Is it more difficult to enter ivy leagues as an international student?

Question

I come from a pretty complicated background. I was born in Hong Kong before the British handover and migrated to Singapore when I was 2 years old. However, most of my relatives are still in HK.

Singapore is pretty much an east-meets-west country. It has 4 different races and so I know a little about each culture. English is the first language followed by respective mother tongue of each races. For me, it's mandarin because I am a chinese.

Here's the part where I have an identity crisis!

When I was 13, I visited HK and the whole experience was like a culture shock to me. Everyone speaks cantonese there and minimal Mandarin and english. Even though I am a cantonese, I can't read the characters as they are much more complicated than mandarin characters. I can converse in cantonese but the locals there think that I am a foreigner because I have an accent to it. It's strange to be thought of as a foreigner because I was born there! Furthermore, since now that HK has returned to China, it belongs to China but I don't feel any attachment to China! The Chinese culture is also extremely different in HK compared to Singapore.

When people ask me which country I am from, I don't know what to answer. I feel like I am a mixed of everything! This is also evident in the number of passports I have- British( before HK handover), China and Singapore. I don't even know which citizenship to use to apply for US colleges and I'm afraid the ivy leagues will turn me away because of my complicated background. I'm trying extremely hard to get in. So far, I know 3 languages ( English, Mandarin and Cantonese) and have more than 400 hrs of community service and probably going to Cambodia and India at the end of the year to do more of such stuff.

Also, I would like to ask whether an internship in a law firm in Singapore will enhance my application to an ivy league.

Answer 1

If anything, ivy league schools will accept you for having such a complicated background, being fluent in three languages, 400 hours of community service, and even going to other countries to rattle in more volunteer hours.

Internships really enhance your college application, whether applying for an Ivy League school or not.

Good luck getting in! :D

Answer 2

It is much harder to get in as an international. All the ivies keep foreign students to less than 10%. The competition is particularly tough for Asian internationals as the ivies get tens of thousands of applications from them each year.

A law firm internship will not make you stand out at an ivy. They are looking for kids with national level honors and accomplishments in addition to being the top students or politically connected in their countries.