<p>Let me start by telling you my background. I am a sophmore. I was born in pakistani and hold a pakistani passport. At age 3 i moved to saudi arabia and have spent the majority of my life studying in an indian school.last year i moved to a british school and most of my classmates are jordanians palestianians and egyptions whilst my teachers are from the uk. As you can see i am grew up in an extrenly diverse environment and isnt that something ahem...har..vard..cough cough looks for? As for my academics,i would consider myself a good student and have 4.0GPA as of grade 10.
I was the student council member last year and am now the leader of one of my school's 4 football league.i have won the public speaking compeition and was also a finalist in the spelling bee.
So what is the problem?
First of all my school is really small and not that competitive. Secondly i have only 22 other people in my class. That said i am a good student overall and not just by comparision to them. The biggest problem however is that my school doesnt offer SAT. Nor do they offer any ap or honor classes.when you live in a country like KSA you dont get many chances to participate in national competitions and showcase your talents.
I am taking my IGCSE which are considered to be more rigorous than regular gcse and are 1 year more advanced than regular american highschool.now i can go to america in grade 11 and try to improve my application by utilising opportunities offered by your high schools but wont that just make me another clobe of the thousands of applicants getting rejected by the IVIES each year or i can move forward with another plan-
I could complete my a levels by grade 12</p>
<p>Ohh guys this is incomplete. I have posted the completed message with the same title check that out not this</p>
<p>Your school doesn’t need to offer the SAT you can take it else where, also I would improve on your English, but more importantly have you considered why you want to go to school? It sounds like your main goal here is for some kind of prestige since all you have mentioned are ivy league schools, specifically Harvard. Now though considering prestige in my opinion is not necessarily a bad thing - I think it’s always good for you’re school to be well known if you are attending one. But there really are a lot of other factors I you should consider if this is where you are going to spend the next four years of you’re life.</p>
<p>lol the spelling mistakes and horrendous grammmar isnt due to my lack of language skills but my failure at adjusting to typing on a touchscreen phone. english is actually my mother tongue since that has always been the sole means of communication between me and anyone i have ever studied with. boy am i on a typo curse or what! lol I was born in PAKISTAN.I GREW UP in saudi arabia. EXTREMELY diverse.
Now i am well aware of the fact that i can give sat on my own regardless if my school offers it or not but then i would have to be studying american curriculum at home and british one at school. And i do know the result of that would be me scoring low in my SATs as well as my IGCSEs. (ironically my school doesnt offer SAT practice but is registered examination centre for one)
As far as the prestige is concerned,isnt that the reason anyone attends these elite institutions? Because of their name rather than the quality of education they actually offer. I would like to clarify that i think of myself as being nothing more than average and would be very lucky to be accepted into any college let alone harvard. But what is the harm in aiming anyways. Well the most important and last part of my post has since been reposted so please take a look at that if you have got the time:)</p>
<p>**btw i dont mean to act like a grammar nazi but its YOUR school not you’re school since that latter would imply the notion that i am a school rather than my school</p>
<p>I am bad with my there’s lol but anyway I think you need to do a lot of research based on the line that “most people only attend ivy league institutions for name sake”, also not taking the SAT is not an option if you want to go to any top ranked school in the United States, you are going to just have to self study for it, besides I think most of the top scoring people don’t waste money on big prep courses unless they’re rich and perhaps one on one courses, in any case for bright people I think they are usually just a waste of time especially if there taught to a wide variety of students, the teacher will be forced to spend time teaching the worst performing students, so that everyone learns, and ultimately I think you would just be throwing away a lot of time and money, besides I think most people can usually teach them selves faster if they have the available information, though it probably requires more work.</p>
<p>the problem isnt self studying but studying two polar opposite courses at the same time. i barely have time to pursue my IGCSEs let alone my SATs.i do agree with you when it comes to wasting your money on preppy courses because a teacher of mine who has taught SAT for a couple of years recently informed me that no matter how much you study for SAT an improvement of around 200 is unlikely. So if one scores 1800 the chances of them entering the 2000 range are very slim.i was just hoping that maybe by taking an year off after high school,i could practice for sat but more importantly devote a significant amount of time to community service (especially in pakistan where it is needed the most) i could perhaps broaden my scope on certain issues that plague our society but then again i worry if the gap year would be too much for any university to consider an applicant who is an year behind than the rest.
I did sound arrogant when i posted the whole statement that the most special thing about these universites is their name but i do believe that is one of the most important factors. come to think about it, harvard offers a lot of activities for its student and though my major is going to be one of the sciences (bio to be exact) i thought that i could pursue my love for art while i am there…correct that…IF I AM EVER THERE.it would also mean a lot to my family if i ever got into one of these colleges but nonetheless i am a realistic person and i do have some colleges within my reach i’d like to pursue. however the thought that i did not even try to go for the impossible will upset me for as long as i live (or care)</p>