Do you think my app is up to Ivy standards? Feel free to give me your opinion [international, 8.6/10 GPA, 1520 GPA, need FA]

Chance Me / Match Me
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International student from Italy applying, from a Public high school (Liceo Classico) I’m from a mid income family (at least in Italy) 100k per year.

GPA: 8.6/10 SAT Score: 1520

Extracurricular Activities :

  1. Self-Taught Polyglot: Learned over 10 languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian, Chinese, French, Italian at B2/C1 level; Swahili, Ukrainian, Turkish at B1).
  2. Volunteer with Ukrainian Refugees: Helped over 20 Ukrainian refugees in Italy over four years, teaching Italian, translating documents, and aiding integration into the community.
  3. Founder of Integration Program: Created a program in my hometown to assist 1st and 2nd generation immigrants (ages 4-15) with social integration; over 50 immigrant children participated, supported by 10 local Italian teen volunteers.
  4. Co-Founder of an NGO Website: Developed a multilingual site providing resources for refugees and immigrants, in 10 languages, covering employment, food events, and community support; collaborated with over 60 NGOs, aiding 1500+ individuals in two years.
  5. Multilingual Podcast Host: Run a podcast focused on economics, philosophy, and international relations in six languages, featuring 25 guests from 17 countries, including university professors.
  6. Weekly Volunteer in Rome: Assist with a local NGO every Sunday, serving dinner to the homeless at the main train station, helping over 100 people weekly.
  7. Advanced Classics Classes: Take advanced Latin and Ancient Greek classes reserved for the top 5% of students, translating philosophical texts without a dictionary.
  8. Vice President of Student Association: Advocate for student needs, raising awareness on various issues (LGBT rights, Palestinian conflict), enabling collaboration across different study areas.
  9. Volunteered Abroad: Spent three weeks in Spain working at a charity shop, supporting treatment for a rare childhood disease.
  10. Book Club Leader: Organize a book club with 15 participants, reading and reviewing two books monthly, also managing an Instagram account with over 3k followers.
  11. Research Project with University Professor: Collaborated on a linguistics research project examining how immigration influences language learning; published in two magazines.
  12. Published Translator: Translated important works for Swahili and Ukrainian cultures, providing the first Italian translations of these books.

Awards and Recognition:

Language Certifications: Achieved B2/C1 certificates in multiple languages (IELTS C2, DALF C1, DELE C1, Diple B2, Torfl B2, Goethe B2, HSK 4).

1st Place in Hometown Promotion Contest: Created a video promoting my city to a twin city in Germany, winning an all-expenses-paid trip.

Honorable Mention at IMUN: Received recognition at the largest Model United Nations event in Italy, competing against 4000 students.

Translation Contest Awards: Won two translation contests from Greek to Italian, with a total cash prize of €500.

3rd Place in Philosophy Olympics: Achieved third place in regional philosophy competition conducted in English.

Intended Major: Government, Philosophy, and Linguistics

My personal statement is about my passion for languages and different cultures and how this permitted me to have different experiences and help people.

The only thing that is pushing me back is my GPA: In my school the teachers will give you a 8 or 9 even though you should have deserved a 10… But my counselour will explain this in my LoRs (with that GPA i am unofficialy in top 5% of my class).

School I’d like to apply to: All Ivys (Harvard REA), Northwestern, Georgetown, Bowdoin, Duke, Vanderbilt, Berkeley, JHU,Rice

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International admissions us extremely difficult, particularly when requiring aid from a need-aware university, but you have a very competitive application. You GPA is fine; every single AO knows the grading standards in Italy. Be aware that some responders on a US-centric forum will tell you your GPA is low. Ignore them; they don’t have the bandwidth to make a meaningful assessment.

Cross Berkeley off your list. You can’t afford it and they provide no aid. Good luck.

6 Likes
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Ask your counselors. You are right - the gpa is low - but it all depends on the context of your school and program.

Also these are all expensive programs and some are need aware - meaning if they deem you need too much aid they can reject you on that basis alone.

Do you have budget concerns ? Some of these will be close to $400k in US dollars.

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I believe they are hoping for significant need based aid…which they might get at a very generous school on their list.

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Yes I do. My actual targets are Harvard, Yale and Princeton, which I think they are the only Need-Blind for International

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Okay, thank you. Yeah, I’ve already experienced that. The fact is that it is really hard to compare different school grading systems. I guess this is where the ACT and SAT play a significant role.

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Plus Amherst, Bowdoin, Brown, Dartmouth, MIT, and Notre Dame.

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Ok thank you! well, i guess i’ll apply also to those schools

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Your strategy makes sense provided

  1. You are applying to 1-2 Italian universities you like and where you will be guaranteed admissions

  2. For Harvard/Princeton/Yale, understand their foreign student numbers are approximately 15%, and your SAT score is below their average

  3. Do siege the role to have an exact measure of the absolute minimum scholarship you would need to attend any of these schools, because super of them may accept you with a partial scholarship

In any case, you should consider taking the SAT again or take the ACT to score in the top 25% of their respective band, in order to have a fair chance at a scholarship, especially if you need a full ride. Good luck.

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Your list of colleges in the United States is very reach heavy. Do you also have some sure things for admission someplace else…like in Italy?

The colleges here that are both need blind for admissions and meet full need for all international students are highly competitive. You have a nice application to submit, but these are all very reachy schools for you. Admissions are in the low single digits.

But you can’t get accepted if you don’t apply…so go for it.

Just make sure you have some back up ideas in case these reach schools don’t work out.

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I’d eliminate MIT for so many reasons, not least if which is that they are not as strong as others for what you want to study.

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I’m not sure what your career goals are, but you would be a perfect candidate for Brandeis’ Heller School of International Management. My parents “adopt” an international grad student each year and they have all ended up working for NGOs or the UN.

I think you are a wonderful candidate for any school and have a fighting chance of seeing an acceptance at one you are targeting, but the financials may not work out. If that is the case, grad school at Heller (grad programs only) may be a good option if you still want to study in the US.

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I am pretty sure that Bowdoin is also need blind for international students. It is a very good college in an attractive location, although since it is relatively small you will want to make sure that it has your intended major.

This will be interpreted in the context of your high school and the country where you go to high school. Your GPA does not need to compete with the GPA for students from the US, because you are not studying in the US right now. You will need to be relatively close to being the top student in your high school to be competitive for Harvard, Princeton, Yale, or Bowdoin.

Also, given how hard it is to get accepted to Harvard, some other school that considers need is not necessarily any more difficult to get accepted to.

I agree with others to not even bother applying to UC Berkeley unless you somehow can come up with US$75,000 per year for four years without taking on debt.

Are all 8 of the Ivy League universities a good fit for you? They are not all the same.

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Exactly what is your annual budget?

If you have a lot of need, on your list, Hopkins appears to have very few, if any, slots for high need Internationals. Georgetown also has extremely few. I would estimate the percentage of high need Internationals they accept is well under 1%, possibly down to 0% at Hopkins.

Duke, Rice, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Columbia, Penn, and Cornell have some, but not many. I would estimate the percentage of high need Internationals they accept is under 2%, perhaps closer to 1% in some cases, or perhaps even below again.

Despite being need blind for Internationals, Harvard and Bowdoin are under 2% for Internationals generally. Princeton is slightly above 2%, although with the way International applications are trending, it might not be for long. Brown is switching to need blind, and I do not have good data for Yale and Dartmouth, but I would doubt they are going to be much better than Princeton.

I don’t mean to be discouraging, but my point is these colleges may be admitting no more than 1 in 50, 1 in 100, or even less of the high need Internationals who apply this cycle. And if you are applying to them with a lot of need, you could be one of those very few, but you should obviously have strong alternative plans.

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I’m confused. You are applying as an international from Italy, but you say that your Italian is not native - it’s B2/C1. So what nationality are you? Where do you have citizenship or permanent residency? What is your native language?

You should apply to all of the US colleges that will meet full fin need for int’l students - that’s Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Amherst college, Bowdoin, Brown, Dartmouth, Notre Dame, and MIT (which is very strong in computational linguistics, and although I think that this is the school that is the worst match for you, if they by some miracle take you and fund you, you’d probably be thrilled, just to have any option in the US).

The real question is whether you should be applying to any other schools in the US at all, since they are unlikely to meet full fin need.

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Just to be clear, this is the list of US colleges that are both meets need AND need blind for Internationals.

There is a significantly longer list of US colleges that are meets need for Internationals–I want to say it is around 70, give or take–but the rest are also need aware for Internationals.

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I’d cull your final list to between 6-10 US Schools – IMO essays matter and it would be difficult to write quality essays for more than 10 schools. How important is it to study in the US vs the schools you are guaranteed admissions in Italy? If studying here is critical, then your list should be based on meets full need with a wider range of selectivity of school. If international prestige is what is driving your decision, then stick with the reachy schools like HYP, which will also be the most generous in terms of FA if you get in.

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