British student applying to the US!

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics:

  • international student
  • State/Location of residency: United kingdom
  • Type of high school (or current college for transfers): small, private, sends a few kids to oxford/cambridge each year, 2-3 to the us each year
  • Other special factors: n/a

Cost Constraints / Budget
my parents say they can pay full

Intended Major(s)

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.7
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.4 (I do a-levels)
  • Class Rank: doesn’t do
  • SAT Score: 1380, retaking it in September

List your HS coursework

A-level French (a* predicted)

A-level RS (a predicted)

A-level Geography (a* predicted)

  • English: GCSE (8, 8)
  • Math: GCSE (7)
  • Science: GCSE - Biology (9), Chemistry (8)
  • History and social studies: Geography A-level, Geography GCSE (8), RS A-level, RS gcse (9)
  • Language other than English: French GCSE (9), French a-level
  • Other academic courses: GCSE Design and tech (8)

Awards

Only a few internal school ones. 2 school sports ones (coach’s player, player’s player for a varsity sport). one school one given to 1 person in the grade for personality traits sort of. 1 club sport award. that’s it.

Extracurriculars
editorial team for school newspaper

writer for a local online newspaper

viral tiktok account

varsity sport captain

started a french club for my high school

volunteering at old peoples home

academic mentoring for a kid younger than me

coaching and umpiring (voluntary) for sports at school

independent substack blog

Essays/LORs/Other
RS teacher, Geography teacher, and French teacher. Not used to writing for the US but hopefully good.

Schools
Boston university (ED) - applying for Trustee scholarship

Boston College - applying by Nov 1st but not ED since i’m applying for Gabelli Presidential Scholars Program

U Michigan (EA)
Tufts

UW-Madison

Syracuse

Northwestern

Canada: McGill, U of Toronto

UK: Bath, Bristol, Warwick, St Andrews, Edinburgh

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You really need to talk to your parents about budget. They may not realize how much more expensive university in the US is. You could very very easily spend $200K/£150,000 or more over 4 years in the US. That’s not even that expensive. Boston College is twice that. If that’s ok, then good for you, but just double check and make sure they realize. You can run the calculator on each school’s website.

Hard to know how the different schools would judge UK A-levels. Your predicted scores look great but universities here don’t go off predicted scores and your SAT is fine but no great shakes.

You can do a search on the universities you are interested in and “Common Data Set”. The Common Data Set is an optional form that many universities (but not all) fill out and post online that tells all about their student body and admissions process. If the school participates in the CDS you can look it up and see what the average SAT score is for the incoming first year class is in section C. Be aware that many schools do not require SATs and really want to see more than just grades – admission to US universities is very different that way from admission to UK unis. Here is Boston College’s: https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/bc1/offices/irp/ir/cds/Boston_College_CDS_2024-2025_Final.pdf The 50th percentile for the SAT for the last incoming first year class was 1500. Section C7 will tell you the other factors they rank highly when considering applications.

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This is Boston University’s most competitive scholarship. Perhaps @skieurope can help the rest of us translate your UK grades so we will know if this is a realistic expectation.

Only about 20 students receive this award annually.

BC awards about 18 Gabelli awards each year…again highly competitive.

I know the trustee scholarship at BU requires some extra steps for consideration. I’m not as familiar with the BC Gabelli.
I think your list is well balanced.

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Using your GPAs that you listed….

BU - unlikely - but full pay, you never know - and ED helps.

BC - no

U Mich - no

Tufts - no - but loves full pay

UW Madison - toss up - and major dependent

Syracuse - if full pay, yes

Northwestern - no

Can’t speak to others

If you like Syracuse, consider Pitt.

If you like Michigan and Wisconsin, consider Minnesota.

If you like BU, consider GW and if smaller is ok, College of Charleston (10k kids).

Good luck.

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You should double check, but I think BU no longer offers the Trustee application, at least not separately from merit…They just review everyone for merit now is my understanding (and their website). It seems unclear to me if anyone gets a complete trustee-level award (though if you got huge merit award I assume that would be “good enough” since other schools don’t have equivalent).

I am not well versed enough in the UK grading system to chance you , but those SATs will hurt you if you report them most of those schools… (maybe not syracuse?).

Good luck!

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You are planning to apply to several colleges in the U.S. but also Canada. Do you have a preference for one over the other? University of Toronto & McGill University are both top-ranked reputable schools in Canada, with Toronto being more world-renowned. Both offer scholarships & awards to international students. I wouldn’t be able to provide any information about how much GPA & test scores are weighted at these Canadian schools.

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You didn’t mention what major you are applying for. Having your 3 A-levels in French, religious studies (I assume that’s what RS is?) and geography might limit you depending what you want to do? Maybe @skieurope has an opinion on this too? - according to Google maths GCSE only covers the US equivalent of Algebra 1 and geometry - if that is correct, may be an issue as most colleges in the US require math to algebra 2 and I think a number on this list prefer to see a course beyond that. I don’t know the extent to which they make an allowance for other education systems.

Agree that SAT should be lifted by a fair amount to be competitive in admissions for the colleges listed. What was the split in your SAT between English and math?

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Private college in the US will cost about 400K for 4 yrs. Public, about 250K. Some intermountain, western prairie schools might be 30K/yr.

If your parents are willing to pay 100K/yr, you might want to look into some of the excellent private small liberal arts colleges: Amherst, Middlebury, Williams, Wesleyan, Davidson, and more. You have a better chance there than at a highly selective Ivy.

A really high SAT or ACT score will help a lot with your application, since the colleges are not familiar with your school, it doesn’t rank, and you won’t have your final grades in time, which is the case for every UK school.

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they didn’t list any Ivys? The schools you list are MORE selective than many on the OPs list especially if not applying for STEM which I am assuming they are not (guessing communications/journalism/english based on the ED to BU and inclusion of Syracuse and Northewestern)

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They’re full pay. I’m not sure that they even know about the small LACs, but their full pay status is going to help there (even though, yeah, yeah, they’re all need blind, or so they say).

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Agree full pay helps many places

Including many on their original list! Tufts, BU, (not sure about BC)…Syracuse for sure

Very few say they are need blind for internationals do they?

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I can’t chance you, but would add to make sure to also apply EA to Syracuse and Madison.

Confirming there is no separate Trustee application for BU in the common app. I guess it’s possible one might pop up in the portal but I agree with L_newEngland it looks like every app is evaluated for merit aid just based on the common app components. I don’t think the Trustee scholarship at BU is very likely.

If your SAT doesn’t improve (and the split would be good to know), I would recommend applying test optional to the US schools on your list. As an international student, that will be a disadvantage.

Please use the word ‘elderly’ instead of ‘old’ in your activities and/or essays.

Let’s wait to hear confirmation from OP that parents are willing to pay $100K per year for undergrad.

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my dad said he is willing to pay. 100k a year USD is 75k GBP, if i went to boarding school he’d be paying 60k gbp a year so it isn’t too much different… i constantly say ‘i can stay in the uk’ but he said he is willing to pay

on the SAT - i’ll probably go test optional at most schools

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yep i’m aware of the competitiveness. for BU it is one extra essay so it’s worth a shot

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yeah i think i will probably go test optional unless i get a better sat in the september test date.

and yes on the full pay

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yeah i’m applying for a journalism major and a french minor! good spot

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i like both mcgill and toronto but they don’t do journalism which is my desired major. i could major in french at both, and i love mcgill and montreal, but i am still going to ED at BU because overall it is a better personal fit for me than mcgill.

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i am applying for journalism with french. my a-levels are french, rs and geography lol i’m definitely not applying for anything stem or maths based.

on the sat, yes im going to go test optional unless i get above 1450 in the september sat. the split between RW and maths was 710 RW, 670 math

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wooohooo my chances are good is what youre saying!!!

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Got that, but you are aware of the breadth (gen ed) requirements for US degrees, I assume? At most colleges you would still have to do at least one each of a quantitative reasoning and a natural sciences course.