Advice for American citizen living in Australia?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Gender: Male
Ethnicity: Asian-American</p>

<p>I want to do neuroscience or other biomedical sciences.</p>

<p>High school (I'm in a bit of a unique situation: went to high school in California as a freshman, and have been in Australia for the last 3 years. I'm still an American citizen, but everywhere I apply I'll be a domestic out-of-state applicant, apparently.)</p>

<p>GPA: Can't calculate.
9th: 4.00UW, 4.14W GPA, one Honors, no AP
10th: None. In 10th grade in Australia, kids take a test called the School Certificate for 6 subjects at the end of the year which is essentially your grade. I got, out of 100, English (95), Mathematics (98), Science (94), Australian Geography (95), Australian History (89), Computing Skills (98). Within school, I came first or second in all of my subjects.
11th: I managed to apply for and get into a top 10 high school in Australia (10% acceptance rate). We weren't given grades, only ranks. I'd estimate myself to be in the 25-35/160 range overall.
12th (this year): Again, we were given ranks. Estimating myself in the 20ish/160 range again. It's quite difficult to do this since we are given ranks for individual subjects and everyone does different subjects. At the end of the year, we take our HSC exams, which are the university entrance exams for Australia, and given a final score out of 99.95. I'm guessing that I got around 99.00/99.95 (top 1% in the state), but scores haven't come out yet. </p>

<p>I took the most difficult courses available to me every year I've been here in Australia, but there were no APs or honors or anything like that. </p>

<p>Standardized testing:</p>

<p>SATI: 2380 (800M, 800CR, 780W)
SATII: 800MathII, 800Bio, 800Chem</p>

<p>NMSF, probably going to be NMF</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:</p>

<p>Freshman year in California: Varsity Tennis
10th and 11th grade: Varsity basketball
Band: 10th grade
150 hours volunteering service at mental health hospital
Environment committee (2 years)
13 years of piano as a performer (I won a number of piano competitions back in California, but haven't done much since I arrived in Australia)</p>

<p>Teacher recommendations:</p>

<p>English - great
Chemistry - meh-good</p>

<p>I know my ECs are pretty terrible compared to most, especially having attended three different high schools in the past four years.</p>

<p>What tier of schools should I be looking at? What schools can I definitely get into?</p>

<p>Thanks peeps!</p>

2

<p>Bumpity bump.</p>

3

<p>Is Queensland, Sydney, Melbourne, Monash or ANU the sort of safeties you could consider? If I am not mistaken even the most selective Australian neuroscience program would not ask for HSC rank above the 90th percentile. Or you would return to the US because Go8 schools proved to be too costly for you?</p>

<p>Also, you might want to consider finances… just about any college is reachable but budget is often the limiting factor in a situation like this. May want Tulane at the low match/match level.</p>

4

<p>Australian unis are my last option as I don’t plan to live here in Australia any longer than I have to. Finances are not a problem here in Australia with the government programs, but again, I’d prefer to go to college in America.</p>

<p>Finances are not too big of a problem; I’d just like to know what schools I should be applying to with my stats.</p>

5

<p>I’d look into University of Michigan. I used to live in Michigan and the talent pool in that state is very bare. Therefore Michigan is one of the easiest, best, public schools to get into.</p>

6

<p>Bumpdiggity</p>

7

<p>UMI is a lot harder to get into OOS (than in-state) but UMI is still a match/high match.</p>

<p>Johns Hopkins as well, since biomedical sciences are JHU’s big thing.</p>