Applying to US universities as an American living overseas

[Anonymous]

Is there a place that reports how many students from each country attend each school? Being evaluated as an international is worrisome with much lower admit rates. DC would like to toss a few applications at places where our country of residence is not represented.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there a place that reports how many students from each country attend each school? Being evaluated as an international is worrisome with much lower admit rates. DC would like to toss a few applications at places where our country of residence is not represented.

This is the wrong way to go about it. Unless you are in Namibia or someplace totally obscure, this is not a good tactic. If a university has never accepted someone from your international school, your DC is going to need to apply ED because they are an unknown quantity. Maybe that is okay with you? If not, and your DC wants to gain various acceptances and decide where to go after RD, you need to start with the secondary school profile of recent matriculations in the last 5 years, where did the kids get accepted/where did they enroll? That should be the start of your list. The universities on that list know your school, and are familiar with the educational quality etc.

[Anonymous]

Our school doesn’t share that info. And we don’t want to hire a $$ predatory consultant like Crimson bc their results are lackluster, imo. They don’t add any value that we can’t add ourselves with due diligence.

I agree not to rely on geography as a hook, but it would be nice to identify where being an international American is not an additional burden. Most int’l acceptance rates are five times more selective than domestic.

That’s the concern.

[Anonymous]

Continuing above… our school is a very well known school that typifies the country it is in. Not an international, no IB/AP. But an awesome example of the local curriculum and culture.

Maybe one or two out of 200 head to the US each year. Not a lot apply, tbh. Which I think is why the school doesn’t share info. Too easy to identify students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there a place that reports how many students from each country attend each school? Being evaluated as an international is worrisome with much lower admit rates. DC would like to toss a few applications at places where our country of residence is not represented.

Some universities will publish this information on their websites. You'll have to dig. The CDS does not capture this information.
If any university has a sizeable international contingent, the countries represented as a percent of the student population are usually:

China
then India


then a big gap


All other countries

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our school doesn’t share that info. And we don’t want to hire a $$ predatory consultant like Crimson bc their results are lackluster, imo. They don’t add any value that we can’t add ourselves with due diligence.

I agree not to rely on geography as a hook, but it would be nice to identify where being an international American is not an additional burden. Most int’l acceptance rates are five times more selective than domestic.

That’s the concern.

That's my concern too. People say that the international experience adds diversity to the applicant pool and will be considered a net bonus for a kid whose parents are posted internationally, but for an American kid applying to school in a country where 1-2 kids in an entire country may be accepted (and those might be legacy kids), it's a much higher bar to surpass than if we were to return to the USA.

[Anonymous]

If a dual citizen, just apply as an international with international address and don’t check US citizen box. Then after the admit you can “update” the record with US citizenship and apply for financial aid if necessary. They’re not going to withdraw an offer of admission at that point.