International ED 2 Applicant Bowdoin

Chance Me / Match Me
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1

Demographics

Gender: F

just turned 17

Race/Ethnicity: South Asian

Residence: UAE

Income Bracket: Low (fee waiver secured)

Type of School: Private CBSE

Hooks: First-gen, international, female STEM, broke

Intended Major(s): Neuroscience/Pre-Med

Academics

GPA: 98.6% (Grade 10), top 5% rn

Rank: #1/206 Grade 10

Curriculum: CBSE (no APs exist here)

Senior Year Load: Bio, Chem, Physics, Math, English, Arabic, Religion
Standardized Testing SAT/ACT: test optional

Other: Duolingo 135 ( expected 140-150 based on PTs, but guess what- the bird isnt the only thing that rejected me)

Extracurriculars/Activities

  1. Founder & Co-CEO, Neuroscience Society - built student research platform, 120+ members (HS/undergrad/PhD) etc etc

  2. Founder, Easy - free tutoring thing, pilot had 20 kids improve grades 11.4% avg, partnered w/ Indian orphanages, scaling to 1000+(in process)

  3. Deputy Head Girl & Vice Captain - ran 20+ events (500+ ppl each), mentored 200+ students,

  4. Research Coordinator, TESYouth - leading 3 units, mentor 30-50 researchers, supervise 10+ projects

  5. Built Synaptica - proto-EEG headset so paralyzed ppl can communicate via gamma waves, won 10+ STEM comps, exhibited at Gulf Medical University, hit news,

  6. Built AquaGenesis - ocean monitoring vehicle for marine conservation,

  7. Research - 1 paper accepted, 1 under review (neuroscience) // self-corrected when i accidentally said “published” bc integrity (2 under process)

  8. 300+ volunteer hours - trees, blood camps, Zayed Humanitarian, designed event stuff, school mag editor

  9. Boxing - few months kickboxing, some marathons etc (drill stuff)

  10. Family duties - oldest of 4 (time to take credit), tutor siblings, translate, manage household chaos

some more in resume (some lame Resume Padding)

Awards/Honors

  1. Fellowship - 1 of 25 internationally (AI research)

  2. Students on Ice Arctic Expedition 2026 - Waiting for result

  3. Funded Trip - 1 of 15 from 1500+ for funded India trip, met politicians

  4. GOALS Winner - 1st in SDG 14 (400+ students), regional news

  5. Sharjah Sustainability Award - 3rd place, AED 5K cash

  6. CBSE Topper - 98.6% Grade 10, first 100 in Social Science in school history

  7. National Poetry Award - Pravasi Sahityam UAE

  8. Social Impact - 2nd place

  9. 20+ STEM comp wins - ADNOC, SPEA, Ryan, etc

  10. PTBI Gold Coin

some more in resume

Letters of Recommendation

Bio Teacher (4 yrs): Nice I suppose -maybe like a 7.5

Social Studies Teacher (5 yrs): UNHINGED (10/10)

Counselor: 9/10

Essays

Common App: wanted to rename Broca’s Area to my name’s Area as a kid bc audacity, Ship of Theseus metaphor, core memory

Bowdoin supp: multilingual chaos, aunty asked “ninnakku choru veno” (rice?), i thought she said CHOR (thief)

Other: man w/ heterochromatic eyes stumbling over stone, some stones unliftable, i build bridges with those stones instead - some paradox thing

2

Please Chance me

3

You are a strong candidate. But you will be competing with many other strong international students for very few slots. I wish you the best, but nobody can reasonably chance you.

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oh alrrightt tysmm!!

5

As I assume you are aware, Bowdoin being need blind and meets need for Internationals means it attracts a lot of International applicants for a relatively small number of available slots. In their last CDS, they reported enrolling 42 Internationals, for which they admitted 77, out of 5347 who applied. That means out of roughly every 69 Internationals applying, they admitted 1 and rejected 68.

As another poster said, all we can really do is say you look competitive, but we can’t really give you a meaningful estimate of your chances of beating the rest of your competition to one of those offers.

The other obvious implication is you hopefully have a good plan in place in case Bowdoin in particular does not work out. If you would like us to review and possibly make suggestions on the US part of that plan, we can do that, although often very high need Internationals also need a good non-US component to their plan.

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Bowdoin is my dream school, but I’m very aware of how competitive it is for international applicants. I’ve tried to be realistic and applied broadly, mainly to LACs. My U.S. list includes Colgate, Kenyon, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Colby, Bates, Claremont McKenna, Hamilton, Whitman, Grinnell, Carleton, Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Pomona, Wellesley, Washington and Lee, Vassar, Wesleyan, and Colby-Sawyer, along with a few larger universities such as UNotre Dame, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, University of Miami, Colorado College, and the University of Illinois Springfield.

I also applied to NYU Abu Dhabi (initially ED1, later self-deferred to RD) and Duke Kunshan as non-US options. I am trying to be hopeful about Bowdoin, but I do have contingency plans in place.

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In case of any potential confusion, note that Colorado College places under the same classification as the other liberal colleges on your list.

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I am sorry, I dont get you :sob:

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@merc81 was saying that Colorado College is a small liberal arts college, like the other LACs on your list. It’s not a large university, as you have described it. It also has a very distinctive calendar, which you might want to consider if it comes to that. Or did you mean to list University of Colorado?

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We were ably assisted by @Shelby_Balik.

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yep got it, I mean CC- my bad sorry :))

12

This jumped out at me as an odd selection for a need-seeking international? Their website says funding for international students is very limited and even if you get something I doubt it would be a full ride or probably even close (which I assume is what you are looking for from the description of a low income bracket).