<p>I am a senior high-school student from Serbia(South-Eastern Europe).</p>
<p>I'm planning to apply for Cornell's Early Decision, and I'd like to know what do you think of my chances.</p>
<p>I am a student of the Belgrade Mathematics High School, the best high school in Serbia.
It's a very demanding public school, declared the School of National Importance by the government.</p>
<p>On a scale of 5.0, my gpa was 5.0. The school doesn't offer AP, but I've taken most of the optional courses. I'm going to apply for the College of Arts and Science, Major - Computer science.
I am going to apply for Financial Aid - I am able to pay 2000-4000$ max per year, but this shouldn't matter since Cornell is need-based, right?</p>
<p>I'm taking the SAT in October, and it will most likely be in 2100-2200 range.</p>
<p>EC:
1. Member of Serbian International Competitions team in programming, three times national top3 award, preparing younger students for the competitions free of charge
2. Two term member of School Parliament, now head of the parliament, one term class president, one term class vice-president
3. Graduated from elementary music school as well as an ordinary school - 6 years of guitar playing
4. One mathematics national award, one international town tournament award, participated in Summer math camp for younger students as instructor free of charge
5. Three physics national awards, finished two research papers, one due to be published in December
6. Participated in an EU program for excellent Serbian pupils - went do Denmark to study the process of EU integration and Serbia's current and future involvement with the EU</p>
<p>I am very passionate about Computer Science, and I think my essays will portray me well.
Also expecting well-written recommendations from teachers who know me well.</p>
<p>Any international competition is a great hook. Though I’d think that being a Math Olympian, for example, would be a better hook than an international programming competition. My father has a friend who got into MIT and he was a Math Olympian from Spain.</p>
<p>You seem like a great student, and I think you have a pretty good chance of being admitted. However, I don’t think Cornell guarantees to meet 100% of need for international students. That means that you shouldn’t apply ED without first contacting the financial aid office to be sure that you’d be able to afford the school should you be accepted.</p>
<p>I somehow missed that…I’ll have to check that in-depth.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot!!!</p>
<p>By the way, do you think I should apply as regular decision instead? I was hoping to apply as ED to Cornell to boost my chances, but I’d like to try applying to MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Harvard and Princeton as well. Would I have any chances there?</p>
?</p>