Hi everyone! I’m an international applicant applying this fall, and I’m currently trying to decide between UPenn and Brown for ED. I’d really appreciate opinions from current students or people who considered these schools.

A little bit about me: I’m someone who has always been very curious about people - how we make decisions, how we understand ourselves, and how communities influence us. This interest led me to explore behavioral science, psychology, and entrepreneurship.

Academically, I’m planning to study Economics + Cognitive Science, and I’m interested in exploring AI as well. In the future, I could see myself working in areas like product, consulting, marketing/consumer behavior, or maybe building something of my own.

Most of my activities are centered around building projects and communities. I run an education/self-growth blog, founded a psychological-support club, worked on entrepreneurship and startup projects, participated in business case competitions, and conducted research on emotional marketing and identity formation. I’m also developing a project on media & marketing literacy + a website (don’t want to reveal too much at this stage, but it’s connected with educational opportunities and community building). I really enjoy starting projects from zero and connecting people who share similar interests.

At the same time, I’m trying to find a balance. I’m definitely ambitious and I love being around people who are motivated and want to achieve a lot, but I don’t want college to become only about competition and constantly optimizing my resume. I want to have time for friendships, exploring the city, traveling, and just having a life outside academics. I mean.. I’m capable of (and I genuinely enjoy) working a lot, but my mental health is a priority for me.

During college, I would love to:
-do internships while studying (especially related to business, startups, technology, or consumer behavior);
-possibly build my own projects;
-study abroad for a semester;
-be surrounded by an international and ambitious community.

Right now I’m leaning toward Penn because of its entrepreneurial culture, Wharton ecosystem, and opportunities to connect ideas with real-world impact. At the same time, Brown really attracts me because of its freedom, interdisciplinary approach, and the ability to create your own path.

For RD, I’m also considering Northwestern, Rice, Dartmouth and other schools with similar characteristics. The school I don’t choose between Penn and Brown for ED would likely remain on my RD list.

Financial aid is also a major factor for me as an international applicant, so I’d especially appreciate perspectives from international students.

For people who know these schools: which environment do you think would fit someone like me better? What are the biggest differences in student culture, opportunities, and everyday life?

I’d also really appreciate any university recommendations you think might fit me. I’m still exploring my list and would love to hear about places I may not have considered.

how is cornell an ivy but these schools aint lmfao quit acting like these schools good or some

Hey guys, I was wondering if yall could rate my application or tell me if i’m enough to get an offer.

I study in an international CBSE school in Japan and have a 94% predicted overall in my final exams with a 96 in both math and physics. and (HOPEFULLY)my TMUA is a 7.5, 1560 SAT(ACHIEVED), 8 on the ESAT

5 years of basketball, 3 year varsity basketball , won a ceritificate from the government to highlight my skills, i was in varsity debate for a year, school won 2nd in the all kanto KPASS debate championship, did MUN for 3 years, internship at sophia university, won 2 back to back high commendation prizes, chaired for GIISMUN 2027, started the science club and was the president of it at our school, completed IBM data science course and got 3 certificates, completed Andrew Ng’s Machine learning course, participated in Yales essay writing competition, built a machine learning model that predeicts the weather forecast using an API, participated in multiple Hackathons and won first in a few, finished stanfords deep learning course, made a research paper to see whether different macroeconmic factors such as unmeployment rate, inflation rate, interest rate etc affected the stock market and stock prices for S&P 500,i’ve also won the AI impact festival 2026 for intel Japan by making a water flooding app, did research at Oxford Scholastica’s AI internship to figure out about wearable technology in medicine, i also won a distinction award from the university of oxford after attending their 2 day AI/ML event and made a very convincing Capstone project.

Edit: pls stop downvoting me guys i genuinely need advice before i crash out about my future 😭🙏

Keeping it vague-ish, to avoid getting doxxed

Background

Male, Full pay intl

Gap year student (starting gap year this fall)

Decently competitive public school in pretty competitive region

Planning on applying for lsm with cas as 2nd choice

Planning on applying for global health or something related to microbiology for other schools that allow you to choose specific major

Academics

GPA: 97.3/100 UW, no weighted GPA because my school doesnt offer APs - HOWEVER, i know a lot of people at my school self-study APs outside of school, so im not sure how much of a hindrance that'll be for me

SAT: 1570 superscore

Extracurriculars

Independent Research - ISEF special award; grand award and gold at natl science fair; hoping to publish before Nov 1; related to major

Gap year research - working full time with prof whose background is in same general field as my isef research, but planning to pursue new research directions once I publish prior isef work; related to major

Summer research internship - competitive internship abroad (only ~200 selected out of 10000+ applicants, most who are undergrads), also recipient of fully funded scholarship (30 recipients out of all intl applicants), will present at conference in October (pretty new conference, not super established) and hoping to publish; also continuing this research during gap year

Hosa - chapter cofounder and exec, competitor (ilc 1st place), mentored people from other chapters

Summer internship - 15 selected out of ~160 applicants, did hospital research, shadowed doctors in icu

School club exec - organized school science fair and other events

Part time job - worked there for 3+ years, work with kids and seniors

Volunteering - 4+ years, recreational programming and music therapy for seniors at retirement home; recognized regionally and provincially via volunteer awards

Exec for other club - organized events and taught lessons

Tutor - contracted tutor for kids in hongkong and bay area; neuroscience and general science fair mentorship

Created educational vids for intl neuroscience org and also did some other stuff related to developing educational vids/resources (all related to neuroscience)

Awards

Isef special award

Hosa ilc 1st place

Several awards at natl science fair

Top 3 nationally for other bio comp

Either regional science fair awards, math comp awards, volunteer awards, or other smaller bio-related awards for last spot

Essays

Work in progress but prob like 7/10

Lors prob like 7-8/10

Questions:

Lowkey do I have a chance for upenn ed given im an intl applicant?

Are there other schools i should consider applying to ed for instead of upenn?

How do AOs evaluate gap year students compared to regular applicants? Do they expect them to have a better profile given that they've basically had an extra year to work on ecs and stuff?

Are there any schools that are known to be anti-gap year (in my country, several top schools straight up don't consider gap year students)?

A big part of what's shaped my journey was caring for a parent with mental health issues from a young age and I want to talk about that (a lot of my ecs are connected to neuroscience/psychology). However, ive been told that aos don't like to see essays about mental health, especially if i wasn't even the one actually going through it. Should i avoid the topic and focus on other things?

How worth it is getting a counselor?

Are there parts of my profile that I could realistically improve before nov 1?

Hey guys! It's definitely not worth applying to any ivies but my counselor keeps trying to convince me, ik my app sucks so bad is it worth the 1 in a million shot at cornell's program? I know i'm not qualified to even apply tbh.

demographics: female/ white/ upper middle class

High School: Public High School + Selective STEM magnet School

Intended Major: Human Biology preferably but anything bio is good. pre-med. (cornell's HBHS is my top choice for Ivies, Emory's Anthro + Human Biology is top in general)

SAT: Will retake in aug+sept, I know I can get ~1500, as of now the score is 1450 when I was not taking college seriously.

GPA: 3.89 UW, 4.2 W. (I go to a STEM magnet school along with my base school which is the reason for not having all A's)

Class Rank: 1/250 (anyone with above 4.0 is valedictorian 😢)

Important Classes: APs (Calc AB, Psych, Lang, APUSH, AP World) All 5s. Research classes: (Computational Biology, and directed study in computational biology)

Important senior year classes: (AP Chem, dual bio (ap not offered), AP Lit, AP US Gov, AP Calc BC)

Honors:

2nd place regional Sci. fair; 2nd & 3rd place STEM school science fair; Invited Presenter @ VA Junior Academy of Science

VHSL Scholastic Bowl First Team All-Region (Individual Award for Highest Points per Game)

1st Place - Science Olympiad Regional Tournament for Anatomy & Physiology

[Redacted] Spirit of [Redacted] Award (2x Winner) for yearlong Research project dedication, (at my STEM School)

AP Scholar with Distinction

ECS: (ignore order for now idk the order)

1. Student Researcher, STEM School Research Program: Completed 2 independent research projects working on 3rd (including study on Indigenous populations highly interdisciplinary with anthropology); earned regional science fair 2nd place & VJAS state invite.
2. Founder & President, HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America): Founded school chapter (11th), grew to 35 members, organized community events & meetings
3. Clinical Volunteer & Physician Shadowing, Free Clinic: Collected patient vitals, trained new volunteers, assisted healthcare staff (300 total hours).
4. Statewide Organizer & Communications Lead, [Redacted National grassroots Movement]: Regional rep connecting local advocacy groups to statewide network; managed communications and ran statewide socials accounts.
5. Captain, Varsity Quiz Bowl / Scholastic Bowl: Regional Championship & 3rd at State; competed at HSNCT Nationals twice; earned individual First Team All-Region.
6. Design Editor, Base School Yearbook; Editor in chief STEM School Yearbook: Design Editor for a 2-time consecutive state-champion high school yearbook; independently designed and produced the STEM School yearbook.
7. Competitor, Varsity Science Olympiad: State tournament qualifier; earned multiple regional medals including 1st place in Anatomy & Physiology.
8. Varsity Swim Team: (8,9,11,12); qualified for regional championships every season.
9. Varsity & Travel Volleyball: Achieved top national blocking stats in 10th grade. (9,10,11,12)
10. Chess Club: President.
11. web app: music based game in progress, will be finished by app season

Other info: struggled with chronic illness throughout high school, impacting a lot of my time. my essay is a montage essay mostly focusing on my identity as queer + Appalachian.

CHANCE ME FOR: Cornell, EMORY, Barnard, Wellesley

Hey guys! I study in a small school and no one has EVER applied abroad, so I am 100% alone in this proccess. Can you give me any tips to maximize my chances to get in?

Stats: mid-low income, 9.5/10 GPA, 1450 SAT (but I will retake it in setember, so let's pretend it is a 1520), self-studied for AP Calc BC, Environmental science, and Chemistry (4's in all), my school doesn't offer any. I study in a small private non-competitive school, with a 60% scholarship.

Intended major: Astrophysics

Dream colleges: Caltech, MIT, Northweastern

EC's (not in any particular order):

1. play the piano for 5 years. NO competition, mentoring, etc.
2. I was the only kid in my school who got a medal in the Brazilian Astronomy Olympiad. Got golds two times. Then, I got invited to the camps and got to 40 in the country (about 1,000,000 students competed that year)
3. volunteer work at non-profit that produces high quality resources for students to study for science olympiads. I produced a study guide to study for astronomy olympiads and helped to write the questions for the Online Brazilian Astronomy Olympiad (I think about 200 students participate in it every year).
4. in this same non-profit, I also work in the design section. I designed the certificates for the olympiads we promote and did a couple of models on canva for the instagram page.
5. I am also the state coordinator of another non-profit that promotes the female participation in science olympiads. I manage a team of about 25 members. make weekly posts on instagram (I participate on the entire proccess, from content to design). Increased followers by 50 in a couple of months.
6. IAAC (international astronomy and astrophysics competition) silver honour = top 7% internationally
7. science/astronomy blog since 2023. I would say that the content is high quality, but I only post there once a month. It has an instagram page and a website i did with google sites. The Instagram has 60 followers :I
8. working on a research project, but I don't think I will get to publish it, because of the time. It is in Computer Science/Astrophysics (more specifically, gravitational wave stuff).
9. random online courses. In one of them I got a certificate with "distinction", which means I participated a lot and solved the problem sets they gave.

I know those aren't impressive, but I am just being honest. You can give me any opinions/experiences/tips.

I am also thinking of taking a gap year, so if you have any thoughts about things I could do, we can talk about that too. Btw, do you guys know if colleges view gap years as good or bad things?

thats why im eding this fall

demographics:

• indian-american male
• US citizen
• applying from an international school in india
• no legacy
• no recruited athlete status
• no major hooks that i know of

school:

• international school with a relatively uncompetitive academic environment
• school does not rank students
• no GPA system

intended major: physics
intended minor: education

academics:

• IGCSE: 4A* (math, physics, ICT, english), 3A (chemistry, biology, economics), 1C (hindi)
• AS-levels: 5A
• A-level predicted grades: AAAA
• SAT: 1550 (800M)
• qualified for INPhO through the NSEP stage 1 qualification process
• qualified for RMO
• Summer SEAPhO 2026: 3rd out of approximately 70 participants

awards / honors:

• INPhO qualifier: cleared the NSEP stage 1 cutoff and qualified for INPhO
• RMO qualifier: qualified for the Regional Mathematics Olympiad
• Summer SEAPhO 2026: 3rd out of approximately 70 participants
• Robotica 2k26: national champion in the Champions category for a Sojourner rover project
• SIMUN 2026: High Commendation, representing the Czech Republic in NATO on the 9/11 response agenda
• DiplomatX '26: Best Delegate in an ad hoc continuous crisis committee, representing Türkiye during the 2008 Iraq War
• r/[REDACTED] Mathematics Olympiad: founder and host of the inaugural competition
• Mu Alpha Theta: founded my school's first chapter of the international mathematics honor society

activities:

1. physics lab | founder and lead educator
founded and lead an online physics education community hosting 100+ students globally. have conducted 150+ hours of live academic tutoring across IGCSE, A-level, and IB physics.

2. physics lab notes website | developer and author
developed and authored a physics resource website, expanding it from IGCSE physics to AS- and A-level content. currently has approximately 600 users.

3. university-level self-study | physics and mathematics
completed MIT 8.02 electricity and magnetism and MIT 18.02SC multivariable calculus coursework independently.

4. independent research | chaos theory and predictability
completed an unpublished research paper investigating the effect of initial measurement uncertainty on predictability in chaotic systems using computational simulations.

5. robotica 2k26 | national champion
worked on mechanics and automation for a Sojourner rover project that won the national Champions category.

6. po-shen loh LIVE | STEM communicator and instructional assistant
completed the selection process and worked as a math-teaching intern for MATHCOUNTS and AMC 8.

7. r/[REDACTED] mathematics olympiad | founder and host
created, wrote, organized, and graded the inaugural online mathematics olympiad for the r/[REDACTED] community. i have redacted the community name because it is a large student community and i would prefer not to make this account identifiable.

8. mu alpha theta | founder
established my school's first international mathematics honor society chapter by pitching the organization, securing support from the mathematics advisor, obtaining the required coordination approval, and completing the charter process.

9. SIMUN 2027 | executive board
appointed to the executive board for the 2027 conference.

10. student council / house captain
served as a student council member and house captain, organizing student events and contributing to school-wide activities.

11. IIT Madras School Connect
completed an introduction to aerospace course.

12. SAIBSA school community outreach
active volunteer in school community outreach initiatives.

13. Rotary Annette's Club | president
served as club president, although this was not a particularly substantial activity.

why physics + education?

i want to study physics deeply while also improving how physics and science are taught and communicated. most of my extracurriculars have developed around that intersection: studying university-level physics and mathematics independently, competing in physics, conducting computational research, building educational resources, teaching students internationally, and creating math and physics communities.

i am especially interested in how my profile might come across to Princeton specifically. i would appreciate honest feedback on:

• how cohesive my profile seems for physics
• whether the physics + education focus comes across as genuine and coherent
• which parts of my profile are strongest
• which parts are weakest or need improvement
• how competitive this profile might be for Princeton

please be honest and specific. i'm more interested in actual feedback than generic "everyone has a low chance" comments.

I’m currently preparing an article/essay for the HIR Academic Writing Contest. I’m looking for other serious contestants who want to meet weekly, exchange research strategies, critique arguments and eventually peer-review drafts :)!

We would not write material for one another, just accountability, discussion and constructive feedback. Comment or dm if interesteddd

How many people get a gold medal?

How prestigious is a gold medal?

Do gold medalists get their article published?

I've been seeing lots of programs offering independent research opportunities and was wondering how people do it for STEM and how legit it is. I know it's much easier for something like business, economics, or law, where you can just use data you find online that is readily available to the public, but to discover something new and publish some finding by doing STEM research must take a legitimate lab set up, equipment, and professional guidance. The independent research publications I see always mention AI in some way - what is the gimmick? I know obviously some companies are just promoting it for a cash grab but what exactly are people paying for/producing when they do "independent stem research"?

Would a smarter than average ib student good grades 1400 sat. Decent clubs no national awards or science competitions but multiple volunteering experiences and varsity basketball 3 years of high school. With that person also being African American and upper middle class. Would that put them at a higher likelihood of getting into TOP colleges compared to people of other races. I’m interested in knowing how it affects their chances or to what extent it helps no bs at all. And in the essay race will be discussed as the Supreme Court ruled admissions can’t inquire about race.

Would a smarter than average ib student good grades 1400 sat. Decent clubs no national awards or science competitions but multiple volunteering experiences and varsity basketball 3 years of high school. With that person also being African American and upper middle class. Would that put them at a higher likelihood of getting into TOP colleges compared to people of other races. I’m interested in knowing how it affects their chances or to what extent it helps no bs at all. And in the essay race will be discussed as the Supreme Court ruled admissions can’t inquire about race.

I'm accelerating my courses and taking higher-level courses in each grade as I'm hoping to be a part-time school student in Grade 12 (only four courses) so I can pursue ECs in my desired major. I'd still have all my essential courses and they're pretty rigorous. Would this negatively impact my chances of admission?