Educational System issue. Help

Student Lounge International Students
1

<p>I live in Greece and our educational system is really bad. Not the quality of the education, but the whole system itself. I will explain the system and my situation here, and tell me what should I do.</p>

<p>-Basics : We have 6 years elementary, 3 years junior high, and 3 years highschool.</p>

<p>-Every year of highschool we have 12-15 classes.(physics,algebra, geomentry, justice, religion, ancient greek, modern and ancient literature, english, astronomy, gym etc etc etc etc, you get the idea)</p>

<p>-At the end of every year of Highschool we have finall exams</p>

<p>-Our College (Greek College) admission criteria is just 1: How well you perform at the "Special exams of Senior year"</p>

<p>These "special" exams are actually a test at senior year for 5 subjects
There are three 5-subject choices, depending what you want to study
Choice No.1 : 1) Math, Physics, Buissness Admin, Computer Science, Composition
Choice No.2 : 2) Math, Physics, Bio , Chem, Composition (mainly for those intending to study medical school (yes you can go directly to medical school after Highschool here) , bio and chem
Choice No.2 3) Ancient Greek, Latin, Composition , Literature, i dont remember the last.</p>

<p>So, this test(exams) is SO DIFFICULT and competitive ( we are talking about college-difficulty-level) that whoever who wants to be admitted in a good college, has to start studying from 10th grade, for this test on 12th grade. In other words, The educational system in indirectly forcing students to take extra lessons after school. Everybody has douzens of hours extra lessons every week. The results are that every student, performs really well in the subjects related with what they want to study, and doesnt have enough time for the others.
Its really common someone having straight A+'s on Bio, Math etc, but a B- and C on e.g. Ancient Greek</p>

<p>My situation: my 10th and 11th GPA is 3.0 and 3.3
I have some really great marks at Bio, Physics, Math etc but some crappy at e.g. Justice
I want to study Cognitive Science or Psychology in the USA.
But my 10th and 11th grade gpa doesnt reflect me as a student. It reflects me as a slacker, which i'm not.
(E.g. When school starts, I will have every day 7 hours of school + around 2.5 hours of extra lessons + around 2 hours of study for those lessons + study for school + study to raise my SAT I and II. If you do the math, there is about 0.5 hours of spare time if you are lucky)</p>

<p>Should i explain my situation at the Personal statement? Will it help? (</p>

2

<p>If you are applying to colleges that receive a lot of applications from international students, the admissions representative in charge of your region will be familiar with your educational system.</p>

<p>If you do feel compelled you to explain, be careful what you say. “I didn’t put effort into the classes that won’t matter for my Greek college admissions.” is NOT what a selective American college wants to hear. Liberal arts colleges in particular are looking for students with a love for learning, keen intellectual curiosity and interests spanning much of the academic spectrum.</p>

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<p>So…it’s a deadend , isn’it it? I better not write a thing… whatever I write will be like (as you said) saying ““I didn’t put effort into the classes that won’t matter for my Greek college admissions.””</p>

<p>My top choice will be Vassar college , i ll be applying through ED.</p>

4

<p>Hey metaxa, don’t feel discouraged. If you feel strongly about explaining your particular situation and workload, I say go ahead. You may or may not get the admissions officer to empathize with you, but at least you pointed it out yourself rather than have him/her spot it on his/her own.</p>