AP courses and other queries

<p>I am a student in 10th grade and am wanting to do undergrad studies in the US. I heard about Advanced Placement courses being available in India this year. However, I am not pretty sure of it being here in Hyderabad. If you do know any places where AP courses are available here in Hyderabad please let me know and give me all the information. Also, I wanted to know what else I could do to improve my resume in the next two years if I want to get into one of the top universities. Here is what I have already achieved in my 9th and 10th(So far) grades:-</p>

<p>9th-10cgpa and top 1% of the class.
-Participated in the Google Science Fair
-Editorial Board of my school
-Winner of the Times Of India drawing competition
-Was in the school basketball team and went for basketball coaching for two full years.
-Winner of many computer and English related competitions.</p>

<p>10th (Half-year)
-All A grades in the first semister.
-Winner of many art related competitions.
-Again, in the top 1% of my class.
-Will be doing community service in December.
-My articles have been published in The Hindu student edition newspaper.</p>

<p>I have one and a half years left before I can apply for Universities. I am giving my SAT and TOEFL next year along with SAT Physics. If available I wish to take AP courses in Chemistry,Calculus and Physics. Is there anything else I can do to improve my resume. I will also be applying for the school cabinet next year and there is a very good chance that I will get in. Is there anything else I should and can do in order to get into Caltech, UPenn and other high ranking universities?</p>

<p>Please, any adivse will do. Just reply!!! Please.</p>

<p>What top universities are you talking about? MIT, Harvard?</p>

<p>Well I am not really among for those because I am pretty sure I won’t get it. Well I am talking about universities like UC Berkerly that have an acceptance rate of altleast twelve percent.</p>

<p>Sent from my GT-S5360 using CC</p>

<p>Aiming* </p>

<p>Sent from my GT-S5360 using CC</p>

<p>Yeah, you have a chance at the UCs. Please keep in mind though that if you do get in, you will have to pay full tuition. If there ARE any APs in Hyderabad, then you may take them. However, do not go to the extent of going to another city to take them. They really will not matter. APs are good for getting college credits; nothing else–and at places like UCB, you probably are not going to be able to graduate in less than 4 years anyway, so it comes to the same thing at the end of the day.</p>

<p>Is there anything you can do to get into Caltech/UPenn?</p>

<p>No. Unless you can change that “Participated in the Google Science Fair” to “Won the Google Science Fair”. Very little else otherwise. Caltech only takes 20 or so international students a year, I think.</p>

<p>Thanks a ton! Well, as for winning the google sicence fair, that’s pretty much next to impossible but what do you think about maths and science olympiads? Will getting a decent state rank in those contribute to improving the resume or will it make no difference? Also, how many SAT subject tests does an average student usually give? Should I give atleast 3? And what are the good universities that judge a student mostly on statistics and less on extracurriculars?</p>

<p>IMHO regional maths and science olympiads may help you at UPenn/Cornell, but nowhere else–and even though you need to show you’re at the very top, not just “decently ranked”. It doesn’t matter how many SAT subject tests you take. The college already knows you’re qualified in those subjects that you would take the subject tests on from your school grades and so forth.</p>

<p>No Ivies/MIT/Stanford/Caltech/Berkeley, etc. judge students mostly on statistics. This is because of their notion that after a certain cut-off, all grades are the same. A stupid notion, which allows people to abuse the SAT/AP grading scale, but it exists nonetheless. Your best chance stats-wise are the public Ivies. UVa, UIUC, Georgia Tech, Purdue, and so on.</p>