<p>I am not going to lie about this. I was never a very good student, in that I never did my best in high school. I was much more interested in questions that we did not cover in any way at school and spent a lot of my time figuring things about life in general. I observed human behaviour a lot and spent a lot of time pseudo-philosophising and writing fiction. Fact that I have ADD didn't help at all either, I suppose. </p>
<p>In spite of that, I was in the top 20-30 of a class of 200 (usually an average mark of ~80%) without doing much and I was happy with that. I didn't complete year 12, transferred to an IB school and re-transferred to an A-Level school, and not feeling challenged in either of the two schools, I decided to do my A-Levels on my own. </p>
<p>My question is as follows: is there any way for me to make this look "acceptable" if not, "good"? If I were to achieve A<em>A</em>AAA-AAAA in maths, physics, chemistry, french and perhaps english lit, would it be okay if I didn't do so well in my last high school year? I was thinking of writing a polite explanation in ~200 words to account for my haphazard last high school years.</p>
<p>To be honest, I don’t think they would accept you for having no senior year. I also think that 200 words for an explanation just won’t cut it. You’d need about twice as much, in my opinion. But for a school like Stanford, nobody can tell, so it wouldn’t hurt to try.</p>
<p>Are you implying they do not admit home schooled applicants? I do understand that the admissions rate for home schooled students is significantly less than for traditional ones, even less for internationals, though.</p>
<p>A-Levels are different to American high school in that each subject is a two-year long course. There are also different boards which offer the A-Level and the one I am under offers only a linear path to the A-Level award, meaning that the contents of the whole two-year course culminates to 4-5 exams per subject, all to be taken at the same examination session. The exam is also available to students who are no longer in school.</p>
<p>I’m a bit confused and not sure what A-level means. So correct me if I’m wrong but you maintained an 80average in 9th, 10th, and 11th grade high school and then you left high school, couldn’t find a school that you liked so you home schooled yourself for the last year. Is that right? If so, then you are currently home schooling yourself? When will you be completed. Considered a high school graduate?</p>
<p>The A-Levels can be compared to the AP, except that the exams are <em>not</em> just multiple choice exams. They have more in common with the International Baccalaureate. So, for Maths, I have two “pure papers” (up to Calc 2/3,intro differential equations and complex numbers), one stats paper and one mechanics paper. For Physics, I have 5 papers, with one of them being multiple choice. And so forth.</p>
<p>Well, I suppose it’s the equivalent of a high school diploma, seeing that it’s all that is needed to apply to universities in most places in Europe.</p>
<p>I think it’s going to be a real uphill battle – particularly for some of the smaller colleges you asked this question about where community is important. You basically bugged out – which is different from being home-schooled. As you describe yourself, you didn’t really take to a traditional education so you became a free-agent and you anticipate stellar marks on your A-levels. There are ways, of course, to spin this: you’re an independent person, you’re a self-starter, you’re disciplined to work through the curricula on your own, etc. So the question that begs to be asked – and the one you’ll need to answer – is why do you need to learn in a university setting if you’re better when you’re doing it on your own? And the likely answer you have for that begs yet another, much more difficult question you should answer: why do you think the results will be different THIS TIME around in a more traditional learning environment? You’re grades in a more traditional atmosphere are not impressive. You marked time instead of applying yourself. If the things you’ve shared with us come out – intentionally or otherwise --in your applications, I suspect a lot of admission officers will come to the conclusion that anybody who admits you is not doing you any favors. You’re going to have to repackage yourself because I’m not sure how top-rated, highly selective colleges, large and small, will be attracted to the person you shared with us who doesn’t learn in a group.</p>