Chance a Canadian student aiming for Ivy League

[FluidCorgi]

Demographics

• Canadian Citizen, province of Ontario
• Large public high school, competitive/highly ranked in Canada, offers many AP classes
• No legacy at any schools, or any hooks (URM, FGLI)
• Male
• Middle class
• Majoring either in Polisci/public policy or business/econ, depending on school
• Applying for only reaches in US (safeties in Canada)

Cost Constraints / Budget

• NOT applying for aid at need aware schools
• applying for aid at need blind schools

Intended Major(s)

• Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy
• Princeton SPIA
• Harvard Gov (Deferred REA )
• Yale Global Affairs
• UPenn Wharton
• NYU Stern
• Columbia poli sci

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

• Unweighted HS GPA: around 95/100 cumulative from grades 9 through 12, pretty consistent trend, all courses except grade 9 gym above 90%
• Graduating with 39 credits, versus 30 credits required for graduation
• Weighted HS GPA: school does not weigh
• Class Rank: school does not rank
• ACT/SAT Scores: 1560 SAT (770 math, 790 EBRW)

List your HS coursework

• Taken/taking 6 out of 9 AP courses offered at my school, 3 AP exams (APUSH, AP LANG, AP EURO all 5s)

• English: 4 yrs
• Math: 4 years, including Calculus
• Science: 4 years
• History and social studies: 4 years
• Language other than English: 4 years of French
• Visual or performing arts: 3 years of instrumental music

Awards

1. National mock trial champion, argued for former supreme court justice
2. Top 10 internationally at large international HS mock trial comp
3. Gold standard at national music comp for school band
4. Piano awards

Extracurriculars

• School board student advocacy-elected to rep ~80k students across my city at the school board of trustees, created a program w/~$400k for extracurricular access equity. Featured on national news. (12 hrs/week, 12th grade)
• Provincial Advocacy/Policy work-elected to rep >2 million students in the province on the executive team of largest student stakeholder group in Canada, collaborating with the Ministry of Education, other provincial/national level non-profits. Researching & advocating for 35 policy recommendations to the ministry at a provincial level, with research report set for publication in May. (10 hrs/week, 12th grade)
• Mock Trial Club-President, grew from ~15 to >100 members (one of largest clubs at school), led inter-school comps, hosted former supreme court justice. Captained/coached teams to multiple titles at national, international competitions, hosted workshops w/lawyers & judges in community.(9 hrs/week, 9-12th)
• Summer internship at local law firm-created resources for refugees accessing legal aid in the community, helped lawyers in court, prepare documents, etc. (45 hrs/week)
• Intern for local Member of Parliament - canvassing, door-knocking, drafting policy briefs, working at House of Commons, developing outreach strategies in riding. (4 hrs/week, 9-12)
• Student Council - represented school at the board level, led school-wide events, fundraisers, passed policy expanding role of student council, usual student council stuff. (5 hrs/week, 9-11)
• Part-time job as lifeguard/swim instructor- working for the city, taught kids aged 5-15. (5hrs/week, 10-12th)
• 1st Trombone, school band-Trombone section lead, gold standard at national-level competition, organized sectionals, etc. (4 hrs/week, 9-11)
• Competitive swimmer-swam for local club at regional/provincial levels (12 hrs/week, 9-11)

Essays/LORs/Other
Common app PS: 8/10? Wrote on my unconventional leadership journey as an introvert through a metaphor of selling cookies as a Boy Scout and how that translates to my advocacy today.
LORs: teacher invited me to read one of them, which was 9/10, talked about my personality, charisma/prescence at school, intellectual curiosity, leadership. Knew that teacher for 3 years. Other letter was probably 7 or 8/10?

Schools
Cornell brooks school (RD)
Princeton, SPIA (RD)
Yale, Global Affairs (RD)
Harvard, Government (REA deferred)
NYU Stern (RD)
UPenn Wharton (RD)
Columbia Poli Sci (RD)

[tsbna44]

Have you posted before?

Well every school there is need blind.

And even if not, if you need aid, you need aid. You apply.

If you don’t qualify, you can still apply - and you simply won’t get it.

You have a chance - not a good chance (not because of you but because of the heft of the schools) but a chance - good luck.

[DadTwoGirls]

Admissions at highly ranked universities in the US will understand how your grades compare with others from Ontario. I don’t, but will assume that you are relatively close to being at least in the top 1% in your high school, or of students from Ontario. Certainly your grades and your SAT score are very good.

With this, you can figure that about 80% of applicants to your reach schools in the US will have stats that are similar to you, and will also like you have ECs that are very good. The acceptance rate for international students might be closer to 2% (or slightly less), and this will include at least a small number of legacy students and athletes. As one example, Harvard frequently has quite a good hockey team – way better than you might expect for a school that does not give athletic scholarships. Some of those Harvard hockey players are probably Canadian and they might have benefited from a slight admissions edge over those of us who are not athletes.

A bigger problem is that as an international student you will most likely be required to return to your home country after graduation. At least in my experience as a Canadian graduating from MIT many years ago, it seems that Canadian employers prefer to hire graduates from the excellent universities in Canada.

I do however, know several students who got their bachelor’s degree in Canada, and who then got either a master’s degree or a PhD or both at top schools in the US, including schools that are on the level of the schools on your reach list (eg, Stanford and Princeton).

Plan on spending at least US$400,000 if you want to get a bachelor’s degree in the US unless you qualify for very good need based financial aid, keep the exchange rate in mind, and do not forget to also budget for any graduate degree that might be likely given your major. A bachelor’s degree in Canada plus a master’s degree at a top university in the US is likely to cost less in total compared to just getting a bachelor’s degree in the US.

@tsbna44

Well every school there is need blind.

Not all of them are need-blind for international students (eg, NYU considers need for international students, at least according to a quick Google search just now).

Your other points are very accurate. If the students needs aid then they better apply for it. Admissions is tough for international students at the top universities in the US.

I do have to wonder whether recent political controversies in the US will impact the number of applications from Canada, although some of these controversies might have occurred after applications were due.

[tsbna44]

You are correct - I forgot the Canadian part. Thanks for correcting me.

[Muu9]

No, not all of those schools are need blind for international students