<p>I'm applying to US universities this year. I've decided to go without financial aid. </p>
<p>How much do 9th and 10th grade marks matter for admission in engineering universities? (I'm applying to UC Berkeley, MIT as dream; UIUC, GTech, UMich, UWashington; Purdue, UPenn as match; thinking about safety)</p>
<p>My 9th and 10th marks are bad. I study in a very competitive ICSE/ISC school (I'll have to list all my marks in transcript, because my principal forced it and GTech recommended me to submit all the marks.)
9th: 1st term - 66%; 2nd term - 69%; 3rd term - 71%
10th: 1st term - 62%; 2nd term - 80%; Pre-board(Final Term) - 83%; Board - 86%
11th and 12th was good with around 80-90% in every term. </p>
<p>I have A.D.D, a form of ADHD (which contributed a lot in my bad performance), which I realized at the beginning of my 10th 2nd term and started treatment without medication, and hence the grade improvement from there. Should I mention this in my essays?</p>
<p>I know a lot of factors affect my admission decision, but as for the marks part, will it put me at a big disadvantage?</p>
<p>Also, how much do personal projects matter? I devoted most my time in a few applications (gained traction) that I created and some electronic objects that I loved to make rather than participating in contests, so I just participated in a few contests and won 3 national+international innovation awards nonetheless. (2-3 unique creations, 2 national magazines showcased those creations; but mostly normal creations like quadcopters and AI chatbots). Are they valued in the same league as contest awards?</p>
<p>you have doubt regarding 9th and 10th, I have doubt for 11th and 12th.
I have the same problem like you but here I suffer from autism,anxiety,little adhd, anemia and crohn’s disease. I am taking medication for crohn’s disease and anemia but not for any mental disorder, so I dont know whether I should mention this or not. though both have big advantage for us, as this people want some struggle win students.
Also your personal projects are great, and u mentioned that you make rather than participating in contests, even I do the same but only regarding computer science. I never participated in any competitions and I would prefer making for my own cause. I have made many things and I have diverse portfolio from simple app to computing grid,machine learning,computational finance and some weird electronics stuffs LOL.
Quadcopters are great, can you tell me your motor rpm and signal range also maximum altitude it can fly and also was that made by you or it was some team work. For AI chatbots i.e artificial intelligence chatbot is computer application or some assembled board stuff.
As far as I know we have strong hold on our projects and I think this will work.
our EC’s -> *****
academic -> ***
SAT -> *****
SAT II -> *****
recommendation -> *** [difficult]
financial aid -> 0 [no need :P]
What things you know is rare and very difficult to find in this pool, so I think we have chance 
I have seen an application of Indian student getting into MIT, so we can work on it.</p>
<p>^ you have seen the application of Indian student getting into MIT</p>
<p>will you mind sharing some observations about it?</p>
<p>Only meaningful observation about an Indian student getting into MIT is that he/she has an olympiad medal/GSF/ISEF winner</p>
<p>Bump!!! Anyone? To what extent would these marks decrease my chances in universities like GaTech and UWashington? </p>
<p>Also, are only GSF/ISEF/Olympiads (and the likes) considered prestigious awards? I won awards in NASA’s Humans In Space Youth Art Competition and IGNITE (national), which isn’t prestigious really. But are contests like Moonbots 2012 given equal weight?</p>
Do u mind sharing the application with us??
UPenn is not a Match for anyone( You need to do some serious research, type common data set + uni name on google to get an idea of the scores). It is an ivy it is far more selective and the best in your list after MIT. What is your SAT score? Anything below 2000 combined with those grades means rejection because you need to show them you are overcoming your illness not that you just have it, that is not appealing to them.
Also GTech Umich and UIUC are low reaches nowhere near matches.