<p>Hello, I'm from Brazil, I'm 17 years old, I have already graduated from high school and have already taken one semester of engineering classes at FEI (a famous engineering university in Brazil) and here we don't mind about extracurricular activities and GPA because colleges here choose their students only by one test. So, all that matter is having a good score on the test. Now that I'm going to apply to american colleges I'm in trouble, I just noticed that I don't have extracurricular activities and also my GPA isn't the best. I just had chess, Judo and capoeira classes and have played soccer, table tennis and basketball at school's team, but I don't have any documentation that proves what I've done, just my memories.
School has always been very easy for me, so I didn't give my best, my average grade is 7.7 out of 10. I'm very concerned about that. I consider myself very smart and standardized tests are not a big challenge for me, so I'm very confident I'm going to get good scores(I've already registered for TOEFL, SAT and 2 SAT ST), but I know that good scores are not enough, so I'd like to know if there is anything I can do now that could help me at this point of my application that is the extracurricular activities and GPA. Also, my dad passed away in 2012, this affected my life a lot, I don't know if colleges consider it and I had some money issues too in the beginning of the high school, but it's my problem, I don't think I should tell them what happened. What do you think? Ps. I don't need financial assistance.</p>
<p>You are probably not going to get into the tippy top universities with average ECs and grades. But not all hope is lost.</p>
<p>You can always try to apply to good-but-not-MIT-level universities and see what happens. As a backup, I’d encourage you to consider the community college transfer route. Community colleges have low admission standards <em>and</em> it’s relatively easy to transfer from a community college to a good university after 2 years. (The same cannot be said for trying to transfer from a subpar 4-year university to a good 4-year university.) You might even be able to find a community college with a guaranteed transfer agreement to the public flagship university in that state. </p>
<p>The community college transfer route has 2 major advantages:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It would give you two years to make yourself a competitive transfer applicant to selective universities (grades, ECs, letters of recommendation). You’d most likely to be to transfer to a better university after 2 productive years at a community college than you’d be able to gain admission to with average grades and ECs right now.</p></li>
<li><p>It would also save you some money, since community colleges are cheaper than 4-year universities.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>You have to have a very good and valid reason wanting to come study in the USA. The most logical thing to do is to complete your UG at EFI and if you do well in it, apply to top graduate programs.
Since you have started your UG in Brazil, you will be considered a transfer student in USA and colleges treat transfer students differently than the freshman admits.
Your below par grades in the high school will prevent you to transfer in this year to a better school than EFI, so why bother? Community Colleges are a risk, because you do not know the quality of education there but you know EFI is a good school.</p>
<p>Well, studying in the USA is a dream I’ve always had, like I said. I’ll do my best on the tests and see what happens, I know it’s not going to be easy. Thanks for the replies.</p>
<p>Most colleges and universities do not care about extracurricular activities. Unless you only want to apply to very top institutions, you really, truly, don’t need to worry about ECs.</p>
<p>Thanks for the information :)</p>
<p>That is very true, only ~300 unis in the US will ever look at your EC’s, OTOH, the lower ranking schools will not consider “Financial Aids” to internationals, you will expect full pay. There are approximately 4000 colleges in the US.</p>
<p>
Of which about 200 have Bachelor degree programs in engineering.</p>
<p>it was my impression 7-7.5 in Brazil meant Top 10%, am I wrong?
(In the US, 7.7 means you’re not totally ready for college, but if you got into FEI then you’d be considered one of the top STEM students in the country…)
However, because you’ve already taken classes at FEI, you’d be considered a transfer. There’s almost not financial aid for international transfers so your #1 concern should be how you’re going to finance your studies.</p>
<p>MYOS1634,
you’re right, I was in the top #3 of the class, as I can remember none of my classmates could go to a college better than FEI. And at FEI, even my GPA being low, I was in the 20% that could complete the first semester without doing any subject again(I don’t know how you call it in USA, here is dependence). I’ll be very happy if they consider theses numbers. Also, at FEI I completed 28 credits in one semester.
Secondly, I’m not concerned about the money, as I’ve seen I can afford most of the universities. </p>
<p>I guess I was wrong in Brazil education grading system. I am sure if you apply the international adcoms will know what a 7.7 grade is. However, I maintain my previous advise that you should finish EFI for a better graduate program in US.</p>