<p>hello, i'm a brazilian student who will be applying for some boarding school and i would like to know you guys opnions about my chances:</p>
<ul>
<li>my school have 0 - 10 grades. i have about 6.5 in almost all subjects, and honors marks (7.0) in three of them, envolving humanities. about 10% of ppl in my grade have the passing mark (6.0) and 1.0%< have the honors marks in at least a half of subjects.</li>
<li>115 in a simulated iBt TOEFL, so i believe that i can get a good grade in the 'real' test.</li>
<li>extracurriculars: soccer (as a golie), model united nations, historical crisis simulation, history competition team, man&woman equality composition competition team (is at the same time a gender equality club and a composition competition team xD)</li>
<li>95% in simulated PSAT</li>
<li>really really good recommendations</li>
<li>fluent in four languages</li>
<li>need FA</li>
<li>i represent a lot of races at the same time: native south american; latin; arab; black/african; white/european.</li>
<li>i'm a good debater, and i talk really well, so i could convince an interviewer.</li>
</ul>
<p>so, what do you think about? in which schools may i have chances? as far as i know, there aren't many brazilians applying for school in the USA (most people prefer swiss boarding schools). :D thank you for asking</p>
<p>when i said ‘thank you for asking’ i meant 'thank you for answer. sorry, i’m just a bit crazy today. more one thing: i’m a writer, and i’ve already wrote four books and a lot of short stories, and i can get a teacher recomendation about it (since it’s included as an extracurricular activity). would be useful send some thing that i write for schools? it’s an artistic interest, and lots of schools like it…
the schools i already decided to apply are:
1 - Phillips Exeter Academy
2 - Phillips Academy
3 - Choate Rosemary Hall
4 - Leysin American School
5 - The Hotchkiss School</p>
<p>the thing is that i really believe that i have potential: i can do a good interview;have wonderful PSAT, TOEFL grades; the best recomendations that are possible; my extracurriculars are not much, but i really put effort in this (i get a really good grade in model UN and i intend to have a merit award in my next historical crisis simulation. oh, and winning the brazilian competition of history and getting a good place in the composition competition) and everything, but my grades are not that good =/ so, what do u think?</p>
<p>You seem like a very bright and motivated student…I think if you brush up your app a bit like you said at the end (a couple awards, etc.) you definitely have a chance. What grade are you applying for?</p>
<p>And if you’re into writing, you should DEFINITELY send a small portfolio to admissions, as it’s a great chance to wow them, as long as it doesn’t look like you are showing off. :)</p>
<p>thx 
so, it’s best for me put just short stories in the portfolio, rigth? i’m afraid that my grades kill my chances for admission in a ‘1st tier’ (mainly exeter, because it’s my first option and i really liked the school), but, i’ll try anyway</p>
<p>oh, i haven’t saw your question. i’m applying for 11th grade. =D</p>
<p>Your application seems fine. You have great extracurriculars, which will help, no doubt! There’s no harm in trying. My situation is similar(with the grades) and I plan to apply to Exeter as a repeat 10th/ 11th grader 
Good Luck!</p>
<p>You really seem to have the stats and your EC’s are really good and you are Brazilian, this’ll help you and may well be the hook you need to be accepted since they are underrepresented. However I do have a question.</p>
<p>Are your books in portuguese? In that case you probably want to translate them into english otherwise I’m not sure how useful they’ll be.</p>
<p>But there are some things that you should know:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>U Need FA, I’m gonna be blunt this is devestating for an international applicant and will decrease your chances enormously, I’m not saying this to discourage you, really but you need to know this. American schools are more restirctive in FA than Swiss scholls but on the other hand Swiss schools have less funds available for FA. The FA awarded to students are for students with stellar grades, scores, recs and EXTRAORIDNARY EC’s try to get your books published, by a recognized publishing house or your stories printed in recognized magazines.</p></li>
<li><p>I’m not sure that you can represent that many races, if your linage to some of them is further than your grandparents you can’t include them, simply because they aren’t that big a part of you genetically, culturally I can’t answer for you. But when you fill in race if you are mixed you probably only want to fill in 1 or 2, I’m not sure about this but you don’t represent four races unless you embrace their culture, celebrating holidays and such, if you think of the jews as a race I’m 1/4 jewish but I’ve never celebrated hannukah or seder and such.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>3.You are not gonna convince the interviewer with anything, some of these guys have interviwed presidents, senator, governors, congressmen, lawyers and lobbyists. These guys are too seasoned, they’ll see through your efforts if you are not yourself and completly relaxed, try to get a conversation started and not just participate in a Q&A session, that will neither be funny or good.</p>
<ol>
<li>The amount of juinors that matriculate every year is a small believe that the acceptence rate for the 11th grade is significantly lower than that of freshmen and sophomores.</li>
</ol>
<p>Don’t let me discourage you but you need to face the realities of applying as an international applicant.</p>
<p>Best of Luck!!!</p>
<p>nobody from other countries believe, but we have really serious in keeping ours traditions, even if we have a lot of them. i, for example, i’m atheistic, but i always follow the christians and cambombl</p>
<p>aah, and i also have my own community service project (not like i go there and do some stuff; a project created and designed by me and a friend to really poor children in the real countryside of brazil, you know, these places where television is a hard thing to get and there are 100 kids for just one teacher). do you think that this is going to help?</p>
<p>Ofc it’s worth trying! And with your track record you should definitely stand a chance, I really don’t want to discourage anyone but I’ve heard horror stories of students being “to confident” so to speak and they are the ones that are most mortified by their rejection. And for the interview just be yourself I didn’t even practice for it, but if you are not good at thinking on your feet don’t do as I did.</p>
<p>yeah, i know. if it’s hard to be admitted, it’s even harder to be admited like an international student with FA need. did you need FA to deerfield?</p>
<p>nope and to be honest I wouldn’t have gotten in if I’d needed it.</p>