Hi I’m currently 17 years old. I’m form Europe and I’m in the equivalent is year 12. I would like to apply for a scholarship in either Princeton or Berkeley, however I’m not 100% sure if International students can apply, given that I’ve only found calculators to estimate how much financial aid these universities would be willing to provide US students; and I haven’t really found what is the minimum GPA required in order to be accepted. Moreover, I would really appreciate it if someone could let me know how to calculate my GPA, since grades here are X/14 and not X/4. In addition, I passed the CAE, which is the Cambridge Advanced English. Is this certificate valid or should I take the IELTS/TOEFL?
Thanks in advance for any help you are able to provide.
There are no “minimum” GPA “requirements;” Students can compare whether their grades are competitive by checking the average freshman class profile on each school’s website.
You will need to take SAT or ACT exams; TOEFL may be required depending on your SAT score and individual school’s requirements. (Each has its own.) American schools calculate your GPA, you don’t have to.
Your big problem will be money. UC Berkeley is a public university meant to educate primarily California state residents. It offers almost no financial aid to international students.
Private schools such as Princeton are much more generous to international students – but they’re also very very hard to get into: the overall acceptance rate at Princeton is under 8% – less than that for international students.
Princeton does not give Merit aid (scholarships) and UCB gives minimal amounts of merit aid to only the top applicants.
Princeton can be generous with need-based financial aid but the hardest part is getting an acceptance.
UCB gives no need-based financial aid to International students and again a difficult admit.
As an International applicant, you are not required to calculate your GPA unless it is similar to the US High schools that use either the 4.0 system or %.
Check each school’s website for specific requirements such as GPA, Test scores, TOEFL, etc… for International applicants.
Here is information for UCB: http://admissions.berkeley.edu/internationalrequirements
http://admissions.berkeley.edu/studentprofile
Unlike most countries there are no minimum requirements for admission. Students with perfect GPA are often rejected from top schools.
Thank you all for your responses. It means a lot.
Also, you might want to NOT reveal your real name in collegeCONFIDENTIAL website…
please ask the moderator if you can edit your post to remove your name, country, and other identifying information!!!
What- really? I thought it’d be ok since there are plenty of people with my name in my country but I will, thanks for the suggestion, I had no idea.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
I’ve edited out name and country.
You don’t (except for Berkeley or other public colleges and unis in California, and** they** tell you how to convert). Otherwise, report your GPA that your school will put on the transcript. Colleges are very familiar with grading systems in other countries.
Some general guidelines:
For Princeton or other Ivy League schools or equivalent (eg, Stanford, MIT), you need to be one of the best students from your country. If you are one of the best 2 or 3 students from your high school you might have a chance. The Ivy League and equivalent will often give pretty good need based financial aid if you qualify.
Berkeley is not much easier to get into than Princeton (if it is easier at all), but is likely to be more expensive because they give very little financial aid to out of state students.
You don’t need to calculate your GPA. Just compare how you are doing with other students in your school and in your country.
There are a LOT of universities in the US. You are almost certain to get into some of them. However, for schools other than the top 50 or so (and maybe more like the top 20 or 30) there is likely to be little point in coming here: University in the US is in general very expensive, and there are a lot of very good universities in Europe.
However, if you do end up attending university in Europe you might want to consider doing an exchange program for a semester with a university in North America. In many cases you will only pay the normal tuition for your university in Europe, and additional expenses such as for the flights back and forth. In some cases there might even be scholarships available to pay for the flights.