<p>You have great standardized test scores. Congrats also on your A-levels.</p>
<p>For your GPA - your GPA is low, PLUS you are international, PLUS you come from a school system that AOs may not know about so you have an added task to inform the colleges about your background. So…</p>
<p>(1) Make sure your counselor sends a detailed description of your high school profile with the courses listings. The more they know about your school, the better.</p>
<p>(2) Go talk to AOs when they come to visit your area or initiate contact with the schools via email. Tell them about your school and show interest.</p>
<p>(3) Get some safeties. You have no safeties on your list. If you don’t get into any of these reach schools, get into a safety. Do well, and if you still want to after a few years, transfer to your desired school. UT Austin is not a safety for you. Find a true safety based on your GPA, and ACT. One with at least a 45%+ chance of acceptance and that you can afford. For international, I would even go as high as 60%+.</p>
<p>Is Cal Poly really that hard to get in? I’ve always thought of it as a second tier school judging from the standardized test scores of admitted students. (Middle 50% for ACT is 25-29 I believe)</p>
<p>I don’t intend to apply to any safety schools actually because I rather study at National University of Singapore instead of a second tier US school.</p>
<p>I’m not convinced that a 3.0 from a prestigious school is any more impressive than a 3.0 from an ordinary school if you’re telling me that you’re failing core classes. Unfortunately, American schools aren’t forgiving when it comes to that. Nevertheless, because you’re from Singapore, and you have EXTREMELY good extracurriculars, I also don’t believe you’re completely out of the running. As of now, I see you as the following:</p>
<p>Berkeley: out of reach
UCLA: high reach
Pomona: out of reach
Mudd: reach
UCSD: reach
Cal Poly: match (your best shot)
UT Austin: low reach
Yale: out of reach
Rice: high reach</p>
<p>And, for the hell of it, because it’s worth considering…
NYU Poly: match</p>
<p>Hey dude! Are u from Bishan JC? Haha. I think maybe they don’t understand the Singapore curriculum that’s why they say that but I think that UCB is definitely achievable. My friend got into UCLA with 3As for A levels and I think she got a scholarship as well. So I think you can do it! And the Ivys are reachable as well, just blow them away with your essay</p>
<p>Yes there is a big difference. GPA is calculated solely from school examinations and different school have papers of very different difficulty level. The only standardized tests I’ve taken is A-level and SAT/ACT which I did okay in.</p>
<p>Coooooooooooommmmmmeeee. Caltech wants YOU to serve! Your experience as a soldier will help us in our crusade to destroy the menace that resides in the east.</p>
<p>P.S.
Who the hell writes a company website in wordpress? Seriously, if you’re doing non-blog things in wordpress, you’re doing it wrong. Also fix your damn youtube embeds to use frames like they’re supposed to.</p>
<p>I used wordpress because my boss requested me to do so! And I’m still rather new to web developing so I guess I’ll just use something that I’m already familiar with.</p>
<p>I don’t do graphic design and content management for them, but I wish they hired a professional to actually design the pages. Looks so amateurish now haha :/</p>
<p>By the way, do small LAC usually consider things like essay, recommendations and ECs more than big public universities? A friend told me that large public universities often do not have the time and manpower of a private college to have a completely holistic admission.</p>
<p>If true, should I be looking at private colleges instead since my EC’s are probably better than my grades in school.</p>
<p>Your test scores are great, but I think your grades may end up being a killer… There’s not much you can do about that at this point.</p>
<p>Pretty unique and varied set of activities, so I think your application will stand out.</p>
<p>Berkeley - High Match / Low Reach (Also, you’re out of state)
UCSD - Match
UCLA - High Match
Pomona - Mid Reach
Cal Poly - Don’t know much, but Safety / Match I think
Rice - Mid Reach
Texas Austin - Low Match (But UT can be unpredictable because 3/4 of the class can be auto admits…)
Harvey Mudd - Low Reach
Yale - High Reach</p>
<p>What is your rank? or percentile for your school? just to put it into context. Also, do you think you’ll get good recommendations? The California schools will be hard to get into because the standards are higher for out of state residents. Texas Austin won’t be too hard, but don’t depend on it. Ivies are reaches for everyone… Even though your GPA is only mediocre, your testing is great and your extracurriculars are outstanding. Make sure you apply to schools with more holistic admissions that consider extracurriculars more. You can see a schools rating of importance on the college board website. Here’s a link for Rice: <a href=“BigFuture College Search”>BigFuture College Search; It shows the level of importance of different aspects of you application. Good luck :)</p>
<p>Your standardized test scores are fantastic! Good job!
I do think the converted GPA may be considered low for an international student. Typically, colleges don’t take into account the difficulty of the school that an international student goes to because it is too hard to compare. Foreign countries usually have different curriculums and testing procedures.
Because of this, it is crucial that your scores showcase your intelligence. I think you have managed that.</p>
<p>I think your EC’s are good enough for at least a few state colleges. The UC’s are probably going to be a tad easier to get into.
UT Austin may be a littler more difficult because it accepts a lot of TX students. If you go to school in TX and are a good student (top 10%), UT will offer you a full ride.
As for Harvey Mudd, Yale, and Rice, those are reaches simply because they are nationally renowned and US students will apply there by the thousands.</p>
<p>Either way, good luck! I’m sure you will be accepted to at least a few of these schools.</p>
<p>Okay, first of all, A level grades are not.meant to be converted to GPA. We dont have assignments and homework and small quizzes to pad our grades with. Every quarter is a fully fledged exam. And AO knows that. Thats why they arent converted.</p>
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