Foreign variations on course difficulty

International Students
1

<p>Hi everyone, my first time starting a thread as an international applicant.</p>

<p>I have questions regarding the differences between countries as to course difficulty. </p>

<p>I know that in the US system, An AP course is acknowledged to be of extra difficulty.</p>

<p>However, how do i explain the way my country's academic system/subjects works?</p>

<p>I go to school in Australia, and the courses are overall all at the level of difficulty of AP courses. </p>

<p>The subjects here go in difficulty based on extensions, all of which count as separate subjects. </p>

<p>For example:</p>

<p>Our Maths system goes from 2 Units (topics including calculas, integration, differentiation, algebra, geometry..) then Maths Extension 1 <a href="3D%20trigonometry,%20circle%20geometry..">3Unit</a> and up to Maths Extenstion 2 <a href="conics,%20complex%20numbers..">4Unit</a>. Parts of 2Unit and particularly 3 and 4 unit maths are at College level. </p>

<p>How am i to explain the differences in cirriculum and the relative difficulty? It's much harder to obtain good grades in Extension Maths due to the extreme difficulty, with most people scoring in the 60s to 70s. </p>

<p>Does this disadvantage me, or can i make an attempt to justify the results against the difficulty and rigour of the courses?</p>

<p>thanks in advance.</p>

2

<p>Don’t try to ‘justify the results’, you’ll just sund like a whiner. Usually admissions has a special officer in charge of your region, he’ll be familiar with the education system of your country.</p>

3

<p>thanks for the reply :)</p>

<p>it’s just extra confusing because our school report grades matter less than our national standardised tests. </p>

<p>which is a different system again (based on Bands of 6 and below).</p>

<p>i’ll just assume they can figure out the system differences.</p>