theeightyeight

Hey! Just a quick question as I'm curious about your opinions.

Being an international applicant is evidently a minus (considering admission rates, the obvious crazy numbers of cut-throat competitive applicants and that international students only make up 10% of the accepted class).

On the other hand, being a legacy is certainly can't hurt and may even be a plus (again, considering admission rates for legacies is unbelievably high owing to Princeton's dedication to alums).

Now, I've been browing through this forum for some time and, while I have a feeling that there may be less international students here, I haven't come across anybody being an international applicant and a legacy at the same time.

Assuming high grades at a difficult school and decent extracurriculars and given the high legacy acceptance rate, does anyone think that maybe being a legacy turns being international into a slight plus? Bluntly speaking, if Princeton has such relatively high rates for legacies, would international legacies be a plus in the international department? (I'm guess most legacies are American applicants)

Just curious, of course.

HateSMUS

I'm just an international student without legacy. Because there are very few international applicants with legacy, your legacy will definitely help. Since you are competing in the international applicant pool, your legacy would stand out. I say it's definitely plus.

MRU93Raith

Hey, I'm also an international student, though would like to say that I am a legacy, but I'm not a direct legacy since the only person in my family who has gone to Princeton is my sister who graduated 2012... but it should help especially since Princeton is well known for their legacies.
Good luck

Cantiger

As the parent of a current international Princeton freshman, I'm not certain that being in the international pool is that much of a disadvantage. The statistics Princeton puts out in terms of their applicant pool don't disclose what percentage of applicants overall are from countries outside of the US. They do disclose that offers of admission made to the class of 2016 consisted of 12.2% international students from 73 countries:

Princeton University - Princeton offers admission to 7.86 percent of applicants

Admission to Princeton is extremely competitive overall and every year they turn away many exceptionally gifted students from a variety of backgrounds. Legacies do have a higher acceptance rate so this would certainly be helpful to any applicant.

biodudeyay

From other schools that do disclose percentages, being an international is an extreme disadvantage. Although 10% of MIT's class is international, only 3% of internationals that apply get in, a much lower percentage. It can be inferred that schools of similar caliber such as Harvard and Princeton have similar numbers

HateSMUS

I agree that being an international is an extreme disadvantage. International students making up 12.2% of the student body is quite insignificant in terms of brutally low admission rate for international applicants. Since MIT has 3.2% admission rate for international applicants, we can speculate international admission rates for HYPS are around 3~5%. But I'm not sure about slightly easier schools such as Columbia, Duke, Dartmouth etc for internationals. I've seen a few international students with mediocre stats getting into those schools.

HateSMUS

For me, being a Korean student studying in Canada, it was weird to see how most elder Koreans from our school getting into HYPS schools. Whether it was Harvard or Princeton, those students got rejected by all top 10 schools with a single exception of either Harvard or Princeton. I say they are very lucky. Just learned a lesson that it's better for students to apply as many schools s/he wants since some crapshoot result may save her/him.