u/Infamous-Jeweler-848

Hey everyone, I’m an international IB student and I wanted some honest feedback on my chances at top universities (Harvard, Stanford, MIT).

Academics

• IB Diploma Program, rising DP2
• My school bases predicted grades solely on DP2 mocks and IAs
• 9th and 10th grade transcripts were mediocre
• 1590 SAT

DP1 (G11) grades (Out of 7)

• HL Math AA: 2, 5, 3
• HL Physics: 2, 7, 6
• HL Business: 5, 7, 6
• SL English Lang & Lit: 5, 5, 6
• SL Chemistry: 5, 3, 6
• SL Arabic B: 6, 7, 7

Extracurriculars

• Finance Director at a startup that raised $4.6M
• Founder of a 5-figure B2B SaaS company (Raised $500k seed round)
• Internship at a quant hedge fund
• Internship at a venture capital fund
• Founded a consultancy that generated five figures
• Top 50 in ARC-AGI (working towards 10)
• Built a commodities pricing bot for NGOs in Egypt (helps them buy things like food products for cheaper, which means more resources)

Questions

1. How much can strong DP2 predicted grades offset weak DP1 and earlier transcripts?
2. Does a 1590 SAT and this extracurricular profile keep me in range for Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, and Oxford?
3. I'm thinking of applying to Y Combinator (world's most prestigious startup accelerator and harder to get into than Harvard, I would have a very strong chance of getting in as I'm a repeat founder and have had success in my past startups), would that materially help my application?
4. Should I still be realistic and focus more on schools like Duke and CMU, or do I still have a real shot at the top schools?

I’d appreciate brutal honesty. Thanks.

Hey everyone, I’m an international IB student and I wanted some honest feedback on my chances at top universities.

Academics

• IB Diploma Program, rising DP2 (aiming for a strong upward trend, 7s across the board)
• My school bases predicted grades solely on DP2 mocks and IAs
• 9th and 10th grade transcripts were mediocre
• 1590 SAT

DP1 grades

• HL Math AA: 2, 5, 3
• HL Physics: 2, 7, 6
• HL Business: 5, 7, 6
• SL English Lang & Lit: 5, 5, 6
• SL Chemistry: 5, 3, 6
• SL Arabic B: 6, 7, 7

Extracurriculars

• Finance Director at a startup that raised $4.6M
• Founder of a 5-figure B2B SaaS company (Raised $500k seed round)
• Internship at a quant hedge fund
• Internship at a venture capital fund
• Founded a consultancy that generated five figures
• Top 50 in ARC-AGI (working towards 10)
• Built a commodities pricing bot for NGOs in Egypt (helps them buy things like food products for cheaper, which means more resources)

Questions

1. How much can strong DP2 predicted grades offset weak DP1 and earlier transcripts?
2. Does a 1590 SAT and this extracurricular profile keep me in range for Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, and Oxford?
3. I'm thinking of applying to Y Combinator (world's most prestigious startup accelerator and harder to get into than Harvard, I would have a very strong chance of getting in as I'm a repeat founder and have had success in my past startups), would that materially help my application?
4. Should I still be realistic and focus more on schools like Duke and CMU, or do I still have a real shot at the top schools?

I’d appreciate brutal honesty. Thanks.

Hey everyone — I’m a rising DP2 senior and I have questions about my GPA and predicted grades. My school bases predicted grades only on DP2 mocks and IAs, so despite poor DP1 performance, I could still get very strong predicted grades (42–45). My school uses trimesters; here are my DP1 grades:

Term 1

• Higher Level: Math AA 2, Physics 2, Business 5
• Standard Level: English Lang & Lit 5, Chemistry 5, Arabic B 6

Term 2

• Higher Level: Math AA 5, Physics 7, Business 7
• Standard Level: English Lang & Lit 5, Chemistry 3, Arabic B 7

Term 3

• Higher Level: Math AA 3, Physics 6, Business 6
• Standard Level: English Lang & Lit 6, Chemistry 6, Arabic B 7

My Grades 9 and 10 transcripts were also mediocre. My question: if I earn very strong predicted grades in DP2, can that effectively override my weak DP1 grades and earlier transcripts? Will elite universities be willing to overlook the bad Math performance if I show strong DP2 improvement?

Some extracurriculars, for context: Finance Director at a startup that raised $4.6M, 5-figure B2B SaaS founder, internships at a quant hedge fund and a venture capital fund, founded a consultancy that generated five figures, and Top 50 in the ARC-AGI competition (global AI competition with PhD participants).

Do I still have a shot at places like Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Oxford, or should I realistically be aiming lower (e.g., Duke, Carnegie Mellon)? Any advice appreciatedl; thanks for reading.