Harvard/Stanford 2. Caltech 3. Yale 4. Princeton 5. MIT 6.Columbia 7. UCLA 8. NYU </p>
<p>I have won international essay competitions about human rights and poverty, I have 300hours+ of voluntary work (UNICEF Youth ambassador 3hrs fortnight, worked in retirement home for 1 year in 9th/10th grade)l Young Achievement Australia - business program where aspiring entrepreneurs meet and complete tasks, Youth Parliament - wrote a bill which will be voted on, Yale Young Scholars - economics, won CPA Business plan competition, 2nd in UN Speech competition (represented my state in national finals), won My First Speech Australian Parliament speech competition, won local and state tennis competitions, going to participate in UN Youth Project. </p>
<p>Taught myself to speak fluent German, despite learning French at school - and not being fluent in it. Taught myself to code (HTML, Java, Python, Ruby, C++, CSS, PHP, JQuery). </p>
<p>As you can see my primary interests are
Business/ Entrepreneurialism
Human Rights/ Poverty
Tennis
Computer Science </p>
<p>I want to major in Economics. </p>
<p>Have I got too many interests? If so, how can I narrow it down and focus on the few which will really impress admissions. After all I live in Australia and we haven’t got many internships, programs, competitions as in America. </p>
<p>Colleges understand that students taking a rigorous course schedule must spend 3 to 4 hours a night on homework. That leaves about 20 hours a week to devote to extracurricular activities. When you complete your EC list, college’s ask you to list your EC’s in order of importance to you – and they prefer students who have a passion for an activity and spend 3-6 hours each week on several activities, rather than students who have a laundry list of activities that they spend one or two hours a week on. So, rather than list ALL your interests, list those that are most important to you that best tell your story. If you’ve done a gazillion things, you don’t have to list them all. See: <a href=“What College Admissions Offices Look for in Extracurricular Activities | HuffPost College”>HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost;
<p>@gibby- hello! I am interested in applying to Harvard. I am in junior year and my academic record is great. However I havent been taking part in many extracurricular activities in my time in high school. I am looking to change this and i have this year and 2 months of summer. The only extra-curriculars I have so far are: Volunteering at a special needs school, and volunteering at a charity art exhibition and a charity fun fair. I am also an active member of the school choir. Do you think its too late to start doing more activities, and if not, do you think that even if I do, I wouldnt be a good applicant? </p>
<p>@LexieA: Welcome to College Confidential. What you just did is called “hijacking a thread.” If you have a question, you should start your own thread rather than ask a question on another person’s thread.</p>
<p>What have you been doing outside of the classroom for the past 2 years besides volunteering? I’m sure you’ve done other things besides sitting on the couch, watching TV and playing video games. Whatever you did is considered an extracurricular activity.</p>
<p>FWIW: As an international student, you need to understand that your chances are not the same as a U.S. student. Look through this site and see how many students from your country are currently at Harvard. That will give you an idea of your real odds: <a href=“Statistics | Harvard International Office”>Statistics | Harvard International Office;
<p>As an international student from Australia, you need to be realistic about your chances. According to Harvard’s website (<a href=“Statistics | Harvard International Office”>Statistics | Harvard International Office) there are 32 students from Australia at Harvard College. That means, that on average, Harvard College (the undergraduate school) accepts 8 students from your country every year. To be accepted, you must be one of those top 8 students – however you wish to define that. The website doesn’t say how many students apply from Australia every year, but I imagine it must be hundreds of students. Those aren’t unsurmountable odds, but they are not the same odds as a student from the US or Canada. I imagine your odds are going to be about the same at the other 5 US colleges that grant need-blind financial aid to international students: <a href=“Need-blind admission - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need-blind_admission</a></p>
<p>Gibby, I actually think that you are slightly exaggerating the number of students applying from Australia. I remember coming across an article mentioning that some 4000/6000 international applicants applied to Harvard in both the EA and RD cycles a couple of years ago, but I am unfortunately not able to find that article now…Judging from the competitive nature of some countries though, there should be a disproportionately high number of applicants from Asian countries, not so many from say Scandinavia or Eastern Europe. Canada, Australia and the UK will also probably boast a great deal of applicants to Harvard simply because English is also the official language. In any case however, I doubt that “hundreds” of students from Australia apply to H each year. Over a hundred, probably. </p>
<p>^^ Unfortunately data isn’t published about the number of international students applying from each country. Currently there are 32 Australian students at Harvard College. If Harvard admits, on average, 8 students per year from Australia, and if the acceptance rate for Australian students is equal to Harvard’s overall acceptance rate of 5.9%, that would mean about 136 Australian students applied to Harvard last year (136 X .059 = 8.024). It’s anyone guess if those numbers are accurate, or if the acceptance rate of Australian students is higher or lower than the overall average acceptance rate. My personal guess would be that it’s tougher as an international student to get into Harvard than it is for a US student. If that’s true, it would mean the overall acceptance rate for students from Australia might be lower than Harvard’s overall acceptance rate, meaning greater than 136 Australian students are applying to Harvard. How many more students though is anyone’s guess.</p>
<p>I agree with Gibby and skieurope that there are very few slots for applicants from Australia and, when you subtract the athletes, there are even fewer. But it would be wrong to infer that “only 32” Australians at Harvard means that only 8 per year are accepted. That would require a yield of 100%, which not even Harvard achieves.</p>
<p>^^ There are currently 32 students in total from Australia at Harvard (freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors). I was dividing that number by 4 to get the average number of students Admissions would accept per year to maintain the same number of total students on campus. Of course, that total number will go up or down slightly every year, as Harvard might accept fewer (or greater) students from Australia in any given year. But, it’s likely not to jump from a total of 32 to say 42 – that’s just not realistic. With an 80% yield, I imagine Harvard might accept 9 or 10 students per year and look for one or two of them to decline.</p>
<p>^ I agree with your analysis, including your estimate that no more than one or two would decline per year. I’ll add that Harvard’s yield among its Australian applicants is probably greater than its overall yield of 80%, because of the skew toward recruited athletes, a group with an extremely high yield.</p>
<p>So, in the end, I don’t disagree with your prior post (#9) in any meaningful way.</p>