<p>Hiho!
Here I am, another 'desperate' applicant asking more experienced people to say if I'm good enough.
Well, i plan to major in computer science (or EECS, in MIT).</p>
<p>*** I'M INTERNATIONAL. ***</p>
<p>My options are:
Without financial aid...
MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Duke, Columbia, Northwestern</p>
<p>With financial aid
Georgia tech, UPenn, U Michigan, Purdue, Stanford, JHU</p>
<h2>Since i dont have my SAT scores yet (i'm not in senior year), I will post only my ECs.</h2>
<p>I will start with the 'bad' side of my application. Grades!
Not 'bad' at all, but the admissions office can't understand the brazillian context of grades. They change A LOT between high schools.
All my life I studied in the best school of my city and was the best student. Sincerely, #1. But then, I made a really hard exam (the harder on this level in Brazil, 3% acceptance rate) to study in the navy high school (really military, being prepared to be a Navy officer. but i don't want that), and i was admitted. But then my life changed: i was with the best minds of my country and from top 5% I downgraded to top 15% ( plan to get back at least to top 10% next year) and got some really bad grades (even the #1 get 4 out of 10 in an exam, for example)</p>
<p>But I'm not so well ranked because I do a lot of ECs, and since I have only ONE HOUR AND A HALF of free time every day, imagine how stressed I get. Living away from parents, friends... well, i think you've imagined.</p>
<p>But I heard that class rank and scores , for int'l applicants, are actually more important than grades, because the admissions office can't analyze it well enough. Another educational system. Will the navy high school be good for my application? Or the grades will screw me up?</p>
<p>--
Now, ECs!</p>
<ul>
<li>President of the navy high school informatics society</li>
<li>National 3rd place on Hostnet Algorithm Olympiad (biggest in Brazil in algorithms)</li>
<li>silver medal on Brazillian Astronomy and Astronautics Olympiad</li>
<li>Speaker on the Duque de Caxias Free Software Forum, PHP Conference Brazil (biggest PHP Conference in Latin America), PHP'n Rio
(planning to speak on Free Software International Congress and Free Software International Forum)</li>
<li>Articles written for the biggest programming magazines in Brazil</li>
<li>Founder of the Lyla Project (software that helps to identify missing people, it'll be soon in science fairs)</li>
<li>I highly plan to write (and publish, i'm contacting editors) a book by the end of this year. It's near.</li>
<li>Informatics teaching assistant (it's a very serious position in my school)</li>
<li>Prize for best grades in English and Informatics.</li>
</ul>
<p>That's the impressive stuff I have BY NOW. There are thousands of science fairs, articles, forums and other good activities that I plan to participate and i have good feelings about it.</p>
<p>-
About SAT, AP, etc...
I don't really worry about it. ok, universities in Brazil are far worse than top schools in the US, but their entrance examinations are far harder than SAT or even AP. And I will study hard.
I will do AP on Calculus (AB, i think), and SATs around 750~800 in math2 and physics. </p>
<p>Consider these grades.</p>
<p>--
So folks, what are my chances? be nice :)</p>