African female international applicant from Alberta looking to major in engineering (probably biomedical), or biology. However, I have not done any AP or IB class and was wondering what schools I could get into with my stats
Average: 84
Rank: 7/10
SAT: 1450
Math: 740
Writing: 710
Essay: 17/24
Math Level 2 Subject Test: 780
Chemistry Subject: 670
Physics: will do in October
Extra Curriculars
Vice President of Biology Club ( 3 years )
Martial Arts (5+ years)
Volleyball ( 2 years )
Run a class for kids at the elementary Branch at out school. Teaching them how to use IMovie and other Apple applications (2 years)
Celebration of Science (4 years) - Scientific Papers written yearly on a subject of my choice
Volunteering: 130+ hours total
Volunteer for a program that introducing kids to computers and computer science by teaching them through a few online resources and programs
Do you know if your grades will get you into Alberta or Calgary? You have some great and affordable options in-province (and good ones in BC also such as SFU).
I am under the impression that high school grades in Canada tend to be lower than in the US. US admissions will know how to interpret grades from Canadian schools, but it might be a bit more difficult for American “normal folks” to interpret Canadian high school grades.
Does your rank of 7/10 mean that you are in a class of 10 students? Are you the 7th of the 10 students, or are you at the 70th percentile, or something else?
The grades tend to be somewhat lower because the grading scales are different. Any school in Canada or the U.S. will be able to determine where a particular student’s grades lie. There is a large database available that has access to details from virtually every high school on the continent, and also a growing availability from schools in Europe and Asia.
Does your secondary school only have 40 students or so?
In the us, a ‘class’ is all the students who will graduate in a given year, such 2019(for instance). So, your rank in class would be all students from Year 9 in 2015. Compared to them, are you a student in the bottom 30%?
In the US, a student ranked in the bottom 30% of her school wouldn’t be going to college: do you attend a prep school where everyone goes to college? (Is that rank your own estimate or does your school officially rank you?)
An 84% grade 12 average is probably going to be too low for admission to either Alberta’s or Calgary’s engineering programs.
U of Alberta website says a competitive average for admission to engineering is mid-80’s to low-90’s. The OP is on the cusp of that. The actual cutoff is also going to depend on which engineering discipline the OP wants to pursue as greater demand leads to higher cutoffs so the most popular disciplines are going to have higher cutoffs (like software/computer engineering).
U of Calgary says their minimum competitive average for admission to Software Engineering for Alberta high school students is high-80’s to low-90’s and around 86% for the remaining disciplines.
SFU also has a cut-off of around 86% for their engineering programs.
One alternative the OP could consider is enrolling in MacEwan Universitie’s engineering transfer program. Admission requirements are lower and if the marks are sufficient after first year they are guaranteed a transfer to the University of Alberta for 2nd year. The University of Lethbridge has a similar program.
Hello, I’d thought this would be helpful as a reference. I got accepted to UofC for Soft Eng (obviously I can’t declare a major yet) but I can only say that my GPA was in the high 90’s and got early decision, also maths, biology, chem, physics high 90’s