
I can speak fluently in English, and a little bit of Arabic and Urdu. I’m trying to learn piano on my own, which is proving to be hard, but I’m getting there. I’ve gone to two MUN meets, and hopefully two more. What else? What should I do to make sure I get into Harvard or Columbia?
Scores aren’t everything, you won’t know if you can get in unless you apply! The worst that can happen is that you don’t, but if you really do want to get in, then apply!
Scores are not everything but sub2100 and sub3.8 GPA for any international applicant who is not the child of a Russian or Chinese billionaire means an applicant simply isn’t competitive whatsoever
There is no way my parents are going to let me take the SAT again. I’ve already done it twice and my two siblings are signing up for their own tests as well. The bills are piling up. Not to mention application fees! As for GPA I’ve got all the grades except the two Arabic subjects. Do you think they would cancel Religious Studies?
@letsdothis35 Well, if you aren’t a US citizen or if you can’t test within America, you aren’t eligible for a fee waiver. Try and see if your school will be willing to cover the costs. You really need to get that score to at least a 2100 if you want a decent shot at any top school in America. I highly encourage you to persuade your family to let you retest or take the ACT with writing.
What do you mean by “cancel”? They can’t just remove a grade from your transcript. It may be possible that elective courses won’t be weighted as much as core courses during your application’s review, but they will still impact your GPA.
Meanwhile, if you really want to study in America, find some safeties that’ll award you merit aid based on your statistics:
Not one student from Dubai or The United Arab Emirates is currently enrolled at Harvard College (the undergraduate school) – not one: http://www.hio.harvard.edu/statistics
So, if you were to be accepted to Harvard, you would be the only student admitted from your country. To me, that means you have absolutely no chance of being admitted with a 1920 SAT (a score that is below Harvard’s 25th percentile), and almost no chance of being admitted even with a 2400. It’s really time to look elsewhere.
University of Toronto is a great university.There are plenty of Harvard-quality faculty and students at Toronto. It also has plenty of non-Harvard-quality students (and, to be honest, some faculty), but that’s because as a public university its objective is to offer education to a broad range and large number of students. As a consequence, a generic Toronto degree, standing alone, offers less automatic prestige than a generic Harvard degree, because it communicates less about the accomplishment level of the degree holder.
But so what? No actual person gets a generic degree, and no employer or graduate school hires/admits a generic student with no information other than his or her degree. If you go to Toronto, work hard, and seek out the best opportunities in the fields that interest you, you can be every bit as successful as if you had gone to Harvard. If Toronto is what you have to “settle” for, you are very, very lucky.
Columbia is nearly as selective as Harvard, thus your chances will be very low, and close to zero if you need aid (Columbia is need-aware for internationals). If you don’t require any aid, your chances will be better at NYU.
If you are full-pay, there are literally thousands of colleges in the USA that would accept you, but the top-tier colleges are probably out of reach.
If you require aid, I’d recommend you visit the International Students forum, there is some good information there.
Little update: my GPA is a 3.9 now and I’ve gotten into Boston University and University of Toronto. I attended the NYUAD Candidate Weekend and will hear back by April 1.