<p>You say your high school is one of the top 5 in the country. In that case, there are likely students coming to the US for college. Talk to your guidance counselor and ask what US school have taken students with your grades and test scores. One of my kids went to an independent school where kids in the second quintile grade wise still got into top schools. It can depend upon the school. </p>
<p>Frankly, I’d apply ED to the school you like best and EA to some schools to see how you fare. Find some schools that allow you to apply EA along with an ED. My one son did that and found that Georgetown was a stretch for him (deferred), BC was a go (accepted) and some other less selective school actually came up with money for him. </p>
<p>@PurpleTitan Don’t comment on threads with international students if you do not know what you are talking about. You are spreading misinformation. Students are granted a visa. Not citizenship. Part of getting a visa means that you agree to go back home when it expires. That’s how visas work in most countries.</p>
<p>@AnnieBeats I understand that being an international applicant will harm my chances, but I think being full pay would be better? I just hope my hook will ameliorate the situation. I do have GCSE/GCE, the Stanford result and APs to hand in, and honestly they’re pretty good. Not that I’m confidence or anything, I just hope there’s some way to enlarge my benefit of having a hook as much as possible to make NU a possible choice. Any suggestion?</p>
<p>@calmom Frankly, is being in the middle of the class really make things that bad? My school is extremely competitive…it doesn’t help either when I get minimal support due to the small number of students applying to the US. In fact, there’s only 1-2 per year. Thank you for being realistic in every answer though, I appreciate and want to continue hear ur opinion on how I can make things better? There’s no use to debate on whether GPA matters or not right?</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan Do you have any information regarding the stats of Northwestern?</p>
<p>OP, being full pay will help. But I think being full pay is more helpful for someone with maybe a 3.3 trying to get over the hump. But, for someone who is likely in the bottom half of their class, it is just a little far fetched. Money matters, but you aren’t a developmental case that would be bringing in a few million per year for the school. I know you said you are closer to the middle, but I just can’t buy that seeing that 3 days ago, you said otherwise. When you evaluated your performance and it seemed like you are at the bottom, that’s probably true and they won’t admit someone grossly unqualified. These elite schools want students who work hard and play hard. Students who will crunch when the time comes and who will do their work, but will engage in student activities. </p>
<p>@AnnieBeats I appreciate your frankness. Sorry, but where have I mentioned that I am at the bottom of my class? If that is on the other threads, then my apologies, the class has amended the scores a couple of weeks ago and I’m definitely not at the bottom of my class. I would say a little higher than 50%, and according to my research just now, there are 2% students that NU admitted who are at the bottom of their classes. </p>
<p>I also do regard myself as work hard and play hard. I was engaged in a lot of activities throughout the school year, but at the final GCE exams, for example, along with the APs, I did quite well. Does that show I am capable of doing so when I’m fully engaged in one activity?</p>
<p>Little higher than 50% as an international students isn’t gonna cut it. Even if you are full pay. If you are going to apply ED somewhere, do it at a school where you have a shot at getting in. Maybe NYU? You can easily do Wall St. internships during the school year. Or CUNY Baruch? Rutgers? They may not have international recognition, but if your parents want you to work on Wall St, that international recognition doesn’t really matter. If you want something during the summer and not during the school year, you can try to get into Notre Dame. Their business school grads are heavily recruited by Wall St. bankers.</p>
GPA is the MOST important part of yur application to selective US colleges. There is no way around that. </p>
<p>As to the full pay, international issue: I don’t know if that would help at highly selective colleges like Barnard or Northwestern. It might be very big positive factor at many public universities and at some less selective privates. </p>
<p>There is a weak GPA and then there is a “I-didn’t-give-a-■■■■-in-high-school” GPA. I’m going to let you guess which one the OP has. @AnnieBeats is being blunt, but she is right. The OP has absurd expectations and should be looking at less competitive schools.</p>
<p>@PSC2IVY Thanks for trying to pull me out of the situation here. I DID give a *** in high school and my public exam results will probably top that. Does it help if I say I had previously been admitted to Philips Andover but didn’t go? Hopefully that would prove my school IS competitive but that doesn’t mean being in the 50% is a bad student at all. </p>
<p>@calmom thanks for informing that applying to public universities would help. that’s a very constructive advice that I didn’t know</p>
<p>Guys, you cannot relate an international student’s stats with that of US equivalent. They are different and the only way to compare is their standardized test results. OP has a SAT score of 2300ish which is a very good performance and he might be able to get in Northwestern ED, if that is his top school. Please leave the comments on whether he can make it or not to the international adcoms, they know.</p>
<p>We should concentrate on help him to select schools, the program, the culture and the students…etc. instead of drilling his records and whether he is going for a too reaching schools.</p>
<p>In many countries, HS is not local, students travel across the country to attend top HS. Those middle students of a top HS in that country maybe able to get accepted by HYP and you just don’t know enough to comment on that.</p>
<p>@artloversplus …OP is female. We know that because she was considering Barnard ED. </p>
<p>I’m commenting on this thread because I’m the parent of a Barnard grad and do know something about Barnard admissions. Grades are very important and I know that Barnard gets applications from many students who are at the top of their classes at international schools. Barnard places higher value on grades than test scores. </p>
<p>That may be moot because the OP has now convinced her parents to allow her to apply ED to Northwestern, instead. But any way you look at it the grades are going to be a problem. These top schools get many international applicants, and other applicants have better grades. They do not want to bring in international students who are going to struggle academically. That’s not good for the student, that’s not good for the school. </p>
<p>@alafae – the public universities charge a premium for tuition for students who are not residents of the states where they are located, usually $10,000 or $15,000 more than whatever they are charging the state residents. Even with that premium, the tuition at the public universities is usually still somewhat less than a private college. However, the parents of most US residents are not willing to pay extra to send their kids to attend universities in other states – so international students become an important source of revenue for the universities. </p>
<p>The very top and best known public universities (such as Berkeley) also get applications from top students — so competition is still very steep – but there are many excellent public universities that are not quite as well known which might be good prospects for you.</p>
<p>Also, among private universities – you might want to take a look at Syracuse-- which has an excellent music school and an excellent journalism school. I don’t know whether it is possible for students to apply to more than one school there or double major – but I think it would be worth checking out for you, as the overall admissions rate for the school is higher – though you definitely need to check on audition requirements for the music school. I think you are running up against deadlines for music auditions at US school, and so you really need to prioritize tracking those dates and specific requirements for audition tapes- or you could get shut out of that avenue. If you wait until you hear back ED from Northwestern, you might find that it’s tool late to audition anywhere else. </p>
<p>Indiana has a top music school and a b-school that is a Wall Street target (if you get in to their IB/IM workshops), but I don’t know if you can double major in both Jacobs and Kelley at the same time.</p>
<p>Also consider NYU. They have ED2 as well, which is a plus.</p>
<p>@artloversplus OP admitted that she is at the bottom of her class. Even a 2400 wouldn’t make up for the fact that she cruised through high school. It’s not a matter of GPA conversion. OP, I implore you, please choose a less selective school. No one is saying you aren’t smart. Getting into PHILLIPS Andover is a great accomplishment. But there are a lot of bright, unmotivated students who realize at the last minute that they might have enjoyed high school a little bit too much. I implore you to look at schools outside of the top 30 or so. You would be wasting your time applying.</p>
<p>@artloversplus She said her school had a change in grading. If she improved, it’s likely that the people above her did too. Thus, the OP is still probably in the lower percentiles of her class. And besides, if she evaluated herself initially as being close to the bottom, that gives you a pretty clear idea of her work ethic and where her rank probably is.</p>
<p>@AnnieBeats Indeed it changed in grading, because it was just me fyi, so let me clarify this one more time, I am in the top 40%-50% of my class. There are only about 50 people doing this system.</p>
<p>@artloversplus I just hope the US admission offices know my situation…</p>
<p>@alafae – the elite schools in the US take students who are at the very top of their class – they are looking for students in the top 5% or better; they rarely will consider students who aren’t at least in the top 10%. When they do consider students with slightly weaker grades, it’s because of some sort of “hook” – for example, a recruited athlete. </p>
<p>There are a lot of intangibles in your application and it’s not really possible for for anyone here to evaluate chances accurately. For example, you’ve said that you have won international awards in music… but we don’t know what those awards are or whether they would be particularly impressive to the college admissions departments – nor do we know how well you really play. Did you win those awards a soloist? or were you part of an ensemble that won a group award? There are many different opportunities for young people to perform and compete internationally, but some awards are more prestigious than others – and awards that may be considered very prestigious in Hong Kong may not be as well regarded in the U.S.</p>
<p>You’ve started half a dozen different “chances” threads and you’ve made a variety of different claims and representations about your GPA.</p>
<p>Again, I don’t see any harm in your applying ED,-- it’s just that the chances of acceptance seem very slim. But if you get rejected you are no worse off than if you don’t apply at all. </p>
<p>It is NOT NECESSARY for any students in the US to apply ED anywhere. The vast majority of US college applicants do NOT apply ED. It’s something you read about a lot on CC, but the people who post on CC aren’t representative of the majority of applicants. </p>
<p>Just make sure that you have a list of backup schools that includes some that are not as daunting for admission. I am sure that there are universities in the US that will accept you – there are definitely many universities that will be impressed with your test scores and will give greater weight to them. It’s just not likely to happen at the elite schools where most other applicants have similar scores. </p>