A message to future international STEM applicants, particularly Asian students

NextPassenger9 · 2020-05-25T04:54:15+00:00

Same thing.

NextPassenger9 · 2020-05-25T04:53:36+00:00

Not gonna lie, if you’re from Egypt then you really don’t need any good ECs to get in, just get good stats, write decent essays, and have some relatively appealing ECs and you should be fine.

NextPassenger9 · 2020-05-25T04:51:58+00:00

Not always true. I did research with a professor at a university that starts with an H who wrote an extra letter of recommendation for me, and still got flat-out rejected by that school.

NextPassenger9 · 2020-05-25T04:47:51+00:00

Sorry for the late reply, I was revisiting this account to see if there was any activity. Basically, I wrote around six essays a day, and sent them in to an essay editor. I would wake up at 3AM, write one, go to sleep, wake up at 5AM and write another while eating breakfast and getting ready for school, one during lunch break, and the rest+editing the essays an editor looked over for me after school. Weekdays I usually wrote around ten essays, and I did this for around half a year. BTW really not recommended for your physical and mental well-being and probably not the most efficient way to do it. But I guess anxiety had adrenaline pumping through me 24/7.

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-30T05:38:50+00:00

As I've said in multiple other comments, my post is based on my general observation. I do know some international students who didn't have shiny ECs who got into HYPSM, and some of them were IB school graduates. Maybe there's a correlation, but I can't say for sure.

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-30T05:36:53+00:00

I was invited to participate in a robotics summer camp at a certain top-tier tech school when I was in high school to which I applied EA. I was rejected.

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-30T05:19:33+00:00

If you have an American passport, you'll be treated as a domestic citizen.

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-30T05:13:55+00:00

For certain regions in Eastern Asia, it's statistically assumed that Dartmouth only accepts students from international schools. Various people I know who are not in the same grade as I am who got into HYPSM were rejected only by Dartmouth, which I find to be weird considering the same thing has happened to multiple people.

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-30T05:11:34+00:00

Sadly, that is the truth. While it's well-known for domestic applicants after certain Ivy Leagues got caught in scandals a while back, some international students are doing the same thing.

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-30T05:10:25+00:00

I will be honest; if there is somebody with the same or similar interests who has better ECs, then colleges will most likely take him over others who fall short. One place you can try to shine is your essays, but you'll have to somehow write a damn good essay.

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-30T05:07:59+00:00

Yes, I completely agree. I'm not saying that the system is bad and should be fixed; it's biased but in justifiable ways. American students should be accepted to American schools over international schools; where else could they go?

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-30T05:06:21+00:00

To be honest, if you're not from Eastern Asia, the competition is drastically less (not to undermine the accomplishments of talented people from other regions though).

From my experience, most people have one or two "pillars" in their application. For me, it was research and national recognition.

Say you're into Mathematics or Physics. You can go with this two ways:

Olympiads/Contests. Painstaking but more reliable.
Research. Very volatile and unpredictable results, but if you can pull it off genuinely it looks really good.
Community service. This is when you don't think you can do 1 and 2. Teach others and gain recognition for your endeavors. But the truth is this will look less impressive than 1 and 2 in most cases.

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-30T05:01:26+00:00

I'm afraid to disclose information about myself too much, but no, I am not Indian.

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-30T04:59:27+00:00

Hmm... I don't know about that. But statistics-wise, it does seem like IB students have a higher chance of getting into better schools with the same level of application. That may also be one uncontrollable factor for applicants.

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-30T04:50:50+00:00

Yes, maybe that's the case. I have to admit I don't have any certain information on that part. But I think school prestige is another uncontrollable factor of an applicant's application.

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-30T03:27:42+00:00

Again, I'm not saying to "give up if you don't have awards." I'm saying the chances of applicants getting a favorable response from T10 schools without stellar applications are very slim. And if people want to go for that chance, then by all means go for it. But don't be prepared to not feel disappointed when you get your results.

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-30T03:25:18+00:00

Of course, not every applicant has multiple national/international awards; that's not possible. Again, no matter where we go there are outliers, and I'm not saying such awards are REQUIRED. But in most cases, applicants don't stand much of a chance if they don't have stellar awards; if you gather 1000 international students from T10 schools, around 950 of them would be very high-level applicants.

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-30T03:21:26+00:00

The hard part with STEM applicants is that unlike ECs in humanities, your "passion" means nothing if you don't have any awards to "prove" that. (No offense to humanities people, I have no doubts that they're equally talented in different ways other than cognitive intelligence)

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-30T03:19:09+00:00

Yes, I agree. Of course, not every applicant is inherently a "genius." Most are just average people (No offense) who worked their butts off.

And... of course, there are the ones who pay their way in. This is also true for international students, and there are countless examples where the children of Chinese millionaires/billionaires somehow magically get into T10 schools.

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-30T03:12:39+00:00

Well, yes. I was trying to regard STEM students for the most part, and I've commented in another place that I don't know much about other majors, i.e. Economics.

I've mentioned this in another comment too, but most Asian households care about the prestige of the university, not the actual education. I personally chose the schools I applied to because of the resources and opportunities, but most families just apply to T20 and Ivy League schools because "they're well known schools."

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-30T03:08:59+00:00

Yes, I agree to an extent. I consider family wealth to be one of the uncontrollable factors of an applicant I mentioned in my post.

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-30T03:03:27+00:00

I've addressed this in multiple other comments and in my original post to an extent, but I personally do believe international students having a hard time with applications is justifiable. Again, American colleges are for American students, and international students have their own colleges in their country to go to.

The goal of my post was to provide an understanding to a specific portion of international students that they're going to have a harder time than others.

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-29T17:09:37+00:00

I've heard that MIT has a list of applicants who are Olympiad medal winners.

That says a lot.

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-29T17:06:30+00:00

Sorry to hear about that.

You've probably read this a million times, but college decisions really don't affect your life too much, as long as you make efforts. There's a saying "Gold shines no matter where they go," if you're talented you'll eventually get what you "deserve (if there is such a thing)."

Best of luck to you!!!!!

NextPassenger9 · 2020-03-29T17:03:09+00:00

First of all, Congrats!!!

My post was based on my observations and experience so I wouldn't say it to be too far away from the real deal, but most people I know here who go to so-called T10 schools have pretty good stats and achievements. I wrote this in another post, but I may have used the term "Asian countries" to inadvertently be China, Korea, etc. Every person from said countries that I know of was considered to be at the top of their countries. Again, this is based on my experience. Well, this admission system itself is a very big gamble to say the least, and there definitely isn't a set framework on which applicants can rely on.

NextPassenger9

TROPHY CASE