Can you be competitive enough?
How are you evaluated compared to American students?
There are three things that matter the most to college admission boards for international students
applying to US colleges.
1) Extracurricular activities.
What you do outside of college, what we call extracurricular activities, matter more than you may
think. College admissions boards look for well-balanced students and excellent grades are not
enough on their own.
Find ways to highlight anything you’ve done outside of your classes, from working part time, to
volunteering anywhere for any cause, to learning to play an instrument to juggling track and being on
the badminton team.
2) SAT scores matter too.
As an international student, universities here are going to have a difficult time interpreting what your
high school transcripts mean as far as curriculum is concerned. This is how the SAT has evolved
into a required test everyone must do well on to be considered for college.
The good news is that there is a movement in the USA these days where more colleges are not
requiring SAT scores for their admission. The original mission of the SAT was to identify intellectual
talent regardless of race, color, creed, money, or geography, and it will give talent room to blossom.
But the data available today indicates the SAT no longer serves as an equalizer and some refer to it
as “a wealth test”.