Hey all,
I’m an international student (Australian) hoping to apply to MIT, and I was wondering how much of an effect class ranks have on applications? Ranks work slightly differently here as schools rank individually for each class/subject, but it is used more for equalizing the performance of students from different schools across the state in the final exams - internal school marks don’t actually affect your ATAR (which is our equivalent of the GPA, I think)
I’m wondering this because I go to a very competitive high school (ranked top 5 in state and requires an entrance exam) but my class ranks are really bad (ranging from top 15% to 30%). I would assume my overall ranking in my school is somewhere within the top 20%. However, my aggregate ATAR puts me in the top 0.6% of the state.
Would MIT be familiar with the Australian system and take into account how competitive my school is, as well as the difficulty of my subject choices? Of course there’s other factors like ECs, rec letters, etc, but I’m wondering how significantly my ranks would hurt my application (especially since I’m an international).
(additional info: I have a 35 ACT and an 800 in SAT Maths II and SAT Physics, not sure how relevant this is though but hopefully it shows I’m somewhat academically capable)
Thanks to anyone who can help! c: