Type of high school (or current college for transfers): Private
Other special factors: none
Cost Constraints / Budget
none
Intended Major(s): Business, Economics
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0
Weighted HS GPA: 4.46
Class Rank: n/a
ACT/SAT Scores: 1550 SAT
List your HS coursework
English: AP Language, AP Literature
Math: AP Calc BC
Science: Chemistry
History and social studies: AP European History, AP Microeconomics, AP Macroeconomics, AP Human Geo, World History, Law Studies
Language other than English: AP French
Visual or performing arts: Visual Arts 9,10,11
Other academic courses: normal electives art pe etc
Awards
Global Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge Finalist (1/3 Canadian teams that qualified for global round) (2025)
National Crystal Growing Competition, 2nd Place (2025)
Scholastic Writing Silver Keys (2024, 2025)
AP Scholar with Distinction (2025)
Extracurriculars
coded a LLM w/ python and did a paper published by the gerontological society of america with UW prof and PHD students
royal canadian mounted police youth committee member –> only 80 members in the country –>advised on youth issues (mental health, substance use, bullying) and contributed to nationwide recommendations
co-president, language & culture Club → introduced students to French/Spanish culture through food, media, activities; provided academic support
JV girls basketball → won provincials one year
youth leader of local hospital auxiliary (director wrote me an additional rec) –> volunteered in thrift/gift shops, supported $500K fundraising campaign, made the local news and tabloids
editor of monthly magazine content on youth culture + social issues; curated work from young artists, well known throughout the region
co-president, business club → prepare students for case comps, small ventures (supply chain, marketing, financials), brought in professionals to do seminars
finance intern @ edward jones –> shadowed financial advisor, learned about client strategy, portfolio mgmt, and ethical investing
regional leader and tutor for a very large govt funded ngo for tutoring elementry students in math/reading –> they have affected over 5000 children and I have lead individual pods for kids from indigenous communities.
Essays/LORs/Other
Personal Statement: talked abt how i overcame a lifethreatening health issue 8/10 prob due to the unique nature of the story
LOR1: English Teacher: 8/10 knows me very well
LOR2: Econ Teacher: 7/10 A man of few words but hes crytpo goat, liked me and i got 100 in his course
Schools
USC (ea)
UCs
Penn
Michigan (ea)
Northwestern
Cornell (ed)
Duke
Columbia
Chicago
Brown
Georgetown
Emory
NYU
Carnegie Mellon
lwk not gonna get in most bc international and no large awards but imma shoot my shot
I think that you have a reasonable chance of getting a small number of admissions from this list. It is very difficult to predict where. Your chances might be better if you are able to clearly articulate why each university that you are applying to is a good fit for you.
For your ED application to Cornell you are more likely to be rejected than accepted, but you do have a chance of being accepted. You are a competitive and well qualified applicant. Be aware that ED is likely to give you a boost, but my understanding is that the ED acceptance rates include recruited athletes, which of course skews the statistics. Cornell for example typically has a pretty good hockey team and I would be pretty sure that some of their players are very good recruited athletes from Canada.
I hope that you are also applying to universities in Canada. Given your stats it seems likely that pretty nearly every university in Canada would be a safety (ignoring obvious issues such as if you only speak English applying to a French language university, or applying to universities outside of Quebec with only grade 11 completed in Quebec and no CEGEP).
I was a Canadian student who graduated many years ago from universities in the USA (bachelor’s degree from MIT, master’s degree from Stanford). One thing that you need to keep in mind: Once you graduate from university in the US, assuming that you do not already have US citizenship or permanent residence, you will most likely be required to return to Canada. However, Canadian employers seem to prefer to hire graduates from the many excellent universities in Canada. Getting a job can therefore be tough, even with degrees from universities on the MIT, Stanford level. The exception would be if you already have either US citizenship or permanent residence and intend to stay in the USA.
For the UCs are you applying to all of them? If so then being full pay with superb stats you seem to have a decent chance to get an acceptance to Merced or Riverside (even with them ignoring your excellent SAT scores). While these are very good universities, I do not understand why you would pay over US$80,000 per year to attend either of them when you could pay less in total over four years at McGill or Toronto or Queen’s or UBC or somewhere else in Canada.
Do not underestimate the quality of the excellent universities that you have in Canada. I know multiple people who got a bachelor’s degree in Canada and then went to some form of graduate program at very good universities in the USA. This includes someone who got a master’s and PhD at Princeton, two people who got master’s degrees at Stanford, and a daughter who is currently studying for a PhD in a very good program in the USA, all after getting a bachelor’s degree in Canada.
yeah I agree, I applied to top 5 schools in Canada. For UC, I applied to UCLA, Berkley, and Irvine. Cornell I’m not sure it holds any affect but I had a sibling that graduated from the exact same program in 2022, Dyson. I also mentioned this in my app when talking about a startup incubator at Cornell I was interested in because my sibling was the President of it. However, Dysons one of the most competitive programs at Cornell so i get that my chances are pretty slim.
Well you’ve applied. You could certainly get in or maybe not. As long as you have an assured place, you’re good. You certainly seem a reasonable candidate but these will be tough but I can see an Emory or Michigan. One just never knows.
Lots of great bus/econ schools - but you applied to only very selective ones so you’ll see.
Many years ago my father talked very favourably of the business program at Irvine. To me these three schools make more sense compared to at least some of the other UCs.
It would not surprise me at all if you end up with 5 acceptances to the top schools in Canada, all of which are very good.
It sounds pretty certain that you will end up with a very good university to attend in September, although predicting where would be tough. It would not surprise me if you do get into Cornell, but rejection does seem to be significantly more likely than acceptance just because the overall acceptance rate is so low. The fact that you know quite a bit about Cornell and about the program that you are applying to might help your chances.
Could you clarify what you actually did? Did you use an LLM in your Python application, or maybe fine-tune an existing model?
You have many impressive accomplishments already, so I’d suggest keeping the wording as accurate as possible to reflect your real strengths and avoiding unnecessary embellishments.
This. Just make sure it doesn’t sound like you are exaggerating what you actually did.
You appear to be a strong applicant. Many of the other applicants to the US schools you listed are similarly strong…so it’s really hard to chance you, and especially since you are not a U.S. citizen.
So at this point, just that you are one of those accepted. You applied ED to Cornell, and will hear relatively soon about that one.
Many of the posters here are parents…could you please post NOT in text message format?
“I’m probably not going to get into most of these schools because I’m an international applicant and don’t have major awards, but I’m still going to shoot my shot”.
Congratulations on all your accomplishments. Since the UC’s are test blind your excellent SAT score will not be considered for admissions or scholarship purposes only course placement.
The 2025 International Freshman admit rates for UC Berkeley was 3%, UCLA was 6% and Irvine was 43%. Irvine seems like a good Target school while UCLA/UCB will be tough admits.
If you applied to UC Berkeley’s HAAS Business school Spieker program, that admit rate was around 4% while UCLA’s Business Economics/Economics was around 9%.
that you are one of those accepted. You applied ED to Cornell, and will hear relatively soon about that one.