<p>I am an international Student from Nepal...
My grades are...all are A- levels
Physics:A, Chemistry:A, Mathematics:A, Further Mathematics:A, General Paper:c, Economics:a, Thinking Skills:a...
Rank :9/78(unweighted)..the rank system is preety biased....
My Sat 1 scores is: 2120 CR:680, Math:800 and WR:640
..I took AP courses from another school self-studying everything in 3 weeks ...
Ap physics C: E&M :5, physics C:Mech:5, Calculus BC:5, Calculus AB:5, Chemistry:5</p>
<p>SAT 2:
Math2c 800, Physics 800, Chemistry: 800
My ECs;
Secretary of Science club, member of dot net club, conducted voluntary works like free health camp, and adolescent health and development programmes,
participated in International Young Mathematics Convention 2006 held at Lucknow, India and others...</p>
<p>Awards:
AP scholar with honor award...and some other 3 national awards...</p>
<p>I wouldnt mention the self-study in 3 weeks. Everyone knows there are AP classes you can just study for the test, which is very different from taking a class and learning beyond the test.</p>
<p>Well, you didn't ask me, but Caltech has always been pretty adamant that it does not use AA in the decision process. I am not sure why they would mislead people.</p>
<p>Applicants who apply to Caltech tend to be the very best. They are self selected - for a woman to make it all that way in a male dominated area, they often tend to be stronger than the guys.</p>
<p>Caltech tries to encourage the stronger women and URMs to apply. This is very different than giving them preference for admissions. </p>
<p>Also, I am sure, that as a student who wants to attend one of the best science schools in the world, you realize that your observations cannot possibly be scientific. You are working with self reported and incomplete data.</p>
<p>Why do you think Caltech would have a 30:70 girl:guy ratio if they were easier on girls in order to improve the ratio? </p>
<p>I think whether you are girl or guy actually does NOT matter, at least according to the students, admissions officers, and through evidence like the ratio</p>
<p>Alright I'm sorry for my comment on M/F. I just couldn't help it b/c i've seen so many exceptional male applicants got rejected or deferred. But again, let me take back what I've said before. I AM sincerely sorry.</p>
<p>rlaqhdus, its ok. Have you looked at Cooper Union? I heard they waive the tuition to all their admitted students. Poor or rich, no disscrimination, as long as you match their 'merit'.</p>
<p>IMO, those ivies they are famous on politics, humanities, etc. can afford emphasize AA, 'diversity' in their admission process. After all their goal is to educate future 'pillars' of society. And a society consists all type of races and classes. But for an institution focus on excelence of science and engineer can't afford practice AA in their admission process, they might as well soon lost their science engineer 'prestige'.</p>
<p>And since Caltech is such a small comunity aside from the 'merit' they also looking for if the applicants can fit into the comunity and has the ability to take the course load. And IMO they are ture to their words....I still remember during one caltech info session I attended, when asked how is the course load at caltech, the admission office replied outright "it is the most heavy ones. If you can't take it, don't apply." .... never had I heard such comment from any admission office in a recruiting info session from any colleges.</p>
<p>Being male wont hurt your chances, but being international will. Unfortunately, Caltech can only admit so many international students, and the pool is extremely strong.</p>
<p>To the best of my knowledge, Caltech has never practiced affirmative action, whether on the basis of gender or race. If it ever did, the Caltech community would, in all likelihood, grab pitchforks and torches and chase that particular incarnation of the admissions committee out of town. </p>
<p>College Confidential is an extremely limited sample size. 795 people applied EA this year, most of the posts in the EA decisions thread actually aren't decisions, but instead, other remarks.</p>
<p>There's no formula into Caltech, just like what the admissions website says. Your stats are good, but so are those of nearly everyone else applying and certainly those who get in. While the Caltech supplement doesn't ask it, why do you want to go to Caltech? For the nice shiny name? For its quality? For something else?</p>
<p>anotherparent it is sad to say but in contry like mine....hardly two people give AP in a year....since the school teaches A-levels it does not offer any AP classes... and we need to study ourselves</p>
<p>Pacific - you miss understood me. Self study is good, and you should definitely add it to your application, but you would get no points for bragging that you study in just a few weeks. That makes you look like you are trolling for grades.</p>
<p>@pacific34: The Caltech admissions committee tries to admit those students who they think are most likely to do well in their classes, pursue interesting research projects, graduate on time, go on to do impressive things after they graduate, etc. What they do NOT care about is vindictively applying an arbitrary standard. </p>
<p>This means that they will not reject you simply because you could not take a particular examination, be it AP or IB or whatever you may hear others bragging about. Of course it helps if you take exams that make it easy for them to compare you to other students, but if your local high school qualifications show something about where you are at in comparison to other applicants from your country, you should point that out to the committee.</p>
<p>This may be hard to understand if you are used to admissions procedures that are run more mechanically, but think about it this way: the Caltech admissions committee is not accountable to anybody who cares about "fairness" up front. They are accountable to people who care about what <em>comes out</em> of the admissions process. They'll use any information that you can hand them that can help them predict what kind of student you're going to be once you get to Pasadena.</p>
<p>Maybe I should correct myself a bit: if you can take APs, definitely do. I just wanted to point out to you and other international students who may read this that the kind of thing you should -not- be worrying about is the case where you failed to do something you couldn't possibly have done. I have known students from very rural areas in the American west who had gone way out of their way to end up with a resume that would have been nearly handed to them on a silver platter had they been attending a fancy private school in the North-East. And some of these students got in, not on account of the committee's pity, but on account of its best effort at predicting how they would do if they were admitted.</p>