The Official(ish) British Thread

[tetrisfan]

Hi rors! *waves*

[rorschachman]

Howdy, tetris - I see your post count is still on the up!

[tetrisfan]

Haha yeah

[UKtoUSA]

Hi guys,

I'm a British student applying for entry in Fall 2010. I won't go into some long stats post but a quick summary is:

SAT: 2270, 800CR 700M 770W
SAT IIs: just took them, hoping for 700+ in Lit, Bio & French w/ Listening
A/S: 4A, all above 90% UMS, two at 100% UMS
A-level (predicted): 4A*
Essays: I've given my teachers supposedly outstanding Harvard essays and they say mine are better, but I'm not so sure. Anyway they're very good at least
ECs: I obviously haven't been drilled like US students have but I do a lot more than most at my top grammar school. Don't wanna go into details because I'm paranoid, but I definitely don't have huge lists of awards and academic extracurriculars like lots of CCers seem to

What chances do I stand at the places I'm applying to? My first choice by far is Yale, and I would love Columbia or Harvard, since I've visited their campuses. I'm also applying to Princeton, Chicago, Amherst and Williams, all of which look great. I'm going for financial aid by the way.

Any help would be much appreciated! The usual chance threads and even the pledged decisions threads are giving me no information at all on how to gauge whether I am a competitive applicant or not, since no internationals (or at least European ones) seem to be posting there.

[nick04]

Hey - I wanted to put this in context with one of your earlier posts:

When considering applying to the Ivy League, remember that many of these institutions outrank Oxbridge on a worldwide scale. As a result, you should consider Oxbridge's admissions criteria a basepoint and proceed from there.

...this is completely wrong. Please don't go into the US admissions cycle with this impression - Ivy League colleges evaluate very different things to Oxbridge, and the applications reflect this. There are several students at Harvard I know who were rejected from Oxbridge, and certainly weren't straight-A students.


It is very hard to gauge anyone's chances. I would say that your chances at some of the smaller schools you're applying to are quite strong - Williams, etc. It is harder to say for the Ivies, because it simply becomes a lottery. Certainly worth a shot, anyway! Your academics look good, but so will maybe 30% of the applicant pool for Harvard or Yale. Without knowing more about you or your ECs it's very hard to say.