Anyone mind sharing their stories of how they got into top colleges despite thinking that they wouldn’t be accepted?
It was a serve as a really great motivation, thanks!
B@r!um is a good example.
@r!um
What do youmenaa why do I say so? She is one of the most well informed international student and successful person in international CCforum
Hello, everyone, I am happy to help on Cam, where my d is. Here is my description of the process from an earlier post.
Most important, you must know what you want to study, i.e. your major - the 3-year course combines curriculum from undergraduate and graduate levels. That means you should demonstrate, through focused experience and effort, that you have been pursuing your interests. Some disciplines are easier to get into than others, e.g. Classics v. medicine. After that, there are many hurdles and requirements.
First, to apply, you have to meet strict grade requirements. If you are a foreign applicant, from a different system, this adds a bit of flexibility, but not much.
Second, if they are interested in you, they may ask for additional personal essays that require research and an expression of the applicant’s own thoughts. Parents are instructed to let it be a pure product of the applicant, with no writing help. I was very impressed with this, as it was a growth experience for my daughter.
Third, they can invite you for an interview on campus. Beyond probing what you know until they stump you, this is to check if you have the “right attitude”, that you “shine” yet know your limits. It was an exercise in humility for my D.
Fourth, they can ask you to take tests in your topic, though this was not required of my daughter.
Fifth, if they make you an offer, it is conditional. They set precise overall grade requirements (or class ranking) - my daughter had to get very high grades on her BAC exams (in her French high school), in some cases for specific disciplines; my daughter had to get A+ in honors math.
For this final hurdle, we formulated a strategy. We looked at her strengths and got a tutor to prepare for her BAC exams (they demand a specific style of answer, which was what we prepared for - not content, but style), in a sense knowing what she could ace and how it was weighted to affect the overall score. We avoided emphasis on subjectively graded subjects, such as philosophy, and concentrated on those over which we had more “control”.
Directly comparing statistics between US and UK admissions processes is misleading. First, with the common UK application, you can only apply to 5 schools. Second, you cannot apply to both Cambridge and Oxford. Third, the grade requirements are rigid, eliminating many qualified applicants from the statistical pool. Fourth, there is no “legacy” advantage, though if you go to the right public (read “private”) school in Britain, you are conditioned for the culture. Finally, my D applied as a European, though she could have done as an American. Americans may have additional requirements, such as submission of SATs; as she had EU residency, we pay EU rates and not overseas rates.
I should note that applicants have to choose a college within Oxbridge to apply to directly. If that one lacks places in the chosen discipline but thinks the applicant is qualified, they are put into a “pool” with other colleges, which can choose to repeat certain steps in the application process. My D was “pooled” from St. Catherine and offered a place elsewhere. Also, extra-curricular activities are not very important; that being said, my D is an accomplished singer, which we believe helped as she was asked to audition in person for the chorus while still on conditional acceptance; she also had work experiences related to her discipline, which gave her plenty to write about in her essays.
As one can imagine, it was a long and stressful process right up to July, when her BAC results were posted at school in France. We were focused on the process for the last 2 years, though from age 12, my D had expressed interest in going to Oxford and had read a book about how to get into Oxbridge. (As it turned out, she visited Oxford at 17 and didn’t like it as much as Cambridge.) While my D was motivated to pursue her field on her own, we also nurtured her interests and offered her opportunities for work experiences in it, which she loved.
I was not noteworthily successful with my college applications. I was accepted to two liberal arts colleges (Bryn Mawr and Mount Holyoke) with generous financial aid - which was the outcome I had been hoping for. I am not complaining.
I was surprisingly successful with my graduate school applications to PhD programs in mathematics. I was accepted with funding to every program I applied to, including Princeton, MIT and Stanford. I was surprised because I was measurably less accomplished than several of my male peers, who had much poorer outcomes. There’s no doubt in my mind that my gender was a big factor factor in several admission decisions. (The top pure math programs are 90% male.)
Please don’t underestimate yourself, @b@r!um. No one will ever convince me that grad schools at Princeton, MIT and Stanford will accept anyone who they don’t think belongs there.
i think b@r!um is just being disarmingly honest…hat tip !
i’m from New Zealand, i decided at the start of this year i was interested in going to america to study undergrad. I’ve been offered a scholarship to play for a div 1 sport team at Stanford. so am looking at being in class of 2020. I was very surprised when i got the offer (Stanford has always been a dream school, but i always thought it was a very distant dream).
derpro, where are you from/looking at applying?
Wow! That’s truly inspiring b@r!um. I hope I could be the same. How many countries have you gone to, to study I mean?