<p>I am an American citizien, have been living in Germany for 12 years, go to a PUBLIC!!! (not international) Gymnasium (this is a school, it has nothing to do with gymnastics or sports) in Bavaria and will be graduating in May. Since I don’t have I guidance counselor who is familiar with American colleges, I don’t really know what my chances are.</p>
<p>GPA: don’t really know what it would be on the american scale, but i expect my abitur to be around 1,5 - 1,7 (1 being the best and 4 being the worst)</p>
<p>SAT: 2010/2400 (CR: 600, M: 780, W: 630)
SAT II: Math II 710 and I will be taking Bio, Math I and German with Listening on Saturday, I expect 700+ in bio and math and 780+ in german</p>
<p>Classes:
We have no APs or Honors or anything like that, but we do have what are called “Leistungskurse” (LK). Each student has 2 of them and they are just a bit more advanced in comparison to the other classes.
This year:
Math LK
English LK (as a foreign language)
Biology
Ethics
Chemistry
History
PE
Drama</p>
<p>(last year I had Social Studies, Art, French and Psychology in addition to the classes I have this year, and I do get grades in the Drama group, just in case you where wondering why i listed it with my classes)</p>
<p>I took the DELF exam 2 years ago, level B1 (french language proficiency test)</p>
<p>ECs: I don’t have 200 ECs like it seems everyone has, but the ones I do have I work very hard on and am very passionate about</p>
<ul>
<li><p>“Schule ohne Rassismus - Schule mit Courage”: (translation: “school without racism - school with courage”)
This is a group of about 30 students at our school. We belong to a network of German schools that does projects against racism and prejudice. At our school we have about 6 projects a year that we organize, and many seminars for the members of this group where we exchange ideas for projects and our experiences. Projects include what we call “anti-racism-training”, where we teach the younger children about racism and prejudices and why they need to be prevented, a concert at the end of the year called “Bass gegen Hass” (bass against hate) and a day where a group of disabled people come to our school and talk to the younger students about their lives in a wheelchair and what it is like to be handicapped.</p></li>
<li><p>“Anne-Frank-Botschafter”: (translation: “Anne-Frank-Ambassador”)
Our school is called the Anne-Frank-Gymnasium. To teach the younger students to come to our school about the life of Anne Frank, we spend a few hours with a class, playing games to show them what it was like to live in hiding and talking about the Third Reich and the Nazis. A few years ago, the students in this group went on a trip to Amsterdam to visit Anne Franks house and the Jewish museum.</p></li>
<li><p>I tutor a younger student at my school in English, 1 hour a week</p></li>
<li><p>I work at a restaurant in the Therme Erding (thermal bath in the town where I live, biggest one in Europe I think) 9 hours a week</p></li>
</ul>
<p>I failed 10th grade, but since then I have been in the top 10% of my class. I wrote a pretty good essay explaining the situation, why I wasn’t good in school a few years ago and what made me decide to work hard. Basically it was just lack of motivation, because at that point I didn’t really have any goals set and didn’t know what I wanted to do after school.
I should also mention that it is a lot more common in Germany than it is in the States to fail a whole year rather than just one class. I think about 20% of my class has failed a year at some point. </p>
<p>I intend to major in Psychology or Neurosciene (or both ^^) if I get into BU</p>
<p>Other colleges I am applying to:</p>
<p>Harvard (bit of a reach, I know…)
Tufts
Northeastern
Simmons</p>