Chance an international with a low GPA for business

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics: Southeast Asian male not applying for financial aid

Intended Major(s): Business with a Minor in Bio. I hope to impact the world positively though the intersection of business and science.

SAT: 1470 (EBRW–690 M–780)
ACT: Taking on 17 July (Mocks around 34–36)

Dealt with anxiety in freshman year due to the loss of a loved one, but have an extremely strong upward trend. My school is 3 years long with 6 semesters after we take the O Levels. Enrolled in one of the most competitive Diploma programs.

UWGPA: 3.429/4.000 (No rank)
My GPA was: 3.3 → 2.9 → 3.3 → 3.7 → 3.9 → 4.0

Awards:

  1. Good Progress Award – Awarded to students who are within the top 10% of their school’s level and course in terms of improvement in academic performance and have demonstrated good conduct
  2. Co-curricular Activities Gold with Honours
  3. National Youth Achievement Award Silver
  4. Dance Competition Distinction

Extracurriculars:

  1. Research Intern at a government research agency (8 months). Utilised bioinformatics to study the dendritic cells of bats and explore their ability to host viruses.
  2. Served the army as a combat medic (1 year 10 months). Held a leadership position and was responsible for administrative matters. Accomplishments include airborne jumps and a 72-hour exercise.
  3. Currently on a financial services internship (6 months) at a Big 4—one of KPMG/Deloitte/PwC/EY—accounting and audit/consulting firm.
  4. Standing Committee for my school’s Students’ Union (1 year). Organising chairman and committee for school-wide activities to promote student welfare and community service involvement.
  5. Standing Committee for my school’s Community Service and Cultural Club (1 year). Organising chairman and committee for community service events and events that aim to promote appreciation of cultures.
  6. Chinese and Contemporary Dancer (2 years). Cohort leader.
  7. Represented my school for a National Young Scientist Symposium. Presented my biology research on bats.
  8. Volunteered to perform for an annual parade (2 years). Committed more than 80 hours.
  9. Personal blog about subjects spanning business, biology, philosophy, astronomy, and technology (6 months)
  10. Volunteer with a local political party. Participate in bi-monthly dialogues (6 months).

Essays:
Already started on my common app essay and some of my school specific essays! Not sure how to rate my own essays.

LORs:
Receiving LORs from two of my lecturers, my research internship supervisor, and my finance internship mamager.

My parents only think it’s worth attending school in the States if I can get into a top school (I have safeties in other countries) which explains my list of schools. I know my GPA’s horrible—I was already told by other people—and I probably don’t stand a chance for basically most of these schools. Nonetheless, I hope to get some feedback and/or advice!

Schools:
NYU Stern (ED), UChicago (ED2), UoM Ross (EA), Babson College (EA), UNC Kenan-Flagler (EA), UT Austin McCombs (EA), UVA (EA), and IU Kelley (EA).

RD: Berkeley, UCLA, Northwestern, Boston College Carroll, Georgetown McDonough, Notre Dame Mendoza, CMU Tepper, USC Marshall, Georgia Tech Scheller, Duke, Stanford, and Penn.

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Unlikely : UChicago, Michigan-Ross, UNC Kenan-Flagler, UT-Austin, UC-Berkeley, Northwestern, Stanford, Duke, NYU-Stern, & Penn.

Consider: SMU.

Strong chance for admission: Indiana-Kelley

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I can’t chance as there is too much unknown info. Where do you think your rank falls within your class? Many schools that don’t rank still publish median GPAs, etc. Your GC likely also knows your approximate rank.

Does your school provide weighted GPAs (important for IU Kelley)? Do you have mostly honors classes? Four years of each of the five core subject areas?

Being full pay will help you, as will an upward trend, but until we have more context on the GPA/rigor most of these schools are reaches. I encourage you to refine this list because it’s unlikely you will be able submit 20 high quality applications…and high quality is what they need to be. Every essay on point. Have you counted up how many essays you would have to do for these 20 applications?

Regarding Kelley, unless your school provides weighted GPA on your transcript, you will not qualify for direct admit (a 3.8 GPA either w or uw is required, plus a 30ACT/1370 SAT). You meet one of the two requirements, so would need to petition for direct admit, or try to get in after freshman year.

Note that some of the schools on your list require a separate application for the business school either after freshman or soph year such as UVA. Northwestern, Stanford, and Chicago don’t have business majors (although there is access to certain business classes).

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Hey! My school does not offer any APs or coursework, so my GPA is really all I have. We have specialisations. In my case, I enrolled in the most competitive specialisation in my school (biomedical science). It’s kinda hard to explain the entire school system!

Also, I am aware that schools like UVA and UNC are not a direct business school, as with schools like Northwestern not offering a business major.

Thanks for informing me about the Kelley thing though, I actually haven’t done much research on them. Some people on a Discord channel suggested the school to me.

This list of 20 is just an initial shortlist! I will refine my list of schools over the next month or so.

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International may be different because you are full pay. I thought maybe Babson for the money and maybe IU non direct admit.

But you need to start adding realistic options like Arizona State, College of Charleston, West Virginia, Alabama, 2nd tier private schools like Bradley, U of Pacific, U of Tampa. etc. and there are very good ones. Schools ranked below 80 and there’s tons of great ones !!!

If you were a US student, you’d not even remotely close to any on your list. Sorry.

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Should I try for BU too?

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If you petition for direct admission to IU-Kelley, your chances are very good.

Add SMU to your list.

Also, consider adding the University of Richmond.

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Alright thanks!

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Sure! Thank you haha. I’m getting super mixed reactions on here and on Reddit

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You’re a fine student with an increasing GPA and you served in the military ? What’s your age ?

There’s many a fine student at many of our flagships, secondary schools, and private schools.
Many a successful person will come from U of Arkansas, U of Oregon, Western Michigan, Hofstra, Butler University, or Allegheny College.

BU is not going to happen I’m afraid. Never hurts to try if you have time and money but that’s over your range. Syracuse would be, perhaps, a similar school that you might have a shot at reach wise.

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You should outperform your numbers (although your 780 math SAT score is outstanding) due to full pay status, military service, government service, and six month Big 4 internship. Be sure to submit a letter of recommendation from your Big 4 internship supervisor.

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UChicago is probably a waste of your ED2. Only 1% of their admits are below the top 10% of their HS graduating class; and your 1470 is 25th percentile for admitted students there. Add the disadvantage of applying internationally to this and it’s an implausible choice - plus, I don’t really see the fit between their undergraduate focus and your interests. You have very impressive EC’s and work experience (how old are you?) but you need schools where a measurable number of students with less-than-perfect stats are getting in.

Consider Claremont McKenna as an alternative. It has a Science Management major that would combine your interests nicely. They’re still an elite school (single-digit overall acceptance rate) but they give very heavy preference to ED applicants (28% ED acceptance rate). They have about the same percentage of international undergraduates as Chicago, and the top 25% of the class has very high stats, but the stat spread is larger (73% of admits are in the top 10% of their HS class and 93% in the top quarter. This in part because of athletic recruitment, and you’re not an athletic recruit… but there’s still more daylight to be seen here in terms of considering students with less-than-perfect grades. Also, your 1470 is in the top 25% at CMC, which is what you will need to compensate for your GPA.)

CMC is part of the Claremont Consortium, so you’d be able to register freely for classes at Pomona, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, and Scripps in addition to CMC’s course offerings. It’s the most business-oriented of the 5 schools (CMC Econ is particularly elite and the only department that is essentially closed to cross-registration from the other schools) and also the most ED-friendly.

NYU Stern is a reach for sure, but a good choice in terms of being international-friendly and swayed by full-pay within that pool. Same with USC. Another worth considering in this category is Northeastern.

I don’t think you have a meaningful chance at Stanford. In terms of UC’s, if you’re doing the application anyway, I’d add Irvine and Riverside (the only others with undergrad business schools)… but the fact that UC’s won’t be considering standardized tests at all in the coming cycle will not help you.

Additional schools to consider, that take a high percentage of international students and depend on full-pay international dollars to balance their budgets (but are also highly ranked and well-regarded): University of Rochester, and Brandeis University. URoch has both a BS in Business (with multiple tracks) and a BA in Business that is specifically for double-majors (i.e. Business+Biology). The Brandeis business major (which has a secondary admissions process once there) also “strongly encourages” joint majors.

Since you like Georgetown and BC, consider Santa Clara as well - another Jesuit school that’s only a notch below BC in competitiveness, and has the advantage of Silicon Valley ties for internships.

You sound like a really interesting and accomplished applicant. You just need to find the sweet spot admissions-wise. The large publics where admissions are heavily GPA-driven will be hard to crack, whereas your unusual record will impress schools that are more holistic, so long as they’re not such high reaches that near-perfect stats are the first filter and “holistic” only happens within that pool.

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Without an estimation of how you stack up compared to other students it’s difficult to estimate whether you have any chance at all.
Is your school open to any kid in your town (or neighborhood) or is there some sort of selective process to start there? What % go to college? Is your gpa considered sufficient for elite colleges in your state?

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Adding about Santa Clara…it has a fine business school.

Your RD schools are mostly huge reaches in my opinion…and I agree with others about NYU Stern.

You need a much more realistic list of schools.

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Thanks a lot for your very in-depth reply! I appreciate it. Will definitely checkout Claremont McKenna and adjust my list of schools!

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I personally see no shot there. CMC is one of the hardest schools in the country to get into. 13% admission rate and a 33 ACT - but a corresponding GPA.

You still haven’t answered your aged.

Are you 18 with an internship at a big 4 and military experience or 23?

It’s fine to apply anywhere - as long as you have a definite/safety to fall onto.

Good luck.

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It’s better than UChicago. As noted above, the ED admission rate is close to 30% (although admittedly inflated by athletic recruits who are expected to apply ED). And ED is a smaller pool where a closer look will be taken at the holistic picture. And OP’s test scores are above average there, even without taking into account that the verbal score is likely lower because English is not his first language. There are a lot of interesting and impressive aspects to his background. Also, full pay helps a bit. My feeling is that he’d have a shot in the ED pool (still a reach but not entirely out of reach); I wouldn’t be so optimistic RD.

As MYOS says, we lack context. It’s hard to tell, with international GPA’s, how they compare to the curve. Maybe he can get some insight from his guidance counselor as to how that recommendation will look and how he’ll be portrayed by his school, in comparison to his peers.

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