<p>I have 72/100 gpa. My highschool accepts students from only %1 percentage all over the country and its education much more harder than american highschools. We don't use international grade point system (except some private schools) so its totaly different system. </p>
<p>If i basicly convert my grade point to 4 based system i get a point like 2.88/4.0 (73x4/100). That looks funny to me because its impossible to obtain 100/100 grade point. The highest gpa was 89/100 when i graduated from my school. </p>
<p>I am planning to take AP exams (calculus bc, physics c, chemistry, biology). If i take 5 point from all of them, does this clear negative effects of my gpa? Or should i just forget about top 10 colleges like MIT etc. for undergrad education? </p>
<p>Can anyone give me a realistic advice? I don't want to waste my time if its impossible.</p>
<p>None of us have the expertise to convert your grades, so none of us can really advise you about this. If your school often sends students to the US, the people responsible for college placement there will have ideas for you. If you school never sends students to the US, then should start by reading through everything at [EducationUSA</a> | Study Abroad, Student Visa, University Fairs, College Applications and Study in the U.S. / America](<a href=“http://www.educationusa.state.gov%5DEducationUSA”>http://www.educationusa.state.gov) After that, make an appointment with the counselors at the advising center closest to where you live. They are the experts at helping students from your country find good places to study in the US, and they will be able to tell you which colleges and universities here have accepted students like you in the past few years.</p>
<p>My school doesn’t send students to foreign countries. But most of students, including me, continue their education on top colleges which have 0-300 QS world ranking. I have already won 250 QS ranked university in my country this week. </p>
<p>I really want to go MIT, i read some articles that says MIT never accepts students below 3.0 GPA. No matter what. Is that true? Is this fact contain international students cases? </p>
<p>I never thought for USA education when i was in highschool. So i only did enough to go best university in my country, we are taking an national exam for colleges. Over 2 million students take this exam and this exam’s result is the only criteria for college entry. GPA holds very very little space in this selection. Our teachers never gave us “100” point at school thanks to this.</p>
<p>I don’t know any advisor who has information about my situtation. Advising centers and advisors only know about private schools. And this private schools don’t use our education or grade system. There is no one that i know who can help me about this. </p>
<p>I can apply MIT next year with an excellent application. (I will take 1 year nonacademic English education in my college so MIT will consider me as a freshman) But i need to be sure that i won’t auto rejected by admission office because of my gpa. </p>
<p>By the way, thanks for your reply and concern.</p>
<p>If the best GPA was 89/100 while your was 72/100, I do not believe that you would be an outstanding applicant for MIT. The reason is that your recommendation letters would not be exceptional since your teachers/school officials should indicate your relative standing in the class, if they are honest.</p>
<p>I can get good rec. letters from my highschool teachers. I was the best on some lessons like math and physics. Besides that i can get an extra recommandation letter from a professor who has MIT graduation diploma and well-knowned by academic world. The only problem is my GPA.</p>
<p>Why the sudden desire to attend MIT? Can your family pay for it if you would somehow be admitted? Not to mention that you would be applying as a transfer student after completing this year of studies at your current university.</p>
<p>If you have an excellent option in your home country (and it looks like you do), you probably are better off completing your first degree there, and then applying to MIT and other places that interest you for graduate school.</p>
<p>I think it doesn’t matter why i desire it suddenly because its personal, but i will answer your question. My major in college is physics. Until 2-3 month ago, I have been thinking that i want to be an engineer. But i changed my mind after thinking about it, that would be best if i become a scientist. </p>
<p>So i chose physics major. In my country science majors are worthless. No job opportunities, no one shows respect… Even if you manage to become a profesor, your yearly income will be less than high school teachers, regular police officers etc. income. </p>
<p>Even though we are on europe, most of our citizens are fanaticly religious and we have a government that rules the country with religion based laws. Because of this, there is no latitude of thought. Thousands of college students are in jail just because they don’t have same thoughts with current government. </p>
<p>I lived in a lot of countries for many years thanks to my father’s diplomatic job so i have completely different life style and ideas. And this puts me in really hard position. For example just because i didn’t care about religion, history based lessons in high school and accept their manipulated informations, many teacher dropped my grades on purpose. GPA has little role for college selection in this country and this makes gpa unimportant so teachers can drop them if they want. Why should i study them if they are not accepted by all world? I know 3 foreign languages English, Russian and French so i can access to true informations via internet. These ridiculous lessons have same weight with lessons like math, chem, physics, that’s why i have low gpa. </p>
<p>I just can’t take it anymore, yes you are right i have won really good college. It is not state college, probably i will have better circumstances than my state highschool. It is a private college which you must pay for it if you don’t have fully scholarship like top american colleges… (i awarded with fully scholarship). It is one of the best physics department on europe, it has great labs, great academic teachers… But that doesn’t change the general fact. I can go MIT for my Ph.D program 4 years later. My physics department in college sends about 3-4 students to MIT every year. I am pretty sure that i can be one of them but i want to go sooner depending on reasons which i explained. </p>
<p>By the way, my parents can afford my education costs. And transferring MIT looks like impossible. They have really low acceptance rate.</p>
<p>“I can get good rec. letters from my highschool teachers. I was the best on some lessons like math and physics. Besides that i can get an extra recommandation letter from a professor who has MIT graduation diploma and well-knowned by academic world. The only problem is my GPA.”</p>
<p>If the prof truly knows about your achievements/potentials/… on a professional level, not because of personal relationship, then the letter may be taken into some consideration. Otherwise, the answer is NO.</p>
<p>It looks to be an authentic screenshot from Naviance. However, it might not be very useful since GPAs are high school dependent. Some HSs have many 4.0s, while others have none. MIT adcom people usually know about the different practices at different schools.</p>
<p>You may find it helpful to distinguish between your interest in MIT as a specific place to study, and your more general desire to get out of your country. Are there any European universities where you could be admitted based on your national exam scores, or are you limited to staying in your home country right now? What about a semester or one-year exchange program to another university? What about a shorter-term research position elsewhere? </p>
<p>It might be somewhat easier for people with only a bachelor’s degree in the basic sciences to find employment in countries other than yours, but unless you qualify for a work permit and can find an employer to hire you in one of those countries, your own individual job prospects are very weak. In most countries, the best employment prospects for physicists come only after completing a Ph.D. and several years of post-doctoral research. At that point, the job market is essentially international, and the organizations that would hire you will be able to sort out a work visa if one is necessary. Since your current university regularly sends graduates to MIT, I would expect that others are going to MIT’s peer institutions in other countries. Which would mean that you are in a truly fortunate academic situation. Keep your grades up, take advantage of research opportunities, work on your English (and other languages) so that you can move on when the time comes.</p>
<p>I asked “why MIT?” because it is one of the US institutions with good name recognition (along with Harvard, Stanford, etc.). Often students write that they want to go to one of these universities without actually learning whether or not that university would help them achieve their goals. MIT could help you achieve your goals, but if you would not be able to enroll there, you have a solid university to complete your undergraduate degree at. As you continue to think about MIT, take some time to investigate their policies about transfer applicants. If you do very well at your current university, transferring may be a viable option in another year or so.</p>
<p>“My physics department in college sends about 3-4 students to MIT every year.”</p>
<p>Are you sure about this? I just talked to some faculty in MIT physics, and was told that it is “extremely unlikely” for them to accept 3-4 graduate students every year from one particular university overseas.</p>
<p>@PCHope, In 2011, there were 2 physics students accepted by MIT. Every year at least one student goes to MIT (in physics), I checked college statistics again after your message, 3-4 was for science faculty (physics, chemistry, math…). Sorry about that. I can give you the names of these students if you wish. </p>
<p>@happymomof1, thanks for your reply. I have talked about this matter with my college rector/president, his speech kinda relieved me. It looks like i misunderstood the circumstances. The things that i know was for state related institutes. At private research centers or private colleges, you can have +100k$ yearly income and the most importantly you can make your researches with last technology labs. </p>
<p>I won’t waste my time for MIT. They will never accept me with 2.88 highschool gpa. I give up. I have read so many threads in this forum, spent 10+ hours and understood that international applicants are very competitive. I thought my paper/olympiad/science competition/national exam success maybe could fill the hole which created by low gpa. But 2.88 will kill me on this pool. </p>
<p>Oh god. Yesterday I took a transcript from my HS. It looks like my calculations were completely wrong. </p>
<p>I never thought that they would translate my grades to US system. That was such a surprise.</p>
<p>intervals - letter grades
0-44 —> F
45-54 → D
55-69 → C
70-84—> B
85-100–> A</p>
<p>You don’t need 100/100 score for 4.0 gpa. With this, I almost have no grade below B. And have tons of straight As which boosts my GPA. They calculated my GPA again after grade translation, and it is about 3.4 . And if I don’t add national history, religion etc. based lessons to my GPA, it is like 3.9. </p>
<p>I heard that some schools ask only GPA of science/math/international based lessons. Is this true? I know MIT is not one of them, they won’t recalculute GPAs. If there is a good college in top 20 which recalculates gpas of international students by removing pointless lessons, i can apply them with 3.9 gpa. Do you know which schools do that?</p>
<p>There are no schools that will exclude history classes from your GPA. There are some that ignore obviously non-academic classes like PE and dance, but it doesn’t sound like those are the only classes you got Bs in.</p>
<p>If you come from a school outside the US, I have heard it is unwise to convert your grades to the US system nor calculate your own GPA as the standards are completely different. I am wondering if it is better to leave those fields blank and let the institutions being applied to do their own calculations. It’s hard to know if doing your own calculations could be potentially harmful.</p>
![http://0.tqn.com/d/collegeapps/1/0/s/M/-/-/MIT.png[/url]](http://0.tqn.com/d/collegeapps/1/0/s/M/-/-/MIT.png%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
