I’m from Brazil and I just started my Common App and all of this college application madness. I’ve been looking for a lot of stats for me to know my chances (my dream schools are Notre Dame, Duke, Georgetown and Johns Hopkins) but I find near to nothing on international students. Just find it hard to compare myself to Americans when we don’t have the same organizations/varsity teams/AP classes and such. So if you’re an international student (especially from Latin America) and you got accepted into any of my dream schools (or other competitive schools), please share your stats here! Really want to know more about the SAT/TOEFL grades, extracurriculars, recommendations, etc I’m expected to have as one.
Thanks!
bemvindo, @luizabreis!
1st thing to know is that you are compared to other students from your region, and the admissions committees know that (for example) ECs are different outside the US
2nd thing is to know what your financial parameters are: do you need financial aid? all of those schools are need-aware, so that makes a difference.
3rd thing is that those schools have some pretty big differences. For example, Duke students seem to be generally really active- they all seem to have several activities on the go all the time. JHU weights classroom grades over standardized testing, likes leadership positions, and especially likes hard workers. ND is in a corn field (sorry ND fans, but it is); Georgetown is in a capital city.
4th thing is to know how you stack up on the objective measures. For example, your SAT is in the bottom 25% of admitted students at JHU. That puts it into reach territory for you. If you don’t need financial aid, your matches are schools where your stats put you solidly in the middle 50% or higher; if you do need financial aid, look at places where your stats put you in the top 25%. These are just rule-of-thumb suggestions, btw. Look at where you are relative to your class: are you in the top 10% (approximately)? if so, that’s a good start. If not, those schools are all going to be a stretch, as the majority of their accepted students are in the top 10+% of their year. Do your teachers see you as a star? that’s helpful for LoRs.
5th thing is to look at how you spend your time outside of school: do you have a good story to tell on what you do on your own time? What you do is an indicator of what is important to you, and what you might be like or bring to the college community.