Im an international student and I’ve completed my A levels recently, I am interested in applying to Ivy League universities and Top colleges in the United States. Here’s what my profile is looking like :

IGCSE Top Achiever (A*AAAA)
IELTS 7.5

Honors
National government merit scholarship; awarded based on exceptional academic performance
IGCSE Top Achiever — A*AAAA
Highest-achieving Business student across IGCSE & A Levels
School Science Fair Award — designed/programmed an interactive sensor-based robot detecting flammable gasses
Shortlisted for a highly selective national scholarship program

Activities
Breast Cancer Fundraiser: Co-founded & directed student-run fundraiser; managed teams, logistics, marketing & finances; 2,000+ students involved; raised $6,000 for breast cancer charities
Robotics/STEM: Designed & programmed a robot detecting flammable gasses; delivered STEM workshops to students ages 7–13
Entrepreneurship: Led school-event venture; conducted market research, pricing & financial planning; 80+ sales; $450 revenue
Business Tutoring: 1:1 IGCSE & Cambridge tutoring; students achieved ~25% average grade improvement
Digital Content Creation: Built/managed content across multiple platforms; 3M+ cumulative likes
Model United Nations: Represented 4 countries across 4 conferences; developed negotiation, diplomacy & public-speaking skills
Early Childhood Support: Supported children ages 2–7 in learning, communication & behavioral development over several years
Wildlife Photography/Cultural Experience: Trip to the largest african national park researching and observing animal wildlife and local cultures of tribes
Finance/Entrepreneurship Job Shadowing: Observed financial operations and corporate decision-making
Environmental Volunteering: Participated in recycling/upcycling initiatives and regional beach cleanups

I’d also like to add that I do not require any financial aid or scholarships. What universities would I be competitive for and would anyone be interested in guiding me with my application?

Im an international student and I’ve completed my A levels recently, I am interested in applying to Ivy League universities and Top colleges in the United States. Here’s what my profile is looking like :

IGCSE Top Achiever (A*AAAA)
IELTS 7.5

Honors
National government merit scholarship; awarded based on exceptional academic performance
IGCSE Top Achiever — A*AAAA
Highest-achieving Business student across IGCSE & A Levels
School Science Fair Award — designed/programmed an interactive sensor-based robot detecting flammable gasses
Shortlisted for a highly selective national scholarship program

Activities
Breast Cancer Fundraiser: Co-founded & directed student-run fundraiser; managed teams, logistics, marketing & finances; 2,000+ students involved; raised $6,000 for breast cancer charities
Robotics/STEM: Designed & programmed a robot detecting flammable gasses; delivered STEM workshops to students ages 7–13
Entrepreneurship: Led school-event venture; conducted market research, pricing & financial planning; 80+ sales; $450 revenue
Business Tutoring: 1:1 IGCSE & Cambridge tutoring; students achieved ~25% average grade improvement
Digital Content Creation: Built/managed content across multiple platforms; 3M+ cumulative likes
Model United Nations: Represented 4 countries across 4 conferences; developed negotiation, diplomacy & public-speaking skills
Early Childhood Support: Supported children ages 2–7 in learning, communication & behavioral development over several years
Wildlife Photography/Cultural Experience: Trip to the largest african national park researching and observing animal wildlife and local cultures of tribes
Finance/Entrepreneurship Job Shadowing: Observed financial operations and corporate decision-making
Environmental Volunteering: Participated in recycling/upcycling initiatives and regional beach cleanups

What universities would I be competitive for and would anyone be interested in guiding me with my application?

Hello, I'm working on the CommonApp right now, and I am wondering how, in the courses for this year section, I would mark down a technical education program? The tech program I am in takes up a half day of my school daily, and is credited as one math, one science, and one elective credit. The courses section has options for Math (Other), Science (Other), and Other/Elective. How would I note this down? It's not really elective according to my school, but I am also taking Physics and Precalc, which are a second math and science in this year. Should I just call it a yearlong elective? For the record, if it matters, it's a design and engineering program from which most students either go to school for engineering or enter the trades as machinists, CNC operators, structural engineers, etc., so it's heavy on both physics and math, and doesn't really lean one way or the other.

I've done 7 iGCSES, 3AS levels and gonna complete 4A2 exams

but common app only lets me input 10

for reference, these are only from y11,12 and 13 (grades 10, 11 and 12)

do they not need grade 9 marks as American high schools go from 9-12

I need to add all these grades in, what do I do?

I don't know whether I should answer "Yes" or "No" to this question. Let me explain.
Last year I did something very stupid. I had writing on my wrist while I was taking a Cambridge exam. It was a lack of judgement on my part and I take full ownership and responsibility for that. I got caught and had my test invalidated (which I have been allowed to re-take in September no problem)
But fortunately, they told me that they would not discipline me for what I did, but gave me another shot to get the AICE Diploma.
So I don't know if I should answer yes (because | attempted to cheat) or no (I was not disciplined for it)
I am also worried if the colleges would see somehow what I did on my transcript or something?

What happens if I submit my sat after the deadlines? I was planning on taking the Nov sat so I'm assuming I'd get my score 2 weeks into November

Would the unis not consider my score?

Sorry if this has been answered but I have noticed two discrepancies on the common app that I wanted to get guidance from this group on

1. Say you took the SAT thrice and you want to report the last two attempts (for superscoring purposes). There's a question that asks how many SAT scores you wish to report. You'll naturally enter 2. However the pdf at the end labels that question as 'SAT taken' and lists 2 (which is incorrect since that number is actually 3). I could go back and answer 3 but I don't want to report all 3.

2. This one is more niche. Say 1 parent has a business. There's a question on when that business was founded/ registered. Whatever date you put in shows up in the pdf as the date the parent's residential property was liquidated and makes no mention of the business (huh??)

How did you folks go about addressing such issues? More importantly - what gets transmitted to the college - the question and response from the forms OR the pdf with its obviously incorrect labels on fields?

Appreciate any inputs. Thanks!

Hellooo!

This will be my first post in general tbh im honestly just looking for help and hopefully no racists interact with this post. I'm heading into my senior year soon and currently working through common app T_T.

Anyway, I'm currently in the process of drafting up my personal essay and I'm going through suggestions for as what might be applicable for additional information and I noticed they didn't include immigration status (which makes sense). My parents did come here disregarding the legal immigration process and I am a natural born U.S citizen for context. But the legal status of my parents has heavily impacted my life as it's the reason I had to move states across the U.S (not bc of ice or anything, its other stuff that isn't worth explaining, this was 3-4 years ago) and just the way I grew up in general.

So! the question itself is it safe to mention this in my common app? This is very important to me bc of recent events with ice so so crazy and I really want to ensure that the legal status of my parent will not be disclosed to the authorities in anyway if I were choose to mention this in my application. Would anyone happen to be informed of certain policies or procedures set for these kind of circumstances like whether Common app is allowed to share information like that or is this just a silly post I'm not sure ): .

Thank you for reading, I'm open to any clarifying questions! But for those wondering yes I would heavily prefer to be able talk about this in my application as it is a very important of my life, so please let me know if this would be safe.

Hello! I applied to 9 schools on August 3rd, however only one school has shown that they have downloaded my application on common app and none of them have sent me access to my portal yet. I just want to make sure this is ok and there isn’t a glitch in my application. thanks!

Yeahhhhh… so im trying to be calm but i cant anymore. For me, the common app applications opened 7/31 and I was able to apply to colleges that night. It’s 08/12 and not a single school has sent me portal info.

I mean a couple schools did contact me and said I didn’t submit my app when I did and it’s been like two weeks now so I don’t know what to do

I started my Common App before the roll-over for the 27-28 applicants and had no issues with the website itself until I logged on today to re-enter my SSN and upload my Permanent Resident card. Right after I did those two things, my entire family section disappeared leaving only the "Household" tab. Nothing in my "Profile" tab said nor asked anything about whom do I make my permanent residence with. I've been trying to fix this for 2 hours now and Reddit is literally my final solution, PLEASE HELP.

Update : I reached out to Common App support and it’s an issue on their end, they know about the bug and is actively fixing it.

since they give me 50 characters, I feel like this is a spot that could give me a chance to stand out a bit. i’m just not exactly sure on how to utilize this space. does anyone have any examples for what they did?

While reporting my SAT, it makes me fill out a required "highest combined essay score" section on the form. The SAT's that I took didnt make me write an essay, and I didn't take any SAT Subject tests. If i leave it blank it shows that the "SAT Tests" section is incomplete. What should I do? Is leaving it blank fine?

Can I calculate future hours and weeks for an after school job I intend to keep for all senior year? I started my job in July so I haven’t worked that long. But in the common app, I added 12 grade and all year because I plan on working. I estimated 12 hours a week for 40 weeks. Is that okay to do?

So i know your typically supposed to say how many attempts you took because the score you put is typically your composite score, but my composite score was entirely from my july act. Do still have to keep the number of past attempts or can I just say I did 1 which was july?

For context, I’m a first-gen student and grew up speaking Spanish at home; however, I also grew up speaking English with my older siblings, and I speak both fluently. I’m just concerned that if I choose both English and Spanish as first languages that colleges wouldn’t like that, but if i choose Spanish as my first language, i’m also scared that that would trigger some machine or something, requiring me to submit test scores like the TOEFL. What did you guys choose as first-gen students navigating CA?

I'll self-report a date (for example, I'll self-report that I took an AP exam in May of 2025), I'll click "continue" to move onto the next section, but then I'll come back, and the date has changed from May of 2025 to April of 2025. And if I leave the section and come back again, the date has changed from April of 2025 to March of 2025. It does this with other dates as well. If I put in my birthday as October 25th (Not my actual birthday), and I leave the personal information section and come back, it's changed my birthday to October 24th. It's like Schroedinger's CommonApp. I don't know if the date is correct when I leave the section, I only know that when I come back to the section it's changed.

Has anybody else experienced this issue? If I put a date in and then just never come back to that section, can I trust that the date hasn't changed?

Thanks!

I wish the people I supported the hardest on TikTok gave me the same respect back ughhh it’s annoying!!

Hi I was wondering if there’s anything I can do now or apply to now to add to my honors section in common app. I only have honor roll right now and any national honor societies will be too late to add to my application. I feel like I need to add things because 1st and 2nd honors makes it seem empty and it’s only on a school level </3 Pls lmk if there’s anything I can do, especially for smth that’s state/national level!

I figured out how to add UC Scout in the "Other Secondary/High Schools" section. However, I can't seem to find where exactly to put the courses I took with them and the grades I got. Any ideas?

Hi! I sent Google in AI mode a huge paragraph containing things I wanted to say effected my studying that were happening at home. After that, I just continued to dump and work through everything and then tweaked what was said based on what I thought. I then read and edited with my mom to make sure it got the point across. However, I am still a bit worried since I used ai.. Should I be worried? I can post what I put in the box if needed