<p>Hi, I'm currently studying in a 12th grade CBSE Indian school. Passed my 10th grade CBSE examination from Muscat, Oman with a CGPA of 9.0/10. Have lived in 4 countries. Senior School Soccer team captain. School Cricket team player, won many awards. Held a Council post in Grade 11. Participated in Quizes, Helped in Organising major school events and a few more EC's here and there. SAT score of 1800 in my first attempt (CR- 540, Math- 660, Reading- 600 and Essay- 9/12) Planning to retake it in December. My 11th grade marks were horrible due to certain circumstances, managed to score a meagre 60%. Hoping atleast a 90%+ in my 12th board finals. Will my 11th grade scores dent my application severly? Planning to apply to Purdue,UIUC,Texas A&M,UT at Austin,UCLA and UCSD. Please rate my chances. Thank you :)</p>
<p>1800 SAT is well below average of all those schools.</p>
<p>Can you elaborate on “many awards” and other ECs?</p>
<p>Will you need aid? </p>
<p>If you need aid, forget about all those schools and make a new list. </p>
<p>I’m planning for a >2000 score in my December SAT’s. My EC’s are mostly Sports related and i have 200 hours of volunteer service, teaching kids living in rural places. </p>
<p>About the Financial Aid part, Yeah i do need it but not all that much. If it is UCLA, then no aid required. What would you guys suggest me to do to increase my chances at UCLA? (apart from my SAT Scores)</p>
<p>Thanks in advance :)</p>
<p>Ah alright, but if i don’t need aid?</p>
<p>If you have SAT>2000 then Purdue and UCSD shouldn’t be a problem, but still low for others</p>
<p>Also GPA for UCLA candidates are almost perfect, while your is not</p>
<p>You should apply to schools that have roughly 1900 average SAT with cricket teams, it’d help your odds
<a href=“http://americancollegecricket.com/”>http://americancollegecricket.com/</a></p>
<p>What major are you applying for? Since this will affect your odds of admission - CS or engineering would be more competitive to get into than other majors and Math 660 would be a HUGE red flag (most Indians who apply have scores in the 750-800 range on the SAT1Math section). If you’re applying for Political Science, International Relations, etc, you should work on improving your CR score.</p>
<p>Do you realize how incredibly different TAMU and UT (Austin) are in terms of environment, type of students, etc?
(Thinking them similar because they’re both in Texas is as bad as thinking Amritsar and Lahore are similar because they’re basically in the same world region…)</p>
<p>UCLA is a reach even with a 2000 SAT.</p>
<p>Why don’t you have schools such as UMN-Twin Cities, Penn State, UMaryland, UAlabama-Tuscaloosa… on your list?</p>
<p>Right now, you don’t have any match and safety for your scores. Even if you hope to see a +200 point increase, you cant base your list on this expectation.
Find 2 schools you’d get into with a 1800. If your score improves with the December setting, these will be safeties. If it doesn’t, at least you’ll have a chance.</p>
<p>If you’re interested in STEM fields, I suggest looking into UCI, UCSC, UAlabama Engineering, UMass Engineering, WVU, Stevens, RIT.
If you’re interested in on STEM fields, explain which ones so we can give you better advice.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot for your input 
Two of my seniors study at purdue engineering and they got in with SAT scores of 1700 and a 1900 respectively. They told me a couple of LOR’s and a good essay would do the job.</p>
<p>No one can ever chance anybody accurately. SAT scores are important but they are not everything. Do your best and focus on the rest of the application. </p>