Chance a low income low GPA international for Dartmouth ED (and other schools) pretty please

Chance Me / Match Me
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Never posted here before so let me know if I’m doing anything wrong!

-Turkish non-binary international, 12th grade

-Annual income <6000 USD (single mother household)

-High school in the top 1% of the country

-Applying to linguistics

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GPA: ~87% (My weakness, I’m sure AOs would be aware that my GPA is normal/good for a highly competitive high school in an education system like my country’s)

SAT: 1520 (retaking in October)

ECs:

  1. Single author of published linguistics research: My research will get published in January 2025 at the linguistics journal of the University of [REDACTED EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY]. This was done entirely independently
  2. Presented own research at [REDACTED INTERNATIONAL LINGUISTICS CONFERENCE]: I was accepted to attend and present my research at an international linguistics conference hosted by [REDACTED], who reports Johns Hopkins to be a sponsor
  3. Attendee at the Leiden University Summer School: Attended a summer school hosted by The Netherlands’ Leiden University, intended for advanced BA, MA, or PhD students. 2 ECTS
  4. Founder of the digital culture magazine [REDACTED]: I founded a digital magazine and recruited over 10 bilingual Istanbulite high-schooler authors to write articles
  5. Researcher for the TUBITAK 4006 and 2204 programs: I presented, and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey was so impressed their president Hasan Mandal visited me at my school
  6. TikTok creator who makes videos on linguistics: I have gained over 2 million views on different platforms in total, inspiring people to pursue linguistics as an academic career as @[REDACTED]
  7. Web designer for my school, myself, and my friends: I create websites for my school’s activities free of charge, I also designed my own blog [REDACTED] and my magazine [REDACTED]
  8. Active learner of French and Mandarin: I attend a high school with a French preparatory program, and I’m an HSK3 level speaker of Mandarin
  9. Amateur flutist and flute-maker: I play the western, Chinese dizi, Japanese shakuhachi flutes as a hobbyist. I also craft Japanese shakuhachis out of bamboo
  10. Deputy Secretary-General at [REDACTED] Model UN: I acted as the leader for the crisis team, as well as the entirety of the academic team. Together we built a conference that was overly well received

Honors (I’m not entirely sure what goes here):

  1. Single-author paper published in an academic journal
  2. Invited to join a master’s level academic practicum at the Max Planck Institute in Germany (will do this next summer)
  3. Presented own research at an international linguistics conference
  4. 2 ECTS
  5. Honorary Mention - [REDACTED MODEL UN 1], Outstanding Delegate Award - [REDACTED MODEL UN 2]

LORs:

-The most well-known Altaicist in modern times, founder of the Transeurasian hypothesis, like really big name linguist here

-A dean at the [REDACTED EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY]

-My school principal

-My literature teacher

College coursework?:

Taken coursework at the Leiden university as part of a summer program, currently have 2 credits but it might go up to 5 once I get my assignment graded

Essays:
Imagine I have really good essays

-Applying early decision to Dartmouth

Applying regular decision to:

University of Notre Dame, Bowdoin, Amherst, Brown, MIT, Yale, Harvard ← need-blind schools, definitely applying

Pitzer, Haverford, Wellesley, Washington University in Saint Louis, Emory, Rice, Pomona, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, UPenn, UChicago ← need-aware schools, I’ll pick and choose out of these and not apply to all of them

Also! My paper was written without any outside help and took a little over 2 years to finish, it’s not Any Research Paper written by Kid With Wealthy Parents, I wasn’t even aware those were a thing when I first put my mind to it

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You’re more accomplished than most adults I know…

Ivys are always tough but you have a very good chance for most of your list

Good luck!!

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Congrats on your impressive accomplishments. You are a viable candidate for any college. But as I’m sure you know, the competition for a spot at a top US college for an international student needing significant aid is stiff. There are more well qualified applicants than spots available.

Even if you secure a full ride there may be costs not covered such as transportation, medical insurance, books, etc. (which can run thousands of dollars annually) that may not be included in every financial package.

Take your shot and give it your all. Hopefully something will work out for you. But I would also seek out affordable options in your home country and perhaps in Europe.

Good luck!

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U Mass has one of the top linguistics programs in the country. Take a look and see if it could be affordable.

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“~87% (My weakness, I’m sure AOs would be aware that my GPA is normal/good for a highly competitive high school in an education system like my country’s)”
Since your school is well known top colleges will know of it and will know what it means to be admitted&study there. They will also NOT think your 87 is a US 87 but will know it shows academic strength.
Your profile is excellent and you have everything it’d take to get into Dartmouth. Yet it doesn’t mean you will so you have to be ready for rejection. Do you have ED2 plans somewhere along the meet need colleges you listed? As a very low income applicant this would be your best shot. I think Amherst or Smith may be your best bet bc it’d allow you to take upper level classes at UMass through the consortium.

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I think your list above is very top heavy. Do you have some sure things in your home country or elsewhere in case these highly competitive universities don’t work out for admissions?

UMass is a wonderful linguistics program for sure…but I am not sure how a low income international family will be able to make the finances work. It sounds like this student likely needs a full free ride. Those are tough to get…either because the colleges are highly competitive, or getting that level of merit awards is highly competitive.

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What is your ranking within your high school?
Have you considered Middlebury (not that you need yet another reach), but it’s in similar character to others in your list and well know for languages/linguistics.

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I agree wrt to affordability, OP needs a full ride + which UMass Amherst doesn’t offer - however I’d originally suggested they apply to Amherst or Smith ED2 to benefit from UMAss Amherst’s world class advanced classes in Linguistics through the Five College Consortium, while benefiting from the generous FA (and academic strength at either LAC) but I now see only Smith has ED2. That being said, Smith could be very welcoming to a non binary student even if there would likely be a culture shock coming from abroad (there would be a different one at Dartmouth though).
Smith has a Linguistics minor and interested students can craft a Linguistics major which is a regular occurence and is designed to include UMass courses as well as supervisors from 2 Smith Depts.

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As some others have mentioned, your GPA will only be viewed in context. Has your school sent students to the US in previous years? Either way, if your GPA is competitive/in the upper middle in your school, I doubt that GPA will be an issue.

You have very high potential to get into one of the best schools in the US. I think especially for the need-blind schools as well. Make sure that your essays let your passion shine through! You got this.

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I’m planning on going ED II with Hopkins (cognitive science, not sole linguistics), UChicago, or NYU. I’m leaning more towards Hopkins since I’ve heard NYU is generally more difficult for low-income students and UChicago seems way too much of a reach. But they’re all long shots still, being need-aware

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My school doesn’t rank, so I don’t know how I compare. And as far as I know, we’ve only sent one student to the US in recent years, it was a UC but they never specified which one. My school’s ranked really well but it’s still a public school with limited resources, so I don’t think AOs would have access to a lot of information in terms of comparing with past admits

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This whole US application thing started out as a hobby for me after some of my friends pointed out how strong my CV was (I hadn’t done any of my ECs with college applications in mind haha). I’m still sort of just shooting my shot while I study for the Turkish university admissions exam, the system of which sadly doesn’t take into account your extracurricular activities.

My alternative path, which realistically is my main path, is to get into the top linguistics program in Turkey and then do my PhD in the US, so yes I have alternative plans

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@dfbdfb , I found that you’re a professor of linguistics while lurking this forum, would it be possible for you to take a look at my application?

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With respect to your list, does Bowdoin offer a formal linguistics program, such as through a major or minor in the field?

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I didn’t specify in the post but I’m only applying there because there’s a low number of need-blind schools for international students and I want to try my chance everywhere that’s applicable, with Bowdoin I’m probably going to default and apply for economics since that was my plan before settling on academia; and on the off chance I get accepted with a CV so hyper-focused on a whole different field, I’ll have time to decide if that’s the path I want to take

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Do you mean “need blind” AND “meet full need” for all international students?

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With respect to need-blind-for-internationals status, note that Bowdoin, for example, accepted just 1 out of every 54 international students who applied (1.9%), based on its most recent CDS. Applying to a school of this type predominately based on a perception of enhanced chances of admission may be counterproductive as a strategy.

This analysis will help you compare Bowdoin’s excellent economics department to those of other LACs: Economics rankings: US Economics Departments at Liberal Arts Colleges | IDEAS/RePEc.

As a general opinion, colleges with a distinct anthropology department (in contrast to those in which sociology and anthropology are combined) and at least an available minor in linguistics may be most suitable for you academically.

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Yeah, sorry that’s what I meant

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Anthropology was my second choice (and is highly related to 2 out of my 4 major academic plans in relation with linguistics) but studying it as a major isn’t that appealing to me. I might end up not applying, for example to Bowdoin, after I’m done researching the colleges further

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Reducing isn’t helpful when sharing admitted stats…a student might process this 1 of 54 as actual numbers. While the 1.9% acceptance rate is accurate, there were 73 international students accepted for Class of 2027:

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