<p>Hi, so this is really bad :( I hope this isn't in the wrong section. Ok, so I didn't really find out about this whole college thing that early and therefore wasn't working at my best, or anywhere near there for that matter. So my grades haven't been so good. I'm from the Caribbean and we have 3 terms down here. For my 1st term I got an 81 average (13 out of 38 for my class), second term an 88 (11/38), and 3rd term an 86 (9/38). MY gpa is abyssmal when I use the 4.0 American system :( When I checked I had about a high 2.x or low 3.x. My question is, is it still possible for me to get into the top US colleges/universities or is all hope lost? Be brutally honest. I have made SIGNIFICANT improvement as for the term grades in the 1st term I got 2 A's, 5 B's and 5 C's however for the third term I have gotten 7 A's 3 B's (2 of which were just 1 mark away from an A) and 1 P (3 marks away from a C- I think this is incorrect, I'll have to verify it). My school is very competitive, and I believe practices grade deflation, since the highest averages in the school are usually in the low 90s and a high 9x average is virtually unheard of, mainly due to the end of term grades bringing them down, but thats another story. Taking into consideration my grades and gpa, is ivy league + Stanford + top LACs really possible? I regret not thinking about college earlier and putting in the extra effort sooner. Btw I am a Sophomore (I think - 10th grade out of 13). If I still have a chance please tell me what I need to do in order to have a greater chance if its not too late. I feel really horrible right now about my grades and I just don't know what to do. Please give me some advice. </p>
<p>Extra info- My school normally send quite a few students to the top schools abroad in US and Canada every year(i.e. Harvard, Yale, Brown, Cornell, Stanford etc) but I don't really know what kind of grades they used to get, so I don't really know how to evaluate myself.</p>
<p>If you are able to do incredibly well on your test scores and maintain the upward trend for the next two years of school, you could have a shot at a top ~100 school. But HYP and such are out of the question.</p>
<p>Hi Collegian billabongboy9828 what about the schools that don’t look at freshman year? We attend the top school in our country that is very hard to get into, and it is widely said that the curriculum here is more harder and more rigorous and strenuous than that of the US standard. Even US citizens and those that have migrated from our country to the US say this. Doesn’t that mean anything? Our high school is by far the most prestigious in the country ijs and it is indeed hard to get straight A’s here.</p>
<p>Attending a prestigious can both help and hurt an applicant. Yes, it may be understood that simply getting accepted into your high school is an achievement in itself and that there is a overwhelming amount of rigor/difficulty when it comes to academics. This adds strength to the OP’s application.</p>
<p>But on the other hand, even if we assume that there is an extraordinary amount of grade deflation, we aren’t talking about getting straight As; the OP has seems to have gotten quite a few Bs and Cs. As hard as it may be to maintain a good GPA in your school, you can’t assume that the adcoms will give the OP’s 2.0/3.0 GPA the benefit of the doubt.</p>
<p>Besides, as an international applicant, the OP’s chances are inherently very low. Taking into consideration the fact that his school already sends a plethora of students to HYPMS, his chances will be driven down that much further.</p>
<p>How would my school sending many students to HYPSM hurt me? Wouldnt that mean that they know about the rigor of our school? And still, what about the schools that don’t look at freshman grades like Stanford and, UC Berkeley, will my freshman year grades still affect me there?</p>
<p>Edit:
Oh and yes I have gotten a few B’s, but they were high B’s, isn’t there any way for the colleges to see this?</p>
<p>Because schools will only accept a limited amount of students from any one area; to be swimming in a talented applicant pool means that the competition will be very, very strong. The same problems exist for American students that live in states that are overrepresented, such as New Jersey or Connecticut.</p>
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<p>Unless all or a high majority of your Bs/Cs were received freshmen year, you are still in bad shape.</p>
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<p>This depends on how your school submits transcripts; since you are running on a 100 point system, I don’t see how this would be a problem…</p>
<p>lol well yea, I’ve only done freshman year, in sophomore now, which is why I’m hoping I still have a chance. Thanks for all the help though Nice to get good honest answers.</p>
<p>And to the point about my school sending alot to those kinds of schools, my area is definitely no where near over represented or even well represented. When I look at colleges data only about 1% of my area go to those colleges while other areas such as asia and europe have well over 10%-20% that make up the int’l pool, so I’m hoping this would help me. </p>
<p>So far my grades for soph year have been going great I hope they can stay that way. And even though my freshman year grades seem low, they are competitive with the rest of my school, better than quite alot. I think only a few would have gotten better, and if better not by much.</p>
<p>I’m still not too sure if this is really my soph or freshman year since if it were my soph I’d have 3 years of high school left, and I think you Americans have 4 in High school so that’s kind of confusing. We have grades 9, 10, 11, and 12 but u spend 2 in 12 called 6b and 6a, so I’m not too sure if they would just combine both years of grade 12 to make up your senior year. Especially since grade 12 is optional and you officially graduate at grade 11, which you can choose to start work or go to 6th form/grade 12, where you would graduate again. After grade 11 you get your high school diploma but after grade 12 you get an associate degree, but you still apply to schools as a freshman. So its sort of confusing.</p>
<p>There’s nothing else to say. You cannot get into superselective schools with those grades, unless there is something spectacular in your profile that you are not telling us about. Maybe if you got all A’s from now on and got sky-high scores.</p>
<p>I’d differ from the above posters.
The method of evaluation in International schools is different from American schools.In America it is fairly easy to maintain a great gpa because the evaluation system is different.Take the AP’s for example.You only need to get about 75% of the questions right for a 5 and that’s the top grade.While in my country,75% is regarded good but it is displayed as 75 and not as a different ‘top grade’.
So you need to see the method of evaluation of your school/country and focus more on your rank instead of your score.For international students,the colleges tend to focus more on that.Is your score better than most of the students in your class?Then you should be less worried.
For eg,students with a 66% which seems pathetic have gone to MIT from my country,but their class rank was very good.
And don’t bother calculating your GPA by any of those silly methods you come across by googling.If your school doesnt calculate gpa,then you wont be reporting it anyway.All the schools in my country do not provide gpa and we seem to get along just fine.</p>
<p>The best way for you to gauge where you stand is not by asking american school students (who may have the best intentions of course,but have no knowledge about your country’s grading system) and instead trying your best to find out the stats of students who have gotten accepted from your country.If you cannot do that,go to a good commercial counsellor(I dont recommend doing this,make it your last option-they’re verrry expensive) and let them evaluate you.
I hope this helps!</p>
<p>The problem isn’t that the OP’s grading system is inherently deflated, but the fact of the matter is that the OP has gotten several Bs/Cs when he could have gotten As. We can infer from his post that because there are other students in his school who have maintained A-averages (albeit low-As) the OP’s class rank (if it is disclosed) will be as weak as his GPA is.</p>
<p>Besides, the OP’s grading system does not seem to be an anomaly when compared to those of some U.S. schools. A lot of prep schools run on a similar 100 point system where it’s hard/impossible to have a solid-A average. But you don’t see these kids getting 5 Cs in semester.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the responses. I think perfectpixie understands my school system the most. And to billangboy there are 3 semesters in my school, so their is not really that much time to make up for any bad grade at all as they are relatively short. As for my class rank, my school only ranks us in our individual classes (form class), which is usually around 35+. My grades may seem low, but I can assure you they are not bad at all, and is probably some of the best in the school. Say for example when i got an 88 in the 2nd term, the highest averages in most of the other classes were 91, 92 max as their is alot of tying when it comes to averages. And in 6th form (or 12th grade) which is optional as i stated before, I heard they don’t rank at all. And thats where people go to college/university from. There is no way to tell top 10% top 25% or any of that either. I think they have a valedictorian, not sure since I haven’t actually been to any of the graduating ceremonies and they have a head boy/girl but that doesn’t have to do with academics and averages really, thats more like community service, involvement in school activities and the like. So basically I suspect my class rank, if we had one would be good. In the case about the Cs, there really isn’t much better that could be done because of the teachers really, even though it may look like I have a lot of Cs, thats actually quite the norm and many people have a whole lot more, so basically when I got a lot of C’s so did the other students in the school. This is why I said perfectpixie probably came the closest especially with the story about people from his/her school getting 66%'s and getting into MIT which may seem like a bad score but may actually be good in actuality. Looking in from the outside scores may seem bad from the American point of view, but they are actually good compared to the other natives. Once again, thank you for all the responses.</p>
<p>Also what perfect pixie said about the whole 75% thing is also true for my country, there is no way you’ll get an A or even a B with a 75% its just not happening even if it is a top score they will just have the 75 down on paper and you have to see if its good by comparing yourself to other people around you, in which case, I seem to be doing pretty well.</p>
<p>Edit:
Would you say this would be more acceptable on the International Student section?</p>
Im a girl.I doubt any boy would have that name,lol.</p>
<p>To your edit-yes.But the best people to consult are those from your country.</p>
<p>To Billabongboy-I wouldn’t make an assumption like that about a system I don’t know about.
American systems unbelievable for me,tbh.Our grading/marking is not percentile wise.
You probably wouldnt believe it,but my 65/100 is the third highest in the math class.Yep.That would be what…a C or something by your method :)</p>
<p>The thing is, if my school really doesn’t rank then there isn’t anyway to show adcoms that I’m a top student even with the grades I have. How would I let them realize this, would I have to go to my guidance counselor and ask her to male mention of it in my recommendation?</p>
<p>Yes,tell her to mention your school’s method of evaluation in her rec letter.She can mention your academic capability.If a lot of students go abroad/apply to the Ivies every year from your country,then you can rest assured that they would be familiar with your country’s system.They are with mine.Where are you from ?</p>
<p>Also,try emailing the colleges and ask them.Don’t try Brown though,I’ve been emailing them madly for the past months and have recieved no reply.Yale also doesnt reply too often.Your best bet is Harvard.They have the bestest services ever.Prompt replies,in a week or so.</p>
<p>I’m from Jamaica, it may not be quite as rigorous as say India for example, but its still rigorous. My school may be the only one that has the kind of passes in my country except for maybe 1 other private school, but that still doesn’t come close even though they have IB and the like and ours doesn’t.</p>
billabongboy9828 what about the schools that don’t look at freshman year? We attend the top school in our country that is very hard to get into, and it is widely said that the curriculum here is more harder and more rigorous and strenuous than that of the US standard. Even US citizens and those that have migrated from our country to the US say this. Doesn’t that mean anything? Our high school is by far the most prestigious in the country ijs and it is indeed hard to get straight A’s here.</p>