Do I have any chances as an intl applicant? [in gap years after 2023 HS graduation, 5.00/5.00 GPA, <$8-10k, psychology or environmental science]

The first question that comes to mind is wondering whether you have an affordable safety in your home country.

The second thing that comes to mind is that given 35 schools on your application list you should do 35 Google searches, all of the form “does [name of college] meet full need for international students”. Just to help out I did two. Brown does. U. Wisconsin does not. I was pretty sure that I knew the answer for these two before I did the Google search.

Colleges and universities in the US have complex admissions forms. They will want to know why you think a particular school is a good fit for you. One way or another this is likely to come through in your essays. I can see reasons why some students might like Bowdoin College, or Bennington College, or Yale, or the University of Wisconsin. I am not as clear regarding why one specific student might consider all of these to be a good match. I think that it will be very hard to answer this for all of 35 different colleges.

Perhaps you should think about which schools would be a good fit for you, and then fill out the applications for those schools first. That way if you get burnt out part way through your list of applications at least you will have already completed the applications to the schools that you like best.

4 Likes