<p>Hi Natalle!! Yay another year 11 
I am in a worse boat than you are because I have zero extra curriculars atm. Absolute zip. But as a ‘junior’ I will start the daunting process of applications next year as well, not to mention I haven’t looked into SAT or anything else yet and that comes first and foremost. Keep in mind that CC’s standard is very above par and many people on here not only have excellent grades but really great extra curriculars; generally very well rounded. To answer your question I also hope the admissions people in the US really know the average Australian high school. Extra curriculars here are not really something teens worry about and stress that it would look good on college applications and that is an understatement.
I also have to say that extra curriculars are an important part of admissions into the US, it is what makes you stand out in a pool of straight A applicants. Laundry lists of activities aren’t good but great ec are. I remembered something the other day, an alumni at my old school came and gave a speech about 2 years ago and she talked about how she got into Harvard because of her extra curriculars. She had A’s + a few B’s so her ec got her in. Too bad I don’t remember what her ec were, wasn’t very interested as a 14 year old back then. :p</p>
<p>@natalle dragons is fine 
and library captain! that sounds fun.
but to answer your question, if there aren’t a lot of opportunities at school, then look elsewhere. There will be a lot of community services avaliable at your local area im sure. Maybe some competitions as well outside of your school. And sometimes its quality over quantity. Find one or two activities and make your impact more significant than if you were part of like 10 clubs.
and yes spectacular results usually mean near-perfect scores. They do pick people with much lower scores (someone like me though i didnt’ apply any ivys) but percentage of the incoming class, its not a lot so you can’t rely on that. </p>
<p>Placement exams = not fun and i havent even started it yet. Its due in 3 days…</p>
<p>Hey do even ivy leagues appreciate people who make the most out of what is provided to them. I am taking about ECA’s here. Many of my friends have attended international events while my school has provides no such opportunities. Will that prove deterrent while comparing my applications?</p>
<p>mate i cant say for how the ivy leagues admissions staff will look at your ECs but i know that some adcoms (at least the people ive talked to) do understand the clear lack of ECs avaliable in Australian schools compared to the American schools. But like I said, ECs come into consideration after looking at your scores first which i believe should be foremost in your level of application importance.</p>
<p>If you’re applying to a big school and even some of the smaller schools you can for sure bet your ass that they have had australian applicants before. ALL the big schools so like the Ivies (well USC has one so I assume most other biggish schools do) have an international AdCom who knows about other school systems, they generally have one per region so like ours would be Australiasia which knows the school system in that country. rest assured that even if no one from you’re school has applied, that they DO know how aussie schools work and the ARE aware of the differences. if you are still worried, why not explain it in the “is there any extra information that you wish to share with us?” question that EVERY application has? AND if you notice ALOT of them ask you IF you’re school offers Honors and AP classes and you simply tick no they don’t. They don’t just measure candiates against each other with no regards to where the canidate comes from they look at the canidate in their own context.
I mean if you had to choose between a student who comes from a large, over crowded “in trouble” school from Chicago and who has a 4.0 WEIGHTED gpa and only a couple of extra curriculars (but ones they have been doing all through out high school) and a part time job and mostly honors/AP classes and another one comes from Exeter who has a 4.5 weighted GPA, amazing extra curriculars and who belongs to an old money family, the kid from Chicago is going to be ultimatley the best candiate because from the context they have worked a hell of a lot harder to get to that point, if you get what I’m saying. So maybe the kid from chicago has slightly worse tests or</p>
<p>your comments cut off lol exceeded the word limit?</p>
<p>I mean if you had to choose between a student who comes from a large, over crowded “in trouble” school from Chicago and who has a 4.0 WEIGHTED gpa and only a couple of extra curriculars (but ones they have been doing all through out high school) and a part time job and mostly honors/AP classes and another one comes from Exeter who has a 4.5 weighted GPA, amazing extra curriculars and who belongs to an old money family, the kid from Chicago is going to be ultimatley the best candiate because from the context they have worked a hell of a lot harder to get to that point, if you get what I’m saying. So maybe the kid from chicago has slightly worse tests or</p>
<p>more than likely I just forgot to finish typing what I was thinking
was having a conversation with my friend about her crush… a little distracting</p>
<p>so as I was saying, maybe the kid from Chicago has slightly lower test scores, or a worse GPA but to that kid who has probabably had to work hella hard to get everything they have it means a lot more then to the kid from Exeter who has had all these opportunites THRUST upon him
if you don’t know what Exeter is… google it.</p>
<p>True that. And yep google Exeter if you don’t know. and choate and andover and hotchkiss and groton and deerfield and middlesex and milton and lawrenceville… i’ve read their websites back to front and again, it was what led me to this whole ‘prep’ world and also this site. Which is also why, apart from the big uni’s, i’m also looking at liberal arts colleges because that prep high school experience looks/sounds/is so awesome and if i can get that similar experience at a LAC it’d be great.
Oh and yes,a lot of people think going to Exeter or any of these top tier schools means it is an automatic admission into Harvard or easier to get into ivies when many times it is the exact opposite. It’s hard to stand out in a pool of 500 or 1000 equally impressive peers.</p>
<p>OMG. I JUST GOOGLED EXETER AND OMG!! 40 PEOPLE WENT TO HARVARD IN RECENT YEARS?! It takes 20 yrs for 40 aussies to be accepted into harvard if we’re lucky!! All I can say is woah, they have 20+ people at each ivy I’m so freaking jealous!! Okay enough crazy rant haha. I’m just so excited at reading about all these ‘prep schools’- they look like a uni, their facilities are like amazing! And even though they cost $30000 a year!! they are free for people with income <$75000 that’s pretty sweet - is it like the Harvard of high school?! And the exeter table!! THAT’S SUCH AN AWESOME IDEA! I WOULD LOVE THAT @MY SCHOOL!! Oh god I’m like so excited, which is pretty pathetic…</p>
<p>haha yes you are pretty excited for someone who isnt going to be able to experience exter. (neither am i actually) I also don’t have 30000 bucks per year and we earn more than 75000 lol</p>
<p>LOL Aininor. I have the exact same reaction every single time i go to the prep sites. SOOO FREAKIN JEALOUS! Most people on here have no idea how lucky they are to be able to even apply for these schools. Those facilities, boarding life. Their campus is unbelievable. And yes it is totally the Harvard of high school!!! HARKNESS TABLE! I don’t think any of my teachers will have heard of such thing. It’s so inclusive to only those top prep schools. Sorry for rambling.Lol.</p>
<p>Wow it hasn’t even been a week and there’s another page already on this thread! =P
Hey Ruby! I’m glad I found another year 11 =) Which state are you from? Don’t worry I haven’t done my SAT either, but I’m planning to at the end of this year. PSAT is coming up too, are you going to register? I totally agree about the prep school thing by the way. I have a friend who’s studying in the states now and her school has like 30+ people who get into the ivies every year. I guess we are disadvantaged here but I’m not going to give up my dream any time soon. =)
i hope you did well in your placement exams dragon=) And thank you for your advice.</p>
<p>Queensland. I went on the education american site where they have the centre addresses of each state for Australians who want to go to the US for college and THERE’S NONE FOR QUEENSLAND! 
There’s only an email address. It sucks, even WA has a centre where you can get advice and maybe buy SAT books. I don’t know what’s wrong with Qld but I was really hoping to be able to go speak to someone official from the education american centre. I don’t know how to register for SAT if there’s none in Qld…</p>
<p>Ruby_x3, you can register for SAT on the College Board website : [::</a> College Planning Made Easy | Inside Source for College Admissions Requirements](<a href=“http://www.collegeboard.com%5D::”>http://www.collegeboard.com)
You have to create an account and then choose a centre. There is one in Brisbane I am sure. You can also pay online. As for SAT books, you can buy the official guide from the College Board site. It is also easy to buy other SAT (both SAT I and subject tests) books from Amazon. They deliver to Australia within two weeks. The next SAT date is the first Saturday in October I think.</p>
<p>Ruby_x3, there are three SAT centres in Queensland : </p>
<p>Queensland Highfields Toowoomba Chrc (Highfields, Australia)
Queensland Hills Educational Collge (Jimboomba)
Queensland Kingston Groves Chris Col (Kingston)</p>
<p>You can find this from your college board login, if you choose a test date and country and search.</p>
<p>Wow thanks for the info! I guess there are SAT centres but just not those education america ones found in other states.
I was hoping to buy SAT books from bookstores because my parents wouldn’t let me buy them online. At the same time they’re very rare or very expensive at bookstores here so I may have to talk to them seriously once its crunch time. Btw what do you guys think of the SAT tests? Are they drastically different to exams and stuff you learnt in high school? And does it matter at all for people who don’t come from an American curriculum (i mean obviously they’re taken by people all around the world) and who hasn’t known about the SAT since they were 10, etc. How long should you prepare and study in advance?</p>
<p>I guess try to persuade your parents to let you buy the books online because there are more varieties than the bookstores here. Have you tried emailing the Education USA branch at Queensland yet? The Melbourne one here is quite helpful=)</p>
<p>About the SAT Reasoning test, there are three sections: reading, maths and writing. There are in general two main sections in reading, one of them tests your range of vocabulary, and the other your ability to comprehend passages. You might not find it this way but to me, because English isn’t my first language, the vocabulary part is very hard. So I guess I better start memorizing words soon! The mathematics part is pretty easy I think. I’ve covered most of the topics in the test before year 11. Just be careful of making silly mistakes. =) Writing has two parts as well. One of them just have multiple questions on grammar and the other one is a 25 minutes essay. I personally find that part a bit daunting. </p>
<p>So over all I don’t think the SAT Reasoning test contain things that are very specific to the U.S curriculum. i find it rather similar to the scholarship tests we get here actually. </p>
<p>The SAT subject tests are quite different though. I haven’t started looking at them yet so I can’t tell you the details but the topics covered in them might be slightly different to the ones covered here.</p>
<p>You can’t just study your school subjects and do well at SAT. but for SAT subject tests, thats possible. Maths section of SAT reasoning is pretty easy. about normal maths level, for reading and writing, you need to know a lot of SAT type vocab, grammar, sentence completion and all that.
You definitely need a book to study for all these. At least get the official SAT guide from collegeboard.</p>
<p>Wassup with the “Curry Bashing” ?</p>
<p>I just wanted to know the Australian perspective. I’m not indicating that any of you were involved with what happened.</p>
<p>Okay I have to put my two cents in (as usual… I know you couldn’t resist if I didn’t say it) You CAN do well on the SAT Reasoning WITHOUT buying the books, but you have to do TONS of practice papers, of which they do have one online, and I think another one in the registration booklet. I took the test I think without studying (mind you this was in year 10 so I can’t exactly remember) and got somewhere in the 1900’s don’t remember my exact score but in order to break into the 2100+ I studied my ass off. I swear my pile of SAT books was taller than I was. I say if you are aiming 2100+ or 2200+ get the Big Blue Book (The Official SAT Study Guide from CollegeBoard) and I think it’s Barrons but I could be wrong, but its called 2400 Club, its for kids who are already scoring 2000+ and want to break the barrier. </p>
<p>The maths section is RIDICULOUSLY easy if you are anywhere near decent at maths. It only goes up to trig… I mean there are hard questions but its not that hard (esp for aussie students who AREN’T taking General, so at least Mathematics or the equivalent in other states) to score at least 750. The Critical Reading section can get rather tough because they use vocab that we just don’t use in everday language, or anyone uses for that matter and the reading passages can get rather dry and boring. But just practice practice practice and you should get them. Learn strategies which are all in the books. Grammer questions you need to learn the types of grammar they will ask and learn to recognize them, there are ALWAYS problems with parallel constructions, so learn to recognize the parralell ones and there you have a couple marks already. The most important thing to remember about the test is that it is a MARATHON. It is like 4 hours so you need to pace yourself or you are going to BURN OUT. I remember the last time I sat it I got so tired by the last two sections I was almost on the verge of NOT doing them or just coloring in random bubbles. DON’T DO THAT ITS NOT A GOOD IDEA! </p>
<p>I do have to disagree with dragons though. It is not just possible to study your school subjects for the Subject tests, I dunno about the other ones but definetly Maths IIC and Chemistry there are things on there that AREN’T in our syllabi and they also use different terms. It is DEFINETLY worth it investing in a prep book for at least those two. I mean who knows who matrices are? Seriously, most ■■■■■■■■ things in the world. However if you are doing the highest level maths you can (i.e. one that involves calculus, imaginary numbers etc) you should DEFINETLY be fine. But remember the scaling on Maths II is ■■■■■■■■. You need like FULL marks to get an 800 and even like one question wrong can bean a 770 or something. The curve is weird.</p>
<p>Oh yeah and don’t bother taking the PSATs. I did them but I did them in the US so they only cost like $15 and we did them in school, but here I say its not worth it ($100). The main point of them is basically for juniors in the US who want to qualify for National Merit Scholars (NMS) which is why the test is also known as NMSQT (National Merit Scholars Qualifying Test) which we don’t qualify for because you need to be a) a US citizen and b) living in the US. Its just a scholarship program that gives I think full tuition scholarships to one kid from each state and alot of schools like USC give at least half tuition scholarships to Finalists who name that school as their first choice… but thats not the point cause we don’t qualify. So to sum it up, if you REALLY want to do it take it, it is a prediction of how you will go on the SAT I but it doesn’t have writing and if you’re gonna spend that kinda money just take the SAT for practice, it cost’s less.</p>