International Student HELP

<p>Hi ,
I took the SAT once and got the following results : </p>

<p>CR :390 ( non-native speaker lol ) Math : 620 ( don't know why ? ) Writing : 470</p>

<p>I also took the TOEFL and got 580 on the paper-based test.
*<em>NOTICE: I was the top student in my country out of more than 400,000 national exam takers *</em>
Anyway, I am planning to retake the SAT again just a week ahead of now .
you can clearly notice my bad CR score , All I want to do is to pull it up to a 520 and everything is going to be fine for the universities to which I am applying .
so, what do you advise me to do ( I am already working on Vocab and retained really much ) considering that I find more difficulty on the Passage-Based reading because I barely answer 30% of the tones and inferences correctly .. !!!!??</p>

<p>About the Math section , I was always good at math so I didn't really study for it , but the difficulty is chiefly on the Word Problems .They take me much of time to answer and , from the analysis of my score , I found weakness on Difficult Algebra and Functions problems I got 4 out of 9 incorrectly . I don't want to waste my time studying things I already know , so what Book/Website whatsoever that may help tackle those problems.?????</p>

<p>Final Word, How helpful for admission and scholarships is my rank ( TOP STUDENT IN MY COUNTRY ) ?</p>

<p>Perhaps SUNY Cobleskill could be accessible to you…</p>

<p>The best way to tackle the wordy math problems is to identify exactly what they are asking, I tend to underline that part. As for rank helping, it depends what schools you are looking at, and I don’t know how your rank can be for your country and not your school…</p>

<p>But it is implicit that a top nationwide student is a valedictorian at his particular school. If you had some ECs of value maybe Bates or Bowdoin could do the trick.</p>

<p>Sudanese- you may want to explore test-optional schools. These colleges will require the TOEFL but not the SAT. Aim for a 100 (600 on the paper-based test). The fact that you are the top scorer on the national exam will be attractive to top schools but a 1480 will hurt you at any schools that put much weight on the SAT.</p>

<p>[SAT/ACT</a> Optional 4-Year Universities | FairTest](<a href=“http://www.fairtest.org/university/optional]SAT/ACT”>ACT/SAT Optional List - Fairtest)</p>

<p>Note: pay attention to the footnotes. Some schools don’t require the SAT or ACT but only if the applicant submits other testing such as IB results or SAT subject test.</p>

<p>Another note- as you’ve found, the SAT is less about how much you know than how you problem solve. American students take entire courses on test-taking strategy to boost their SAT scores. Here’s a list of good self-study books you can use to improve your performance.</p>

<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Best SAT Prep Books for Students who Self-Study](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Best-Prep-Books-Students-Self-Study/lm/R3S0HYSHTARO53]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Best-Prep-Books-Students-Self-Study/lm/R3S0HYSHTARO53)</p>

<p>Thanks all for replying .
Okay, I generally prefer good aid than good school ; that is , If a school can offer me a FULL Scholarship then I will definitely ditch a school like Stanford or whatsoever for it .
None yet spoke to the passage-based questions. I hope you can give me good tips to do well in them.
I think that I may pull my score this time to a total of 1650+ , so what do you think ???</p>

<ol>
<li>If you actually got into Stanford, you will get a full ride (that is also true of HYP) unless your family earned more than $60k yearly</li>
<li>With the right ECs, Bowdoin would like to have you study there with somewhere near a full ride; they are big on diversity.</li>
</ol>

<p>You need to understand that colleges do not seek representation from every country their applicants come from; you will compete against kids from Africa. The finaid will depend on two things, at least: your financial aid application, what it shows about your family finances; and whether the colleges give full aid to internationals. Plus, whether the college is need blind for all international applicants. </p>

<p>And, it’s more than whether schools require the scores, you need to look deeper to see if they fit your needs. Bowdoin, eg, “dedicates a limited number of financial aid awards to international students.” For Bates, the “the average score of the international students…is 637 on the paper-based scale.”</p>

<p>These were reaches; maybe they are realistic, maybe not.</p>

<p>However, maybe setting sights a little lower on the test-optional scale would help.</p>

<p>Im SAT student as well and im a junior heading to take the jan SAT exam.
But actually im being concerned about which college to enter from now
U noe like o need to know what are the requirements that i should head up to
I wanna put a target infront of me to aim for
Im egyptian and in living in saudi arabia
My dream really to tackle a new country for university
So any ideas about good unverisites in usa germany etc?
And what would be their admission requirements?
For example how much so i need to get in SAT 1 and 2?
Im heading for taking bio and math level 1 in sat 2
Pleaseeee if anyone could helpp email mee with his/her updates
I know my post is being quite long now but i noe those who care would have reached the end already :)</p>

<p>For the passage based questions your best bet is to read as much as possible in English. Personally I have found reading classics helpful, they can be much harder to read/understand making the SAT easy in comparison.</p>

<p>@farouz I suggest you start your own thread instead of posting in somebodies else’s and specify what colleges you are looking at (or what you consider good).</p>

<p>Thanks again , </p>

<p>Two things you need to know about me . The first, is that I am seeking an engineering program so the colleges I just checked don’t offer it and the second is that I studied Alphabets in the 5th grade and enrolled in a pubic school where the toughest English words were " sufficient and dispute " so it seems abnormal for a high school student in Sudan to score a 500 on the TOEFL PBT. I really struggled to achieve that 580 so I can’t pull it up to a 600+ in only couple of weeks . Noteworthy , I’m applying for Fall 2013 and deadlines are approaching tremendously fast so I can’t get a chance to retake the TOEFL and still catch up the deadlines .</p>

<p>btw, what about transferring chances . Assuming that I got enrolled in a mediocre school ,prepared for TOEFL and got 100 (iBT) and retook the SAT and got even a higher score , can I transfer to a school like Georgia Tech or Tufts etc…?</p>