Chance a Freshman from a Regular All Korean School Can Get Into Top Schools

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi I’m applying EA to UIUC, UMD, and RD for most others due to some scheduling issues. UC Berkeley or LA would be a dream and would love to get into some of my reach schools like UIUC and Georgia Tech. I am in really unique and weird circumstances for admission. I graduated from a regular Korean school not meant for students willing to go to US universities. A school profile was made just for my case and my school sadly doesn’t provide a GPA. Anyway here are some of my stats. Any chances of me getting into some of these schools?

UC Berkeley
UCLA
UIUC
Georgia Tech
Rice Unv.
UT at Austin

Major: Aerospace Engineering/Mechanical Engineering

ACT (breakdown): Composite 34.25, Superscored 35, English 34, Math 36, Reading 32, Science 36
SAT II: Math 2 800, Physics 800
Unweighted GPA: Not provided but I would guess somewhere around the 3.5s
Weighted GPA: My school doesn’t have any “official” AP courses but have courses similar or even more difficult than AP courses.
Rank: No rank officially provided but somewhere around 10%
AP: Physics Mechanics, E&M, Calculus BC, Statistics: 5, Environmental Science: 4
Senior Year Course Load: Highly rigorous STEM courses not “officially” AP but difficult. Courses dedicated to preparing students for the Korean College Ability Test.
Honors:
3rd place School Invention Competition 2016 and 2017
3rd place Earth Science Competition
Highest Academic Achievement in Earth Science and Ethics
Improved Academic Performance Scholarship
3rd place Research Paper

Extracurriculars:
•Flight Simulator Experience: Over 400 recorded hours on the sim as a first officer of Delta •Virtual Airlines.
•Dankook Aviation Club (Vice President)
•School Newspaper Club (Chief Editor)
•SGA (Culture Branch President)
•Issue Debate Club
Job/Work Experience:
•Translating Intern at Engineering Software Company OnePredict
•Learning Intern at Seoul National University’s Aerospace Engineering Lab
Volunteer/Community service:
•Volunteer Work for the Hearing Impaired, Cheongeum Rehabilitation Center
•Library Volunteer, Ilwon Teenager Library

Essays:
•Common App: 9/10, It’s really unique and has creative writing describing my flight simulator experience and its effect on me.
•Supplementals: 8~9/10, Have some clever topics unique to me.
Recommendation: 8/10 They talk about my passion, personality, and impression in class with some explanations of the struggling circumstances I’m in.
Additional Rec: None
Supplementary Material (portfolio, etc.): Resume listing my work, ECs, and tests, etc.

Applied for Financial Aid?: No
State (if domestic applicant): OOS living in Korea
School Type: Private (Prestigious school in Korea, Extremely Rigorous Curriculum)
Ethnicity: Korean (Asian)
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: Over $350,000

Strengths: Test Scores, Work, ECs maybe?, Essays
Weaknesses: GPA and Grades, Circumstances, Not many hooks

2

I am applying as a Freshman for most colleges since I have only my single US citizenship.

3

Berkeley and UCLA are to a large extent very GPA dominant when it comes to admissions. But they only look at second and third year of high school grades. You should try and recalculate your GPA based on this criteria and get back to us.

I can say that 3.5 will probably not be good enough for Berkeley or UCLA. An average unweighted GPA for both schools are in the 3.92+ range.

4

I don’t understand this sentence. Citizenship status and freshman/transfer status are not related. You are applying as a freshman if you have never attended university (or have fewer than a certain number of hours, which varies somewhat by university, but is always posted on the website). You apply as a transfer student if you have attended, but not completed, university.

Are your grades done on a 4.0 scale? if not, don’t try and convert your grades- the universities are well able for that.

5

My roughly calculated GPA goes up towards 3.62. I heard that they are GPA dominated and was hoping maybe some of my ECs and work experience could help out my chances.

6

I know that I am a freshman and not a transfer, I have never taken any college courses. I wrote this comment because this thread was moved to international students. Due to my US citizenship, I apply as a non-international freshman to many of my applied universities. However, I have non-US academic credentials studying under the Korean education system.

7

Don’t guess and don’t calculate (to 2 decimal places?!).

8

Sorry, the Korea grading system uses ranks that doesn’t allow for a simple GPA calculation. I input all my courses on Scholaro and calculated a GPA of 3.62 according to the US grading system.

9

Use this to calculate your UC GPAs https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

10

Thanks

I got a 3.48 for all my grades and 3.59 without my senior year. These GPAs make me cry haha.

11

Unless you converted grades yourself but your average is different in Korean terms, a 3.5-3.6 is median for college-going US students. Students aiming for UCs would have 3.9 weighted, and 4.1+ for UCLA/UCB.

Apply to colleges that will value the experience you bring as well as your test scores:
Dickinson, Kalamazoo, American University - or Pitt, UVermont, FSU - or universities with strong honors colleges: UGA, UOregon, Ole Miss, UHouston…

12

UIUC is a school I would love to go to. How would I look there?

13

Your calculated GPA doesn’t quite mesh with your estimated “top 10%, prestigious extremely rigorous” description. Perhaps you would be well served if your guidance counselor or other school official can put your transcript in better context in their report/letter to your chosen colleges, especially if your school has significant grade deflation.

14

Luckily, my recommenders and counselors mentioned it in my recommendation letters and also in the additional info section of the applications. Basically, I go to the #1 Korean Non-Foreign high school. Almost 1/3 of our school are within the top 4% of Korean ability tests and are tested in school with extremely difficult problems creating B grade to even E grade averages. I tried really hard to explain my academic situation and hope it would help understand my academic grades a bit better. I have a lot of B’s and C’s despite the D, E grade averages.

15

If your guidance counselor or head teacher can establish only 5% or 10% or 15% in your school get your GPA, it’d significantly help, but probably more so at private schools that have more staff to review applications and will therefore work on establishing the “meaning” of your GPA, v.large state schools that may not have time. As a result, I’d change your list significantly.
What about Swarthmore? Bucknell? Lafayette? Union? Stevens? RIT? RPI?
In addition, a MechE degree with a concentration or minor in Aerospace is more marketable.

16

He didn’t directly mention a percentage but talked about how my scores were exceptional scores in the school and that I was one of the top STEM students. Sad rec letters aren’t included in UIUC. Really want to go there.

17

If you go to certain high schools, you may have a slightly better chance for UCLA or Berkeley. For example, both Seoul International HS and Korea International HS have about a 25-30% acceptance rate for both Berkeley and UCLA for 2018, which is on the higher side (most of the good high schools in California are roughly around 15-25% admittance rate). However, if you are going to a more local school, it will be harder to tell since chances are no one will have applied in the past.

Another way of telling might be, can you get into KAIST or SNU?

18

So our school boasts the #1 admission results to Seoul and Korea’s most premier Universities. Over 20% of the school goes to the top 3 universities in Korea (SNU, Yonsei Univ, Korea Univ). About 8% of our school go to SNU every year. We also have about another 20% going to medical schools (medical schools are typically harder to get into than SNU). So we have extremely hard exams dedicated to finding out the best of the best.

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19

This should absolutely be part of the school profile, but to put this in perspective for a reader who might not know how to read the numbers you’d need the “average” (ie., “Compared to regular public prep schools where the rate is ~ 2% admitted to S/K/Y”).
Some schools will know but large universities in particular wouldn’t necessarily.

20

I really do hope my counselor created the school profile with these statistics.