Hi, I’m a 10th grader who lives in South Korea, and I’m curious of my chances of getting admitted into a good school. About 5 to 6 students get gold medals on the IMO almost every year, so I can definitely say it’s one of the best schools in the world. I haven’t took my SATs yet, but I think I’ll get at least a 1570 considering my grades on practice tests. Our school don’t offer APs, so I have to study on my own, which kinda sucks.
Acheivements) I went to the AIME 3 times, in 6th, 7th, 9th grade (didn’t take it in 8th) and I got a 144 on amc10 in my 9th grade and 7 on the AIME. This year, I got a 139.5 on the amc 12, which I think is decent. I’m also probably going to go to IYPT 2018, and Korea always gets a silver or a gold, so I think I’ll get one as well. I’m also chief editor of the school paper, member of the soccer team and orchestra and the physics mentoring team. I’m really close with my teachers so I think I’ll get a really good recommendation. My gpa is 3.93/4.0 in my first semester of 10th and 4.0/4.0 in my second. (Korea’s semester starts in march) Can you guys give me advice on the things I have to do to increase my chances?
@Mastercode - awesome. think you should do really well. Being an active participant in math competitions AMC/AIME/ARML myself, I know how hard it is to get the kind of scores you are getting. If you stay at that level, IMO you should be able to get into a very good college. Do you have any specific univ/major you have in mind?
Congratulations by the way.
@Mastercode Obviously your extracurricular achievements and GPA are incredibly impressive, so you need to focus on getting a good sat and subject test scores . Keep in mind that HYPSM are the elite of the elite schools so they are crapshoots for most people. However, if you manage to get a good SAT score then you have great chances even for HYPSM, given your other accomplishments. Consider maybe applying early action to your top choice.
Fellow South Korean:)
First of all, I’ll dispute your statement that 5~6 people get gold medals in the IMO every year. Korea usually obtains 4 gold medals each year, and 2~3 of them comes from 서울과학고등학교.
I’m really surprised that you are pursuing to go to an American University! Most of my friends there are aiming for KAIST and Seoul National:)
I think that you will almost definitely get into a few if you can craft a compelling story through your essays(and more community service wouldn’t hurt).
Well last year we got 6 golds and all of them from SSHS and I think 4 or sth the year before that, but I was just trying to give the big picture to people who are not familiar about the monopoly SSHS has on the KMO