Don't have all that great EC's...

<p>I'm an American citizen but I live in India. I was born in USA and moved when I was about 12. Does that make me an international applicant? Does it help in any way? Or is it the other way around...</p>

<p>In India, schools don't offer as many opportunities to show ur true leadership potential, like they don't have clubs and other communities u can freely join. In addition, the school leaders are chosen by the teachers and the students have no say in it. I was class president in 6th grade, but after I moved to India in 7th, I haven't held any major leadership position. </p>

<p>I've taken one SAT, and i got 2050. Not complaining to much, but I know I could have done better. My 600 in CR really messed me up, I must have screwed up the gridding or something. I'm taking it again and I'll get around 2200 for sure. What should I do about my EC's?</p>

<p>I'm looking at Hopkins, Rice and similar colleges, but I'm aiming high, maybe Columbia or Cornell. </p>

<p>Your advice and answers will be appreciated. Thanks for ur time!</p>

<p>No it doesn't make you an international applicant. I am the same except I now live in the UAE.</p>

<p>Wait. You mean to say you do NOTHING outside the world of academia, absolutely nothing?</p>

<p>no not absolutely nothing...
I got 21st place Calstate chess and i've won a couple other tournaments in India. I play basketball, and I was the junior captn, though it doesn't count for much. I've done a lot of olympiads, and im in the top 5% in almost all of them, my best being science where I got around 350th in all of Asia.</p>

<p>I play almost all sports. Except swimming. I don't swim. i've also been to a number of interschool events adn I've won first place in a fair amount of things including computer gaming and virtual business. </p>

<p>But none of these actually show my true passion, except for chess and basketball. I really like business, the thought of owning my own. I'm going for an internship at my uncle's company. For social service, I'm opening up my own organization. With donations, I plan to take it all over my state and help bring up schools in villages. Trust me, India needs them. Other than that, I've got nothing else. What do u think?</p>

<p>Those aren't superb, but honestly, I think they're fine. Especially if you open up that organization. That'd be major EC points right there! Also, (and this might not be 100% true) but I heard that Hopkins, and universities similar to it usually care more about your scores than your ECs. The ECs only matter significantly in the Ivies. Lower than that, avg. ECs work fine.</p>

<p>thanks! Yea I hope so...
Another thing is that I go to a school that has only 40 people in 11th grade, and they don't do GPA either... so i'm kinda confused with the gpa/class rank part of it...</p>