gpa : 99.8%
class rank : 2 out of 170
sat : 1550
sat 2: math 2:800 physics:800
background: from afghanistan, middle eastern ( also i am living in afghanistan right now!!! ), first person to go to college or even finish high school from my town
awards:
- 12 out of 15000 students in afghan turk entry exam and winner of 75% scholarship (2015)
- finalist from afghanistan at international mathematic olympiad (2015)
- bronze medalist in Afghanistan’s national science fair (2017)
- winner of afghanistan national stelling bee for high schoolers (2015)
- 2nd out of 500 students at general assignment test (2016)
- gold medalist in Afghanistan’s national science fair (2017)
- announcer at national spelling bee (2018)
- winner of high school debate competition (2018)
- finalist at international breakthrough junior challenge (2018)
- winner of rubiks cube challenge by solving rubics cube under 20 secs (2016)
- fluent at 6 languages (2018) (dari, pashto, hindi, english, turkish, french) 3 of them were self taught
- number 1 in province and therefore winning a full scholorship for 9 months at a stem institute. (2018)
Extracurriculars:
- founder and president of english debate club for a year
- tutored a class of 30 people for the SAT
- founder of astronomy club
- worked at my father’s shop
- learned hindi
- president of rubo kubo club for 2 years
- math club for 4 years
- played batminton for 3 years
- tutored at an english institute for a year
- started voluteering at EAIMUN but not sure how long it will last
Side note: there are no APs here and i think i have an amazing essay of how i survived 3 bomb blasts and the fact that my family doesn’t want me to go to college and instead start working and how hard life has been for me and how i overcame all of the problems living in a narrow-minded society?
Your resume is impressive and you are a competitive applicant but the acceptances rates are very low. I wasn’t clear from your post if you are an international applicant or a US citizen living abroad. If you are international, the chances are even lower.
Note about Cornell - it sticks out to me as the odd ball in your list. The other schools are all in very urban areas. Cornell is very rural. Beautiful, but rural and not the easiest to get to from an international airport.
Also, these schools have different strengths.
Dig a little deeper into finding a balanced list with match and safety schools based on your intended major.
Good luck!
@momofsenior1 i am an international student from afghanistan and the reason that i chose these schools are because they offer great financial aids to international students…
How are you number 1 in the province but number 2 in your class? What does number 1 in the province mean?
@jamesclerkmaxwell45 there was a separate test which only had math and science questions. Kinda like the SAT . And i was the top scorer, our valedictorian came 12th
@muko1212 you look to be very “acceptable” to the schools you list. You will need to read up on the holistic admissions process as they look at everything and weight them all. So even though your scores and ECs look exceptional, your story is also fairly unique (I suspect very few Afgahnistan applicants in the pool). I think your essays and your recommendations are the only thing that could hold you back. Make sure your essays talk about how you and the school are a perfect fit for each other in some way. Make sure your letter of recommendation writers personalize their submissions, including examples on how your are an exceptional person.
Every school you list has an acceptance rate in the single digits, but I think your individual chances are much greater than that. If you want to further your chance of acceptance, pick one school and apply SCEA or ED(1 or 2). Of course you will not be able to play the which school is offering the best aid package and you may end up getting far less aid at one school if you play your cards that way. For most people, I’d recommend taking the boost at one school, but for you… I’m also not very well versed on the new UChicago empower initiative and how it relates to international students (they have certain income levels that if your family is below that level, then tuition is free, if it is below another level tuition, room and board, and books are free). So you might want to read up on that.
I read a lot of these threads and your “story” is near the top of most interesting. I think interesting stories are the strongest hook of all in the admissions process.
@BrianBoiler thank you for your reply. i think my recommendations are pretty great since i have tutored 9th graders in our school for free for a really long time and because of that a lot of my teachers know me and really like me. and also i am thinking of applying ED to harvard since that’s the college i’ve dreamed to go to since middle school and also i read somewhere that if the aid package isn’t good enough they would make an exception and let you apply to other colleges, but i am not sure if its true or not…
@muko1212 I’m sure your recommendors really think the world of you. It’s just I believe there are a ton of people who write these that think they can write a good recommendation and it reads very generic. You want to ask them to provide examples of how you are a great person, and not just list a ton of adjectives. Don’t tell me Muko1212 is a leader, show me how he has been a leader, etc.
Also, Harvard doesn’t do ED but a restrictive EA which means it is non-binding, but you can only apply there for the first round. I suspect it has the same “bump” in acceptance help as the others, but quite frankly, I’m not sure you need that bump, especially if you do a great job of writing your story and your recommendations are good. Don’t get your hopes up too high on what I write, you can still be rejected.