<p>well the applicants are seen the the due light of their country , city and local background.. what colleges want to see is relative achievement in a context that is highly local.</p>
<p>Dont worry for what you are at the University in terms of applicant pool.. You need to be the best of the lot from your country to be admitted to the top US colleges and thats simple enough. Then if your country stil doesnt provide EC's or stufff its understodd u just cudnt create it in thin air.. so chil for that..</p>
<p>But well here ofcourse if a country topper expects also to be admitted he/she needs to get forward to the admissions commmitee some basic proof of high achievement. This may thus be in relative cases academic grades, Sumthing diff, Ec's essays and all..</p>
<p>In short yes at many in fact most top US colleges the admission are taken in a very holistic way..</p>
<p>but thats doesnt mean there is no politics or Diplomacy or uknown weird admission scenes. Bunk that for the time being and be th ebest for what you want to do.. admissions will follow</p>
<p>thanks smartmind. thats kinda of what i thought ( and hoped) colleges would think.
you see, the thing is that, when you start reading through these boards and see how many great applicants have been rejected, the whole application process becomes very daunting.</p>
<p>colleges here are really into being "passionate"... like not even being world ranked in something, just dedicating yourself to it. and ive heard they dont like you if you have 2 million ecs but dont take a leadership position in any of them.. you have to be well-rounded but maybe even more importantly focused and dedicated... in a situation like smartminds i think you can even talk about what you enjoy doing outside of class (writing) and how you dont have opportunities for organized ecs but are still passionate about something</p>
<p>yeah the thing about sats is not entirely true.
as a international whose native language is not english your Critical reading and writing scores can be a bit lower..
however i do think that a person must have high subject tests</p>
<p>hows 730 650 and 700 (the only other applicant from my school- who got into harvard) or 780 750 720 (me). Not inspiring stuff.</p>
<p>Stats are severly overated. Do as well as you think you can (i.e. only retake about once, there isnt usually a much greater increase aftr this) then concentrate on ECs and essays. They are much much more important</p>
<p>There's no point in concentrating too much on the SATs. Most top colleges accept students with SAT scores as low as 1250 (on the old scale). There a lot more to an application that those numbers. And don't worry about the fact that you have not received any recognition for your writing. You could always send some samples to the relevant faculty if you like.</p>
<p>Also, the responses that you got from the admissions offices of the different colleges, from my experience, holds true. They do consider you in the context of your environment. Just make sure that you elucidate exactly what that environment is. Tell them about the fact that you have next to no ECs in school but you still managed to play soccer and outside the confines of your school, you pursued other things that interested you. It will probably impress them. And you don't have to "waste" your personal statement (essay) to do that. You could send an entirely different write-up for that purpose. They will understand.</p>