GPA: 3.5; not graded on the same curve as in the US.
SAT I: 2400 (800 CR 800 M 800 W)
SAT II: World History 780, Math II 760, English Literature 800
Courseload: Full IB Diploma. Predicted: Economics 7, English 7, History 6, Environmental Science 7, Mathematics 7, French 7
Awards: 30 Scholastic Art & Writing Gold/Silver/Honorable Mention Keys
Extracurriculars:
Published a book recently (if that counts)
Secretary of MUN Group
President of MUN Group
Director of our MUN conference
Editor of Literary Magazine
Editor-in-Chief of the Poetry Club
Editor-in-Chief of the MUN newspaper
Varsity Basketball (four years)
Boys’ Honour Choir (2 years)
Boys’ Band (2 years) - trombone
Community & Service or other:
Organised a drive for books where I managed to gather 1000 books for underprivileged elementary kids in my country.
Interned for the CEO of a Fortune company.
Hooks(?):
Jewish/Christian minority in a predominantly Muslim country(?)
A lot of my family members are tied to Yale (despite no technical “legacy” status), if that helps.
First of all, your SAT I qualifies you for any college you want to apply in the regular round.
However, your EC is not extraordinarily impressive. Yes, it is well-rounded but so are at least 30% of Ivy applicants. This part really depends on how your application outlines the amount of effort required for a president or editor-in-chief in your high school in your essay or in recommendation letters. But since you’re international this is particularly difficult unless your school has been producing Ivy students consistently.
So why don’t you fill in more information regarding your EC? There could be something really precious that you missed out. For the awards, quantity does not matter. What are they? School award? National? International? For the publication, who paid for it? Are you basketball captain or just a player? For the internship, what’s the nature of the internship? sorting mails or discussing Dow Jones? for a day or for 3 months?
@Ineedtoremember The IB grading system is based on a curve; for instance (throwing random numbers out there) a 75% in HL math corresponds to a 7. While a 7 in HL math is very rare and difficult to achieve, it still means a 75% on our report card which is, roughly, a C according to your system. Because of this, a student’s average GPA would be significantly lower than at a school practicing the standard US system. I doubt anyone who achieves a 7 in HL math (again, just an example) is considered “lazy” by any accounts.
@dcstup As for my awards, you can view the foundation here: http://www.artandwriting.org/. I’m not sure if they qualify as international or national, but regardless…
The nature of extracurricular activities at my school is that they are few but extremely valuable and time-consuming. Our school doesn’t have a particularly high record of Ivy League students mainly because most of them are locals who do not produce strong SAT scores or well-thought essays (a lack of English, perhaps). Those who do, however, ultimately end up going to extremely selective schools including the Ivies.
Approximately 20/30 of my writing awards are poetry, my book (published by a local firm) is poetry, and my passion is poetry; I didn’t really go for resume building in high school, but rather the things I enjoyed (poetry, debate i.e. MUN, etc) and I think that’s what I would write about in my essays.
EDIT: My internship lasted 3 weeks and I think I learned a significant amount from the guy I worked for; I experienced a lot of the processes in managing a company and he did, eventually, write a pretty stellar recommendation letter (which I saw).
Is your GPA on the 4.0 scale? Because your SAT l and SAT ll’s qualify you for anything. Your GPA could hurt you, even though your grades may not be on the standard US public school curve.
If you do achieve those IB Diploma scores, I would really try for Harvard as I think they have a rule if you get around 42 points they waive your freshman year (maybe, need to investigate). You will definitely get in to at least two of those schools with a list like that.
Most schools treat the IB as they would AP courses: IB classes will count for college credit (at most schools) or allow you to skip some introductory courses (at schools like HYPS, MIT, Chicago, etc, where most students’ abilites are IB-level).
OP is applying with IB predictions, and will be accepted (or rejected) on the basis of IB predictions. Results come out in early July, long after university decisions, so they’ll just affect the possibility of advanced standing (most colleges require a minimum IB grade for the above).
@camtheman98 I heard about that as well. It’s if you get a 7 in the subject that relates to the course you’re taking; i.e. if I get a 7 on the IB exam for Economics they waive my first year of Economics, assuming it’s what I study in college.
@mannotheman Thank you for adding the information. Personally I don’t think the awards distinguish your ability in poetry, but the sole number of it plus the book really speaks about your passion. As you seem to be a good poet I believe you can bring across this passion in your essay.
Given circumstances of your high school it is very important for your teachers to explicitly stress on the context of lack of opportunities in your school in the recommendation letter and for you to implicitly and artistically hint this context in your essay.
Academic is nearly perfect and publishing a book is also a big plus if you would elaborate on the book’s content in revelation to your ECs that will be awesome, I will suggest to apply, apply and apply,you never know