<p>Hi,</p>
<p>Im stuck in a rut. I havent applied for college yet, I don't know what I want to do. I live in Dubai and I have my AS level grades and I want to get into a fairly good university like Columbia or Stanford or UCLA. I don't know how to get there. What possible ways can I take as stepping stones? Will universities accept AS levels? How about if I took SAT Subject Tests instead if A levels? will that work?</p>
<p>This is a fairly common issue for kids applying from British curricullum schools. This is what you have to do:</p>
<p>Required:</p>
<p>1) Three or four A2 Level exams (you will probabaly need at least two A* scores to get into the schools that you mention)
2) Take the SAT exam (preferably twice) as your score will go up the second time
3) Two or three SAT Subject Tests (to minimize the amount of time you need to learn any new information, take these in the same subjects as your A2 exams.)</p>
<p>Optional:</p>
<p>1) ACT exams, as you probably have enough on your plate with 1 - 3 above. Also, if you can afford it, get a private tutor for the SAT exams. These exams are coachable. </p>
<p>Lastly, given that you need lots of advice, is there a guidance counselor or private college consultant that can help you on this? Good luck, Londondad</p>
<p>S will be U6 in September and we spent part of the summer looking at US schools. He also just received his AS grades. Every school we visited (Northeast LACs and Ivies) were very familiar with GCSE/AS/A2 grades. Top schools will be looking for A* or A at GCSE and A at AS. In the admissions decision, your predicted A2 grades will also be taken into consideration. Don’t let the fact that you take A levels instead of a traditional US course hold you back from applying! At one Ivy the admissions officer was British!</p>
<p>I was also wondering about this. my AS results came back pretty awful, and Im hoping to bring up the final grade by doing loads better (hopefully) in the A2 exams. is that gonna be an issue when applying to the states? what if my A2 grades do end up being a lot better?? do they look at the AS marks or the A2 marks and/or final grades?</p>
<p>Schools will look at GCSE and AS grades along with predicted A2 results. Admissions decisions will be made long before A2 grades are released.</p>
<p>would the colleges mind if we dont send our as grades and only send o levels and internal exam scores? A reply would be highly appreciated. :-)</p>
<p>You would have to check the requirements of those schools that interest you to find out.</p>
<p>Acidglow, you should assume that you have to send all of GCSE’s, AS levels and predicted A2 levels. If you did poorly in one of these, you should be prepared to explain why.</p>