<p>Hello. I'm a Portuguese student and I want get a degree in the US. I'm having a lot of trouble because there are so many colleges there. I want a good college with a good education. The best I could get in. But it's very hard to look through so many colleges, and after hours of research I wanted to know if you had any advice for me.</p>
<p>My grades were (I am at one of the most competitive schools in Portugal):
9th grade 4/5
10th grade (1st year of portuguese high school) - 15.7/20
11th grade (I took it as an exchange student in the US) - 3.393 GPA (unweighted). I ranked top 20%, but the school didn't weight the GPA, so a lot of kids with easy classes ranked above me. I took 2 AP, 1 Honors, 2 College level, and 2 regular classes.</p>
<p>I scored 34 on the ACT (8 on the writing).</p>
<p>I'm fluent in Portuguese, Spanish and English.</p>
<p>As for EC's:</p>
<p>Young Reporters for the Environment
Participation in 2 editions of the National Science Fair
Environment and Math Olympiads
TEDx Event Organizer
Secretary-General of the Student Government Fiscal Council + Campaign President for the elections
Theater (US)
Engineering Club (US)
Speech Team (US)
Science Olympiad (US)
At least 1 hour of volunteering/week
Taking care of my little brother some afternoons every week (don't know if that counts)
Biology extracurricular 3 month long research project
Student coordinator of the environmental awareness program at my school
Extra english lessons every week
(and there are probably some other things....)</p>
<p>Sports: I don't really like them, but do 3 hours of gym/team sports every week, and I do 3 hours of swimming every week.</p>
<p>I don't really care about the size, I prefer smaller classes but I don't want to rule out larger colleges. I don't care too much about the location either. I want good academics, the best I could get into. Despite, I would like to have an active social life. I don't like partying too much, but every once in a while is fine. I also want somewhere where not playing sports isn't to big of a deal. I do not need financial ai.</p>
<p>Thanks for reading everything and thank you so much for you help!!!!</p>
<p>Cost constraints? Note that most US universities do not offer financial aid to international students, and merit scholarships are more limited for international students.</p>
<p>You do realize that the most expensive US universities are over US$60,000 per year, right?</p>
<p>If you are undecided among the sciences, consider schools which have respectable departments in all of them like</p>
<p>Arizona
Arizona State
Colorado
Florida
Florida State
Indiana
Iowa State
Maryland
Michigan State
Minnesota
Ohio State
Pennsylvania State
Purdue
Stony Brook
Texas A&M
UC Santa Cruz</p>
<p>Note that this list is not one of schools which would be difficult to get in with a 3.4 HS GPA (e.g. Caltech, Harvard, Berkeley, etc.). Many of these schools are obvious anyway, but might be unrealistic to expect admission.</p>
<p>With smaller schools, you may have to do more careful inspection of course catalogs and faculty rosters in all of your possible majors, since small schools may have specific emphases, leaving other departments (or subareas within departments) thin in faculty and course offerings.</p>
<p>Class sizes can often be determined by looking at the schools’ on-line class schedules.</p>
<p>It will help you to answer some fundamental questions about your university preferences. There are many possible choices and the list given above contains all large public institutions. There are may other possibilities. Ask yourself the following:</p>
<p>Would you like an urban or rural environment. Many of the large public universities are not located in major urban areas but in college towns.</p>
<p>Do you want to pursue a graduate degree? If so, look for a university which has good research opportunities for you to connect with. In many cases it is better to look for a research university with graduate programs for this but lots of smaller schools have research opportunities as well.</p>
<p>Public or private? As a rule of thumb, major public institutions as in the list above are large and you might be in large classes at least at the beginning. In a private university, classes might be somewhat smaller (not always). The cost difference is not too large as public universities charge comparable tuition to private schools for International students. The difference is that some private universities, usually the smaller ones like my own, Illinois Institute of Technology, do offer some financial aid to international students.</p>
<p>What kind of “feel” do you want for your university? Liberal Arts Colleges are very different than large public universities and technological institutes are different still. There might be some kinds of schools that you just don’t want to consider.</p>
<p>It is nearly impossible to give you a list of potential universities. You need to do a little homework to narrow down the choices a bit first. Your grades and test scores are good enough to get into schools listed as [“selective/very</a> selective” by Barrons](<a href=“Redirect Notice”>www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CGoQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmcpcollegiateseminar.wikispaces.com%2Ffile%2Fview%2FColleges%2Bby%2BSelectivity%2B(Barrons).xlsx&ei=z5-SUqOCM87WrQGb6YHwCw&usg=AFQjCNF7Zyo-GeHrCsHwb5qvrsPWM7mOHA&sig2=3VjDsCmZFDTk0RHqKhnMZQ&bvm=bv.56988011,d.aWM&cad=rja)</p>