I need help with sorting colleges><

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Sorry for bothering you all again><</p>

<p>So I gathered info about all schools I wanna apply to, but I need help with sorting and improving. </p>

<p>Facts about me
-Citizenship(s): German and Greek
-Nationality: Greek
-Ethnicity: Does Greek count as white?
-Class: 9th grade (freshman), rising Sophomore
-School currently attending: Gymnasium (top-tier school in Germany)</p>

<p>General academic stats
-GPA: 2.3 (It is the German GPA where 1.0 is the top.)
-Rank: n/a, as my school doesn't rank.
-SAT: I'll substitute it with the ACT.
-ACT diagnosis test: 32 overall on the first try
-SAT IIs: I plan to take German, Latin and Japanese. I got every practice question right so far.</p>

<p>Courses taken
Note: The Gymnasium is a very selective school and all courses there are the most rigorous. It doesn't offer AP-courses.
-German: B+/A
-English: A/A
-Spanish II: B+/B
-Geography: A (it is only offered one semester per year)
-Visual Education: B/B
-Math: C/C (I'm a catastrophe in math)
-Chemistry: C/B
-Physics: B
-Philosophy: A+/A+
-Social Sciences: A (we only had it in the current semester)
-Latin: A/A
-Biology: A
-History: A
-Music Theory: A-</p>

<p>Courses taken for Sophomore
-LK German (LKs are the most difficult courses in the Gymnasium)
-LK English
-Art
-Italian
-Philosophy
-Social Sciences
-Biology
-Chemistry
-Math
-History
-Latin
I also plan to self-study the AP-exams.</p>

<p>A-Level subjects
-Biology
-LK German
-LK English
-Social Sciences</p>

<p>Extracurriculars
-4 years of Martial arts (I stopped it in 7th grade since I got too busy with school. But I'll restart it again)
-Research on Japanese language and culture
-Studies at a German doctor
-Language study
-Artistic drawing
-Creative Writing </p>

<p>Awards
-Participation in the National Contest of Languages 2011
-Participation in the European Diplomatic Contest 2012
-UNICEF Junior Diplomate</p>

<p>Other facts
-I'm tri-lingual (German, English and Greek)
-I speak 5 languages.
-My father is an expert of martial arts and taught me everything. My school offers a club about it which I will start in Sophomore.
-Martial arts and languages are my passions.
-I plan to major in Law.</p>

<p>Schools of Interest
-Princeton (top choice)
-Yale
-Brown
-Cornell
-NYU</p>

<p>Any advice for safety schools? >_<</p>

2

<p>

</p>

<p>Yes. At least, I know by experience that Estonians have to (I’m not Estonian though lol)</p>

<p>If you don’t need financial aid to attend college, there are a number of liberal arts college’s and universities that would be safeties. If you have the Princeton Review, just find colleges with the upper quartile for SAT scores are between 650-680 or so.</p>

<p>If you need financial aid, you will have to find specific schools that offer it to int’ls, as you likely know</p>

3

<p>Yes, I need financial aid. As far as I’m concerned, Princeton is need-blind for all applicants, US-citizens and internationals alike. </p>

<p>I heard about the Ivies mostly from my father.</p>

<p>As I’m Greek, would I be an underrepresented minority or are there many Greeks attending college in the states?</p>

4

<p>Need-blind or not, you gotta realize you are already in a very competitive pool by being an International. All the schools only accept a handful of international applicants. This means you’ve got to have a bloody strong resume to get in alone, regardless of FA need. If the school is need-aware (ahem, Brown), you practically are better off to be off the charts.</p>

<p>BTW, being trilingual means you speak 3 languages fluently. Was the 5 language thing a typo or that you kind of speak 2 more languages on a reasonable level?</p>

<p>There really isn’t much that stands out - but you’ve got plenty of time to fix that up.</p>

<p>I can’t think of any instances where law is offered as a major in undergrad. Are you referring to law school?</p>

5

<p>

</p>

<p>I heard it is hard for internationals to get into top-schools. It is hard, but it still is possible so I won’t give up. I still have time to fix everything and I never took the SAT or ACT before, so I will study hard for it.
I will apply to all schools I’m interested at, regardless if need-aware or need-blind. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I speak 5 languages in total, in which I’m fluent in three of them. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Germans don’t have much time for ECs as the school curriculum almost takes everything up.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I was referring to law school, sorry >.< I will major in Pre-law as undergrad.</p>

6

<p>School curriculum taking everything up is no excuse. The admission process is not a joke - being a school book worm does NOT get you into Ivy Leagues, regardless of where you’re from. </p>

<p>Typically, just saying that you speak a language indicates fluency. Might want to point out the latter two languages to make it clear that you don’t speak those two fluently.</p>

7

<p>I know it is no excuse - but then again, my school doesn’t offer many ECs because of the school curriculum. Our choices in academic challenge (college-level courses) are limited, since every subject has great depth of study. The only way to challenge myself is to self-study APs and participate in contests that correspond with my ECs. If they aren’t that interesting, getting prestigious awards might help as I’m not that much of a sports person.</p>

<p>I will also include supplementary material to show dedication to my ECs. Quality trumps quantity.</p>

<p>Besides, not everything has an equal value. Getting an award in Math means a lot less than getting one for Japanese as a non-native speaker, eh? ;)</p>

8

<p>You don’t need to do the crazy number of EC’s people here do; don’t worry. Just be dedicated to what you enjoy and you’ll be fine if you have the stats.</p>

9

<p>Having many ECs can break your chances of getting to an Ivy… How exactly can I stand out with my ECs? Any advice?</p>

10

<p>What you need to do is go above and beyond what your school gives you. Again, “my school doesn’t offer many ECs” is no excuse. It’s ok if you only do a couple, just go above and beyond what your school gives you. Start a new club, etc etc etc. Self-studying for APs is not the only way, neither is just participating in contests. </p>

<p>Typically, only a few types of supplementary materials are allowed.</p>

11

<p>Generally, it’s a lot harder for internationals to get into US colleges, especially Ivies. It is important to stand out to adcoms, that’s true. Test scores or GPA are not the end of the world - and I have a less impressive GPA than my last years due to courses getting harder. And to the school club thing, the presidents are teachers. The highest position I could aim at is vice-president which is a student. </p>

<p>I also love politics, and the minimum age of joinage to a political party is 16; I suppose that would be an unusual EC ;)</p>

12

<p>I have been accepted to an Ivy league school, and I too am an International. Please do not act like I do not know what Internationals have to go through. Again, just doing stuff like participating in contests and joining political parties do not mean much. Those are basically the same thing as joining clubs. What colleges want to see is productivity. You really need to do some research of your own.</p>

13

<p>I disageree about the political party thing. You have to be at least 18 years old to join a political party in the states. In Germany, you can join with 16.
Yes, colleges want to see productivity, not just in academic areas. Contests do count as productivity as they mostly involve research and are nationally awarded in Germany. “Productivity” is a relative term. I’m not saying it’s not important to have a good GPA or a good score on SAT/ACT and SATII. But they are prereqs, no more or less. </p>

<p>I think most people rely on stereotypes when it comes to Ivy applications.
The most common misconceptions are the following:</p>

<ul>
<li>You need to have a SAT score of at least 2300+ and a GPA of 4.0</li>
<li>You need to be president of at least 3 clubs in HS, preferrably School pres or any kind of leadership</li>
<li>You need to be the perfect applicant, valedictorian with brillaint LOCs </li>
<li>You need to have “amazing” ECs, such as travelling to [insert foreign country] to do[insert somthing amazing].</li>
</ul>

<p>Here’s why these are wrong.</p>

<ul>
<li>Ivy League schools have an average SAT score of **2180<a href=“source%20US%20news”>/b</a>. For every admitted student with a superscore, there was at least one with a SAT score of 1700. And there are plenty of students who get rejected with a 4.0 GPA and most rigorous courses.</li>
<li>A student who is president in many clubs shows no passion. Leadership is misconcepted, it is the passion that makes you a leader in the first place. And I know from my own experience that a school pres only does what the principal wants. Corrupt leadership is disgusting.</li>
<li>The “perfect” applicant doesn’t exist. There are valedictorians who get rejected all the time at Ivies. And don’t forget that teacher LOCs are subjective as well, so the quality can vary.</li>
<li>The quality of an EC is equal to only so much the applicant shows passion in it. So having prestigious positions alone won’t work. Passion is the key word. And participation in national competitions can help in your “spike” EC. It shows you can actually take things to a level above. Academic challenge.</li>
</ul>

<p>I have never been a valedictorian nor had I a GPA equal to the USA’s 4.0. I never travelled to a foreign country to “fight poverty” and I’m certainly not a varsity sports person, except for martial arts.
But I am confident enough to take the gamble to the Ivy League. I wanna be unique in my own way, not through “leadership” at school (there aren’t many “leader” positions for students anyway) or other stereotypical Ivy things.</p>

<p>This is what you probably meant with taking advantage of everything my environment has to offer. I’m doing things my own way. </p>

<p>Sorry for this long essay, but I needed to clear up a couple of things and I respect you for getting into UPenn as an international ;)</p>

14

<ol>
<li>Pure academic worms rarely get in, period. It doesn’t matter what you think, what matters is how you portray yourself.</li>
<li>Being unique is good. Like I said, go above and beyond what your environment allows you to. I didn’t say a thing about taking advantage of everything, although that is not a bad idea.</li>
<li>Simply joining political parties usually don’t mean much. You are comparing the states to Germany based on the different age requirements. WRONG use of comparison! You are not in the states, you are at Germany. Compare yourself to other German students, not students in the states. Adcoms won’t compare you to U.S. nationals. They will compare you to other International applicants.
If other German students can join parties at 16, then by no means does that make you specially unique. Again, be productive.</li>
</ol>

<p>Like I said, you have plenty of time to fix it up. I recommend that you compare yourself to the general trend in the accepted international ivy students’ resumes. </p>

<p>Couple pieces of final advice. Don’t bother stating all those “misconceptions” and all that junk. A lot of people here have gone through the process. We’re not here to kill you. If you can’t take constructive criticism, why did you post in the first place? Being defensive won’t help you.</p>

15

<p>I didn’t intend to just join them. There are many young people joining and actively contributing to political parties, but only 1/6 of them ever think of studying in the USA.
Especially at my party, there’s ton of work, like organizing protests etc, participating at meetings, develop new solutions for existing problems - those are all things that show productivity. </p>

<p>I bothered listing these misconceptions to show that I don’t wanna get into Ivies just for prestige. Especially Harvard is a very alienating environment. I heard that from a lot of people and students attending Harvard.
Again, demonstrated interest, no offense ^_^</p>

16

<p>Yet again, have you actually done anything yet? Not according to what you’ve typed up there, you haven’t. Don’t bother talking about what you intend to do, talk about what you actually have done. No one can predict the future. Just like freak injuries happen to pro athletes well on their way to stardom, freak stuff do happen, and it can happen to you at any time. </p>

<p>You’re describing what the party does, yet not an ounce of stuff about what you’ve actually done. Go and actually do those stuff first.</p>

<p>It looks like stuff you’ve heard about Ivy League schools (not the admission process, the schools) are all hearsay. Seriously, everyone is different. People who go to college purely based on hearsay often crash big time at that college. You should really do your own research.</p>