Some advice/perspective for international students

bogororo
Sun, 10 Apr 2005 12:02:53 +0000

“So on what basis did i get in? well, my extracurriculars are pretty strong, as i’m a nationalteam rower (but in a small country, mind you!) and president of the student council. I wrote some good, and very personal essays, and got nice teacher recommendations, But I believe I was also the only applicant from my country, and i’m sure that the universities quest for diversity have helped me gain admission.”

It does not matter that you are from a small country, you still had the “national rower” attribute going for you.
And yes, I think if you are an international student from Denmark or from Western Europe your nationality can be an advantage. Why? Because comparatively much fewer people apply from your country than from let’s say India, China or Bulgaria. The admission committee people will value the fact that you come from Denmark positively, because you can bring the name of another country to their list of admits. If you came from, say, Romania, there would be other a hundred people (there were!) applying to Harvard, most with mind-gobbling credentials. The difference between you and most of us here? Even though we all asked for FA, you are a “rara avis”. Most of the abilitated young people in Denmark go to university in their country, or in the EU. You would feel how disadvantageous it is to be an international if many other smart people in Denmark decided to apply to say, Yale.

Just a statistic for you: Harvard RD admit rate:6%
This year 100 applied from Romania, 2 were admitted, that’s an admission rate of 2%. Which means that, on average, one is 200% more likely to get into Harvard if they’re American.