I admit it, I did really badly in my freshmen and sophomore year. However, in Junior year I really picked things up and got almost a perfect SAT score, an amazing ACT, and 5 5s in APs. That didn’t help my GPA much however as I am at a 3.4 gpa. Do highly selective unis like Oxbridge see my transcript and GPA, or do they just see APs and standardized tests? Thanks.
They’ll see your transcript and gpa too. While they focus on APs (I assume as some kind of proxy for A levels) they do state they expect “high passing marks” in your high school diploma.
Here’s the Cambridge page, I expect oxford has a similar one https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/usa
5 5s in APs is a minimum requirement, and is expected to be across an “appropriate range of subjects”.
As a very broad generalization, it is easier for internationals to get to Oxbridge for postgrad than undergrad.
For Oxbridge relevant AP results for the course you wish to study along with SAT/ACT tests will be important, but most important will be your performance in their own assessment tests, and then performance in the interview. For universities outside Oxbridge performance in relevant AP’s and standardized tests will be most important along with the personal statement. They have no way of comparing GPA’s from individual US high schools.
In essence, you do have a chance at Oxbridge (note Oxford is more American-friendly than Cambridge for admissions), whereas you probably don’t have a chance at equivalent US schools. So by all means consider an application.
But what you do need is a teacher reference for a relevant subject. Will one of your teachers write that you are one of their best (most brilliant) students in the last 10 years? That is the standard that Oxbridge colleges are looking for (which is obvious when you figure out that Oxford and Cambridge combined admit less than a handful of undergraduates from each state).
Oxford never saw nor asked for my son’s high school transcript as part of his offer/admission. Echo the rest of the advice regarding the importance of a strong performance on the Oxford course specific admissions test and a good LoR I’m sure that it helped greatly that my son’s LoR writer (his 11th/12th grade math teacher) is an Oxford grad who had also taught for a number of years at one of the largest Oxbridge feeder schools in the UK (Westminster). She knew the drill.
In Dec 2017 you were a freshman, in June of 2018 you said that you were going to be in 10th grade in September 2018, yet now in January 2019 you are in grade 11?
Anyway, the key thing about UK universities is: how sure are you about what you want to study? how strong is your background in that area?
I would not assume you don’t have a shot at a highly ranked US school. A school with wholistic admissions would probably evaluate you as a person who was a late bloomer and didn’t appreciate the importance of school and/or was disinterested until junior year at which point you showed yourself to be someone with very strong aptitude, motivation and the where-with-all to nail whatever you go for. Naturally other things weigh in-EC’s and the like. And, it would help for you to talk to your guidance counselor (GC: who is often very unappreciated or overlooked as a potential influencer). Talk to your GC about your history and how and why you turned things around. It does not have to be a sob story or way out there. Rather, it can simply have been that all of a sudden things clicked for you. For whatever reason, you are now keenly motivated and hopefully have a clearer direction. I’d suggest taking a thoughtful approach and conveying your thoughtfulness to the GC. Some people are just late bloomers. That’s ok. Maybe they bloom longer that way.
It might be worth applying to Oxford, LSE, Imperial, UCL, and somewhere else on the UCAS. While you might not get into Oxbridge, you likely could get in somewhere very good in Britain, but maybe not into top 30 in the US.
A year ago (Dec 2017) you said you were then still a HS freshman looking at possibly moving to the UK for A levels. Is this post perhaps hypothetical? Perhaps you could clarify your current position as well as what subject you are interested in studying.