I have just finished my second year of High-School in france (we have three years of high school so i will get my diploma at the end of the next year) and i would like to study in USA. The thing is, the french student don’t really know about studing out side France, they tell us only about the french system. Therfore I look for information by myself, and i am more and more stressed because i don’t always find the information i need for some universities.
Standardized test : I already know that for most universities i need to take the Toefl to proove my english abilities (i will take it the 16 of october). I also read about the SAT reasoning, but should i take it to ? In the MIT website it is written that international student don’t have to take the Sat reasoning, is it the same for others university ? In addition the Mit ask for two Sat subject (one in math and an other in science or physics), but i didn’t heard of it in any other university’s website.
GPA : I was told a few hours ago about it and i still don’t understand how it works. (In france the GPA : "gestation pour autrui"for those who knows has no link with school). So i am a bit confused. Here are my grades this year, every thing is out of 20 in france wheras i was told gpa is out of 4. Can someone tell me how to convert them into gpa :
Maths : 17.3
Physics : 19
Sciences : 17.7
French : 16.7
History and geography : 18
English : 17.9 (i could get more but i didnt work hard enough)
Spanish : 18.4
DNL (it’s like economy but in english) : 18.4
Chinese : 18.42
Sport : 15.5
Basically i can get better grade in each subject next year because i didnt work hard at all
I also made a list of universities that interest me the most :
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Texas at Austin
Georgia Institute of Technology
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Carnegie Mellon University
Texas A&M University
Pennsylvania State University - University Park
Purdue University - West Lafayette
Northwestern University
Princeton University
Harvard University
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
University of Maryland, College Park
North Carolina State University - Raleigh
University of Washington
The Ohio State University - Columbus
Cornell University
Duke University
Skills and Hobbies: Piano and chess. I was also the chess teacher this year at school.
I think I have talked about almost everything. So could you please give me your opinions, some advices, some additional information about the university i have mentionned or at best , if someone study or had studied in one of those university, can he explain me clearly how to apply for it (as an international student ^^ )
GPA stands for grade point average. Schools will look at your grades for the past 2 years plus your senior year. You will not need to convert them yourself. The school will do that.
If you google the name of the university you are interested in, plus international admissions, you will come up with the appropriate page for you. For example, MIT + international admissions + testing requirements gets this page: http://mitadmissions.org/apply/international/intltests which says that you have to take the TOEFL plus 2 SAT subject tests. Check this information for each school you are interested in.
MIT in particular takes very few international students.
US universities are very expensive - up to $65000 USD per year. Financial aid is rare for international students.
Yeah i know but i don’t always find the information i need. To be honest MIT website is one of the only complete site I found. Therefore i ask those who study in those universities to give me some advice or to explain me clearly how it works there.
So far my father told me to do not worry about the costs, even those of 65 000 per year.
And whatever hard it is to get into a US university I am still really motivated. I just need some advice that web site can not provide me.
Are you planning to start fall of 2016 or fall of 2017? Are you planning to study something in math, science, engineering? Your list is kind of all over the place, so it’s hard to give focused advice.
My niece and nephews were in France until their recent move to Germany. Your grades are good and the international admissions people will understand the French grades. No real need to send anything else or convert them to US equivalents. Your SAT scores will be very important, so yes, take it soon if you are planning on 2016.
Hi! I did my studies in a French school in the United States from pre-k to 12th grade, so I know how to navigate the American system with a French education.
Your grades are amazing. If I used my school’s grade “translation” tool, you would have a 4.0 GPA (which is really great). What spécialité are you doing? I did spé sciences-po in Terminale, and that counted as an honors class.
Honestly with your grades you have the potential to get into almost all the schools you mentioned (schools like Harvard and MIT require you to show a lot of demonstrated interest in the subject you intend to study, and have a lot of things going on outside of school).
Like other people mentioned, university for international students is insanely expensive, and aid is non-existant. What are you interested in studying?
If you want you can private message me and we can talk in French (:
Bonne chance!
I’am planning to start fall of 2016, no gap year and I am planning to study engineering. To do my list I only used the Shanghai ranking of 2015 in engineering and i chose the US university of the top 50, so if you know other good universities in enginering please tell me about them.
Oh thanks to god I found someone I will do spé maths next year in Terminale S,and as i just said i am planning to study engineering. Tell me about you please, reading some experiences of students (especially if they studied in French school) motivates me a lot
I was in ES and I’m currently studying Political Science at UCLA, so I don’t know if I can help you much when it comes to engineering /: Looking at the rankings though, I’m surprised that Stanford and UC Berkeley aren’t on your list (they’re 2 and 3). Is there a reason for this?
If you’re interested, you should look at universities in Quebec. I know they’re not exactly highly ranked in the Shanghai rankings, but you’ll be paying a lot less than if you studied in the United States. Also you’re eligible for EU resident tuition if you study anywhere in the EU.
Some universities in the US and Canada might give you credit for the bac, depending on how well you do. One of my friends studying at McGill got half a year’s worth of credits. You would need to check with the international admissions to see if they’ll give you credit. Also different schools require different TOEFL grades.
Most students in my year ended up going to the nation’s top schools (my best friends go to Harvard and Brown).
What I would honestly advise you to do, and I’m sure anyone else would say the same, is to look at the surrounding environment of the school (urban, suburban, rural: I actually transferred to UCLA from another university because I hated the fact that it was basically in the middle of nowhere), if they have a good international/French community, what the engineering departments at those schools offer (not all of them have the same offerings/focus), cost (most private schools are going to be expensive no matter what), graduation rates, and internship offerings (I would argue that these are even more vital for engineering/science students than social science/humanities students). Also, really consider if you’re comfortably moving across the world to study.
If you have any specific questions about going from the French system to the American system, please let me know. And I can write to you in French if it’s better (:
Universities will ask for your transcripts from 3eme (as well as your brevet results), so make sure your school includes those in the transcripts is sends off to universities.
You should have your transcripts translated by a competent and qualified entity in France. You should ask the US embassy in Paris for the contact details of said entity.
You must take the SAT or ACT. Good universities usually expect a score of 650+ in each section of the SAT and a 28+ in each section of the ACT. As an Engineering applicant, your SAT/ACT math should be over 700/32.
Some universities, like Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Duke, Harvard, MIT and Princeton require the SAT subject tests. Even selective universities that do not require subject tests, like Michigan, Northwestern and Stanford, also recommend that you submit them if possible. As an Engineering student, you will be expected to take Mathematics Level 2 and either Chemistry or Physics.
Your 18 average is impressive. A 15 average is considered to be a 4.0 GPA by US standards, so 18 is off the charts. From your list, it is evident that you are interested in Engineering. Considering your grades, and assuming your SAT/ACT is strong (over 2000/30), you have too many safeties/targets. Purdue, Penn State, TAMU, NCSU, OSU, Minnesota, Washington and Maryland are all great, but you should only apply to 3 of those.
Finally, I would definitely check out Berkeley, Caltech, Harvey Mudd, Rice and Stanford as well.
Finally, most of those universities will cost more than $65k/year. When you include cost of international travel, mandatory medical insurance, books etc..., attending some of those elite universities on your list will exceed $70k/year.
I hope this helps. If you tell us more about yourself (intended major, hobbies, social environment you prefer, the type of setting you like; urban, suburban, rural etc…), the more we can help.
To add more information about the SAT, some schools (such as Harvard) will grant exceptions if taking the SAT is difficult, travel-wise. From what I read, it seems as though the only place you can take the SAT is in Paris. You’ll have to double-check the SAT requirements with the schools themselves. Most students also tend to take the SAT at least twice.
In addition, some schools might not care about your citizenship when it comes to giving aid (again, Harvard is an example), so you might get lucky if you have under a certain income.
Also, if you do choose to come to the US, you’re going to have to prove that you can afford to live here.
baerearose, there aren’t many places in Western Europe that are considered “hardship areas”. Getting around countries like France and Germany is very easy (and cheap). There are high speed train stations within 0-50 miles of any town that will take you to Paris within 1-3 hours. The OP will be expected to make the 1-3 hour train trip to take the test, especially if the parents are able to afford $65k/year in college expenses. Furthermore, I am fairly sure that there are test centers outside of Paris. Marseille, Lyon, Nice/Cannes/Monaco, Provence etc…will likely have SAT test centers.
Hey OP.
I’m french as well, going into my senior year (in L).
You should definitely try to register for standardized test as soon as possible. My advice for you would be to take the ACT - you taking SAT II won’t be as important, and it should be easy for you. But try and sign up quick, because there’s not much time left.
From what I’ve read, your results for the 1ere bac (French [written and oral] and TPE [did you do important research ?]) will also weigh significantly. May I ask what you got ?
US universities also put great emphasis on extracurriculars/volunteer work/job experience, especially the most selective ones. Make sure you can highlight your accomplishments, in both panio and chess (did you win any awards?).
However, your grades are impressive and you are certainly qualified academically for pretty much every institution. Adcoms will want to know how you compare with your peers - out of all the S students at your school, would you say you have the best GPA, are in the top 5, top 10 ?
Make sure you spend time on you essays - you should register on the CommonApp right away and look at the prompts for the main essay.
Being full-pay will greatly help you. UC Berkeley is a fantastic school, which, I’m pretty sure, would be happy to have you if you perform well on your SAT/ACT.
Finally, you said you built your college list from rankings. You might want to take other factors into consideration : size of the institution, if you’d like to be in a rural/suburban/urban environment better, if they have any kind of religious affiliation, a more liberal/conservative climate, if you’d be ready to go in the southern stats (coughs texas coughs) or would like New England/California better, and so on.
Actually I have no problem with taking the sat, but i’m only afraid about those dead lines, some of them are pretty close and I still don’t know how much times it takes to them to receive my scores
I don’t know how to highlights my chess and piano capacity. There’s no really tournament or competition where I live. Actually, i have forgotten to tell you that I don’t live in France, it has been 5 years that we are expatrie in Congo (thanks to oil and bank stuff)
(I don’t wanna seem boastful) I am the only one in class to have such grades. And we have a class rank where I am the first in every subject exept spanish and sport So i am pretty sure i have the best GPA.
Actually, Stanford and UC Berkeley are not in my list since my father told me to chose the east cost university so as to be closer to Congo
I am about to register in CommonApp, if i understood well i can apply every and each university throug this website ?
Yes Bopper, initially I was also taking into consideration less prestigious university, however i have just saw that it cost about 75 dollars for each admission request. I already have plenty of university in my list so I don’t see the point to add other if i can be admitted in on of them
Anas98, are you from the Congo? A student from the Congo with your credentials is going to present a very tempting application. Make sure to prepare well for the SAT/ACT and SAT 2.
From your list of colleges you are interested in, I think the ones shown below will suit you best because of location in/near big city with things to do/see, proximity to major international airports, availability of public transportation to get around, and diverse student body.
Best choices:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Georgia Institute of Technology
The University of Texas at Austin
Carnegie Mellon University
Northwestern University
Princeton University
Harvard University
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
University of Maryland, College Park
North Carolina State University - Raleigh
The Ohio State University - Columbus
Not on your list but consider adding:
Columbia
Yale
Remove with reason:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - very small town middle of nowhere hours from major airport
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor - nice small town but hours from major airport
Texas A&M University - very small town hours from major airport
Pennsylvania State University - University Park - small town hours from major airport
Purdue University - West Lafayette - middle of nowhere hours from major airport
University of Washington - in Seattle, WA on west coast, which you wanted to avoid
Cornell University - small town in middle of nowhere hours from major airport
Duke University - isolated campus with nothing to do without a car, little to do nearby with a car
mommyrocks, Ann Arbor is not a small town, it is a large town, or a mid-sized city (over 300,000 when you include surrounding townships and suburbs), and it is 20 miles from the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Detroit Metro is one of the 10 best connected airports (major hub for KLM/American/US Airways/Delta/Air France/Lufthansa) in the US and has straight flights to Paris several times daily. The best way to fly to the Congo from the US is via Paris. Ann Arbor is closer to major airports than cities like Raleigh (NCSU), New Haven (Yale), Columbus (OSU) etc…
You are also placing a lot of emphasis on location. Perhaps location is low on the OP’s list of priorities.
and I am planning to study engineering. To do my list I only used the Shanghai ranking of 2015 in engineering and i chose the US university of the top 50, so if you know other good universities in enginering please tell me about them.