French high-school student here. Am I heading in the right direction?

Student Lounge International Students
1

Hey guys!

I’m a french high-school student and just finished my first year of high-school (Equivalent to sophomore year in the US I think - We only have 3 years of Highschool here in France), so I still got two years before going to college. Since parents and teachers do put a little bit of pressure on us, I thought about what “career-path” I should be choosing. Also, at the beginning of these holidays, out of interest, I read a little on good universities in the US, and… I came across MIT. Since then I am kind of obsessed a little bit with going to MIT, even while knowing that it is probably an impossible reach. Let me explain about my situation first though.

Since I am a french student, I know little to nothing of the american system; But the facts I read about it seem very different from here. Firstly, we’ve got only 3years of highschool (I just finished my first) before going to university (Or “prepa” and then “grande ecole” if you’re good, in France. I ain’t planning on visiting college in France though. I don’t like the schoolsystem here at all. From everything I heard it seems to be the worst.). Then we don’t have that SAT/ACT stuff, but we have some final exams at the end of the year which determines our professional life; The bacalaureat. Then, at least at my highschool, we also can’t choose which classes we take, and have only 1-2 options of classes that we can take additionally, but all classes are mandatory. You can only choose if you want to specify in “Science” (Less language stuff, more scienc-y stuff), “Social Economy” (A bit more languages, a bit less sciences, +economy) or “Litterature” (Focused on languages, only a tiny bit of sciences.). We also don’t have those AP-Classes everyone is talking about. Grading is also different: You get a number on 20 as a grade, and then your average is just the average of the averages of all classes.
(Oh, and I forgot: At least in my school, there is not really a notion of classes in terms of people. I mean, we do have groups of ~28-34people called classes, but the results of others are not published and you don’t know if you’re “In the top 5%” of your class or something.).

I’ll now continue with a bit of my personal life. I just got 16 years old, choose the “Science” path in my highschool (Which, by the way, has a pretty good reputation here in France. It is called “CIV”/“Centre International de Valbonne”, in case anyone heard about it. Probably not.). I speak german and french fluently (My family is german, so I speak german even better than french), and am in the process of getting better at english (I mean, I can communicate with people, but my vocabulary is pretty limited.). My school is also international, which means that the average student in my age (me included) has 7hours/week more than in other highschools. So basically you have all the classes like math, french, etc, plus your language of choice (german for me), and the another language of choice (english for me). For me this means that I will get a french bacalaureat but also a german abitur (It’s the same thing; Basically just a highschool diploma) (Maybe I will even get a english-speaking-certificate or something, but since it is the language I choose second I won’t get a highschool-diploma thingy in english). Anyway.
I am, or was (hopefully) a really lazy person for my whole life. I always grades which are considered pretty good without even working a little bit - So I also was not really motivated to work, since I knew that I could achieve ok grades without.
I only did what I had to do. So even if there had been something like AP classes I wouldn’t have acknowledged them.
Other than school I’m not a really interesting person either. I’m drumming since 4(or 5) years, and started to learn programming by the age of 11 (So I do know a bit of programming by now.), sometimes meet with a few friends, and play computer games (Not that much, but it’s still a part of my life as one of my hobbies). I also never liked responsability and threw it away as fast as I could (It’s in the past because I kind of want to change that.). Next year I will be doing some acting in my school (We only have a few clubs, but acting is part of those). The only difference that I probably have with the most boring person on earth, is that I missed more than a whole year of school (1/4 of 7th grade + whole 8th grade), because I was sick during that time and did nothing but sleep and eat during that year (“Mononucleosis”). I did not have to take the year I missed again though, and even with that missing year I my grades stayed exactly the same (Either it’s just me or they could remove that whole grade), and I wasn’t any less lazier. Since I was sick I also haven’t been doing any sports since I wasn’t allowed to in the first year after and then just had no real motivation to start again (I mean, I do go running or something sometimes, but I don’t do anything in a group with a teacher and everything). That’s it, I think I pretty much resumed my whole life. (The only thing I did this year was helping one of my best friends to pass. I think he wouldn’t have passed without my help, but I also don’t know if that is a good thing. Next year will be even tougher for him.)

Okay, so here is the short list of my grades and achievements/things that probably would be needed in a collage application:
Grades:

  • Math 16/20 (A+) (Could have done a lot better, I totally messed up all tests. Math is one of the few things I’m good at)
  • Physics 17/20 (A+) (Same as for maths)
  • Biology 17/20 (A+)
  • Economy 15/20 (A)
  • Social/Law -Stuff 20/20 (A+) (We only got one grade in the last semester and it happened to be a 20. But this class is bullsh*t anyway.)
  • German 18.5/20 (A+)
  • History&Geography in German 17.3/20 (A+) (Basically the same as in french, just with a german teacher.)
  • French 11.88/20 © (This is were it hurts. It’s not that my french is unbelievable bad, but I guess my vocabulary isn’t good enough for the stuff we analyse. I mean I don’t think it’s because of lacking analytic skills, since I got 18.5 in german)
  • History&Geography in French 13.23 (B) (Same as for french. Also in this class everything is about learning stuff by heart, whereas in the german history/geography class logic counts.)
  • English 16.68 (A+) (Could have done a lot better. Since I chose it as second language there are quite some people in there who are worse than me, so there is a lot of learning by heart involved.)
  • Sports 12.75 (B) (Yeah I’m just bad at sports)
    Average: 15.95/20 (A+)
    Average converted to GPA: 4.0
    Each grade converted to GPA: 3.62 or something. Thank you, french, history, and sports.
    Anyway I could have done a lot better in every single of those grades if I had worked a little, but as I said, I was lazy throughout the whole year. Saying this won’t make it better, I know. (Also, my average is considered pretty good by my classmates, but I guess it’s largely not enough for MIT…)

Internships:
1week at SAP in Germany
1week at Wolfram in Oxford

Skills/Hobbies:
4-5Years of drumming (Unfortunately I have a private teacher, so I know how to play but I don’t have any paper saying that I know how to play.)
Programming since I’m 11 (Aaaand since I’m lazy I haven’t published any of my projects yet. So I don’t have anything to prove my skill here either. Just great, I know.)
Uhm. Yeah. I don’t have many hobbies. :’(

Uh, I guess that’s all. It would be nice if you people could give me your opinion, on, well, how I’m doing. I hope that I will be less lazy next year in order to get better grades and stuff, because since I read about MIT I really want to go there…

Kind regards!

2

MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a top math&science institute in the WORLD, and it takes much more than wanting to go there. With your current GPA and EC, it would be near zero possible to be accepted. Plus, you haven’t taken TOEFL or SAT/ACT and SAT II. Forget about MIT.

I don’t know how you would define "good’ US schools…but at least top 100 ones require SAT/ACT or Toefl(for foreigners) with additional test req. depending on individual schools.

Also, some important questions.

  1. How much can you pay per year? Can you pay at least 45k Dollars~67Kdollars per year? I thought French colleges are free?
  2. What is your intended major?
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@paul2752
Fortunately I still have one year and one semester to try to get better grades…
I haven’t taken SAT/ACT tests yet because I never heard about them before reading about US colleges a few weeks ago (The french system is very conservative. They don’t talk about other countries, at all.)
I guess I will have to somehow take those tests next year (Equivalent to Junior year I guess).

To 1): 45k should be doable, but of course it would be better to have financial aid.
To 2): Computer Science + Engineering

Anyway, I guessed that I don’t stand a chance…

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Don’t convert your grades, especially for this site. In the first place, you converted it incorrectly, so you will get bad advice due to everybody focusing on 3.62 (which again in incorrect). In the second place, very few people on this site understand the French system. Fortunately, all college admissions officers do understand it, and they are the ones that count.

Nobody can chance you without SAT/ACT and SAT Subject test scores. Period.

MIT is very selective for everybody, and even more selective for internationals. MIT limits its incoming class to approx. ~100 international students, so the odds on any international getting in are extremely slim.

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Do you only want MIT?

If you’re open to attending other schools – and there are plenty good ones! – and if your parents can really pay (have you discussed this with them?) $45,000 per year, I think you’d be an interesting candidate at many of them. You’d still have time to take TOEFL, SAT and a couple SATII exams in your second year of high school, and apply to universities in the fall of your final year.

By the way, many US universities only consider your last 3 years of high school, so being on the French system wouldn’t be that much of a disadvantage. In general the French education system is well respected in the US.

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@skieurope
Well I used this site (http://www.foreigncredits.com/Resources/GPA-Calculator/) which seems to do it well. Anyway, I’ll try to take the SAT as soon as possible. (By the way, are there “different” SATs based on the grade you’re in, or does everyone get the same? If so, would it even be reasonable for me to take the SAT in the next few months if I don’t know the stuff we’re learning next year?)

@katliamom
I looked through quite a few colleges/universities. Of course there were many, you know, “cool” ones - But when I read about MIT I was really like “Wow, I want to get in there.”.
Also, I haven’t discussed the price yet with my family, but I do know how much my dad makes - And if I manage to get ahold of money myself by working I think it should be 100% doable.

“By the way, many US universities only consider your last 3 years of high school”
I honestly hoped that they would only consider the last two years, since I did not work at all this year, as I said…

But a man can dream…

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Hello @flyverse: pretty much every student with a serious interest in the sciences reacts the way you do when they read about MIT. You can apply, and apply to other colleges, but you need to work from the ground up, building your application with MIT in mind but your college list starting with safeties. Since you’re just a rising junior, you should be able to create a decent college list.
MIT is a crapshoot for everyone. There are, literally, hundreds of thousands of students with profiles similar to yours in the world (and MIT DOES recruit throughout the world).

Your grades are outstanding, especially for a school such as Valbonne and especially for the Abibac track. Since you think you can do even better, do so. The troublesome spot is French Literature, because 1° obviously you can’t afford to have less than an A so your goal must be at 13+ next year. Do what it takes. 2° your EAF (“bac de français”) at the end of 1e will have a huge impact on how your whole application is considered, so you can"t afford to have average results there.

This summer, you need to get busy with readings and basic SAT/ACT prep. (More later, once you’ve started reading a bit more about the process).

You have two HUGE advantages compared to students enrolled in a regular lycée: 1° Valbonne => Sophia Antipolis + Région PACA have a research agreement for TPE and 2° your school has lots of activities and support for creating some.

Contact students Krayane or AFrenchie36 - both are French students who were in your situation a year ago. Look at the “Hindsight” thread on the Admissions forum, there’s a French student there who chronicles the process.

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@MYOS1634
Thank you so much for your answer!

I know, I will absolutely have to improve my French-Literature-Grades. Since I’m in holidays I hope that I’ll have enough time to read quite a few books, and practice my writing a bit too. The weird thing is that all of my profs were satisfied with me - Even the French (And history) one. So I hope that I ain’t a lost cause and will be able to increase that grade by working.
I will also read a bit more about the SAT/ACT as you’ve advised me. I think that it is too early to take the “real” test yet though, since I yet have to learn all the stuff we get taught in junior year.

I heard about the TPEs from a few older friends, I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what it really is. And unfortunately, since I was lazy the whole year, I’m pretty much uninformed on all the activities that are possible at our school. I guess I’ll have to ask around!

“Contact students Krayane or AFrenchie36”
I will, thanks for the advice!

Kind regards

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I would suggest you try to read some books such as I am Malala, Guns, Germs, and Steel, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Unbroken ( take the young adult version), In the garden of the beast, Bryson’s At Home or Notes from a small island, Moneyball, Gold’s The Boom, Solomon’s Far from the tree, Press’ Beautiful Souls, plus a variety of novels commonly read in American high schools, such as To kill a mockingbird, The Giver, Pride and Prejudice, A Girl named Disaster, Sachar’s Holes, No Fear Shakespeare or Manga Shakespeare (Romeo&Juliet, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, Othello…), Ender’s Game (or: Ender’s Shadow), The Chocolate War, Cary’s Black Ice, Dillard’s An American Childhood, Countdown and Revolution (Sixties Trilogy), Life of Pi, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The Kite Runner, The Bean Trees, Kaffir Boy, Thompson’s Blankets (graphic novel)…
(pick and choose what sounds interesting to you).

TPE can be a BS project or real research. If you want a shot at any Top 100 college in the US (there are 3,700 of them so the top 380 are considered top 10% and offering a good education) you need to make your TPE matter. You’re lucky because your Région has an agreement whereby you may work with a real scientist and get some material for free, such as a DNA sequencer, to perform your research. Plus, being right in the heart of France’s main research park, you have no excuse if you don’t find a lab where you can volunteer or work or at least find someone willing to sponsor your project. BUT you can’t wait till September. In fact there was probably a meeting in May that you missed… Contact your school NOW (before it closes for the summer in a week!!!) - tomorrow there would still be science teachers around, try to see the department’s head (coordinateur de discipline) for each science class you’re taking next year. I’ll try to remember how that school/research lab partnership is called so that you can explore it. Take advantage of that time to go to VS and ask about clubs and such. You can to use the summer to think about what you’ll be doing, and hit the ground running on the first day of class.

The SAT is a standardized test. Actually I’d advise you take the ACT, especially with the upcoming changes to the SAT. So, it means each test has the same type of questions and the same number of level 1, 2, and 3 questions. The goal for students is to have about 100% questions correct at levels 1 and 2 and a majority of correct answers at level 3.
Level 1 would be like 6-4e level, Level 2 would be 3e-2e, Level 3 would be 2e+. Obviously the questions aren’t labelled thus, it’d be too easy. :stuck_out_tongue: So you have to be very fast without losing accuracy. A good student will do a “level 1” question in about 20 seconds.

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@MYOS1634
Thanks again for your answer!

Nice list, I’ll make sure to pick out a few and read them throughout my holidays (Also, random question: Does anybody know if the “Jack Reacher” Series are well-written? I really enjoy reading them, and if my english improves by doing so, that would be even better.)

Also, about the TPE Part: Does the project need to be a success? Even if I know nothing about the matter, I’m really interested in a few things like reversing CO2 to C + O2 with a minimum of energy and stuff like that (Yeah, don’t laugh please, I know that I know nothing about all of those things) - But there is practically no chance that I find a solution to something that real scientists haven’t found a solution to yet, so it would be sad if they didn’t accept projects for researchs sake.

“You’re lucky […] your project.”
Wow, the projects can be that huge? From what I heard most people just did (relatively) small things.

Anyway, I guess I’ll just pay my school a little visit tomorrow. Apparently I really missed that meeting.

“each science class you’re taking next year.”
Uh, I thought my school forces the classes on us anyway, so I don’t really have a choice of the classes I take or have I (Meh I feel that I missed so much just by being lazy and absent for a year…)?

I think I’ll google up a few of those Lvl1-Sat-Questions too, just to see if I’m a lost cause or not, haha.

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@Flyverse if you enjoy Jack Reacher books, read Jack Reacher books! It’s not great literature, but it’s fun, and at the very least they will improve the speed with which you read in English. And that’s important, too.

As for the SATs, try some sample tests online. These are very different from any kind of tests you’ve likely taken in France. There are different strategies and “tricks” you can use to improve your score. And a large part of succeeding on the SATs is simply practice.

You might also google “xiggy’s method” on this site for strategies on how to study/improve on the SATs. Xiggy is a former university student who posts to this day on College Confidential. Many parents had their children successfully use “xiggy’s method” to improve their scores.

French schools are demanding. I’m sure once you get used to the SAT-type tests, you will do well on them, because the necessary knowledge is/will be there. It’s just a matter of making that knowledge work for you in an SAT-evident way.

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If you like reading Jack Reacher books,keep reading them but pick 1-2 books from the list above also for style variety and to prepare yourself for the style of reading you’ll have both on tests and in college (especially nonfiction titles).

You can prepare for the ACT starting now. You can review SAT math on Khan Academy’s website (will be useful before 1S anyway). You can buy “Up your score” and have fun with it in whichever way you want. But the most important things you can do this summer are 1° read in English 2° gather all possible information about the TPE science project and what your school offers 3° read this website, get as much information as possible from various sources (The Princeton Review’s Best Colleges would be an easy introduction to roughly the top 10% colleges in the US, the books AdMission Possible! or The College Solution are good books to understand the process, you can create a tryout commonapp account on August 1st to see what it looks like - that account will disappear in July of the following year anyway so you’ll have a “real”, “clean” one for your “real” application season).
If you feel that you missed out on subjects, you can learn about them on MIT’s OCW courseware for high school students as well as Khan Academy (lots of good information there).

The TPE doesn’t need to be “a success” - you’ll be given a limited projet to carry out and you’ll need to document, create, solve problems, present findings, etc. Obviously no one expects 11th graders to make a major scientific discovery :D… the process is what matters. You can treat it as a BS project, go through the motions… or spend all your free time in the day trying to work out the problems with your experiments.
Read the book Science Fair Season!!

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A lot of universities in the USA would like to have a student from Europe attend, so keep your mind open to the possibilities beyond MIT. Computer science is highly regarded at many other places. Look at the following lists for ideas:

http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/computer-science-degrees-best-roi/
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate-computer
http://www.computersciencedegreehub.com/50-innovative-computer-science-departments/
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/computer-science
http://www.shanghairanking.com/SubjectCS2014.html
http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2014/best-schools-by-major/computer-science
http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings-articles/university-subject-rankings/top-computer-science-schools-2014

Also, go ahead and have that conversation with your parents now about the financial part. Just because your dad makes a certain amount of money doesn’t mean he wants to spend it all on your education. My daughter’s father (my ex) makes a ton of money, but he isn’t willing to spend it on her university. She was accepted to Cornell, but she cannot afford it and will be going to the University of Minnesota that offered her a stack of academic scholarships. Luckily we anticipated that even though he insisted she apply to the top universities, he might back out of paying for one, and so she also applied to more affordable places with scholarships. Your parents may also, in the end, be unwilling to shell out a lot of money for your university of choice in the USA when there are cheaper options available in Europe. If you really prefer the U.S. over European options, then be sure to apply to some places that are more affordable and offer decent scholarships to international students.

Also, don’t count on having a job in the U.S. to pay for your university. Jobs require work visas, which is different than a student visa. I’ve known international students who really craved a job to help pay for expenses, and they couldn’t get one.

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^@momyrock, I’m so sorry. :s Has your daughter read the moon and more?.. then offer it to her dad. :s

OP: yes, talk with your parents. If you really can afford 45K or so, you’ll have lots of possibilities.
There are really LOTS of universities in the US (think if terms of Europe to have an idea of the scale of the US. If each country only has 3 good universities, then you already have 100 top colleges. But in reality, France, Germany, the UK, Spain, have a lot more than 3 top universities, so that in reality over Europe you have 150 universities or so with truly excellent academics… and the US has a concentration of really good to world-class colleges.)

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Some schools to explore: UAlabama engineering, case western ., northeastern, cal poly slo

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@katliamom
Thanks for the advice. I’ll google that method!

@MYOS1634
Thanks, I will take a look at these!
Anyway, I was at my school today, and - as expected - Nobody knew a thing (My school has no organisation whatsoever…). I asked them if they could give me information on extracurricular stuff organised by the school + On going clubs + TPE + some more questions, but they were like “Meh I dunno just wait for the next year”… Only thing I found out that actually could be awesome is working at the school’s “newspaper”.
I also tried to google a few TPEs that were already made, and it seems that we are only allowed to choose between a list of subjects, and also that most things that were done just are kind of like a student-made-lesson. I’ll try to dig up a bit more information though.

@mommyrocks
Yeah, I still need to talk to my parents. Also I really like the idea of studying in America. Thanks for the links! Also sorry to hear that stuff with your daughter.

@MYOS1634
Huh, there are more universities than I thought. Anyway, I still hope that after those 1 or 2 years I’ll be good enough for MIT - Needless to say I really liked what I read, haha.

Thanks for all of your answers!

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90% students who are rejected were good enough for MIT. That’s the way it goes. Don’t pin you hopes on MIT, and work on building a college list. Start checking the universities I listed as a strt. That’s part of the job - you’ll read about hundreds of schools and whittle it down to about 20-25 a year from now, and then you’ll prioritize from that list. Anyone can have a dream school. Finding schools that are a good fit and where you have a shot is the real work.
Talk with your parents about finances. This is crucial before moving on.
Since viebscolaire pwoplewere not helpful,check out everything on your school’s website.

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Hi OP!
My name is Maxime. I was in your exact same situation two years ago when I started to look into American colleges. I went through the whole application process last year so I hope I can be of help here. I know that the prospect of attending MIT is extremely appealing but, as MYOS said, it is important to look into safety schools as well. The American application process is a fascinating one but be prepared to spend hours and hours on it.
I have a vey busy summer so it would be difficult for me to write a detailed, general message about it but I’d be happy to answer specific questions! :wink: You can also PM me if you want so we can chat :wink:
(I’m French too btw)

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Sorry for my late answer; I first wanted to take the practice ACT, but did not find the time yet.

@MYOS1634
Unfortunately my parents said that I first should get up my grades and then we can talk about finances.
And thanks again for your advice!
@MaximeP
Thanks for the offer! I will make sure to take it somtimes soon :slight_smile:

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well, if you want to attend a US college, you need to have an idea of how much your parents would be willing to pay, and you need to start preparing RIGHT NOW.
There are automatic full tuition scholarships at UAlabama TUscaloosa, Temple, or Howard, but you need seriously high test scores.