my app is a bit unusual, any ideas on my chances?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I'm not from US, but I really want to study there. In High School I started an IT-related business (it kind of naturally grew from me wanting to earn a bit for a living: poor big family, expensive city), so I decided not to go to a college for some time. Later I started another startup, but after several years finally accepted that my goal (to find a way to fund my own research) is hard to obtain and at the same time a little bit misguided, as I'm not really into being rich or totally in control. Also my interests shifted a bit from pure IT to more society-related things.</p>

<p>So, finally, college, to do SCIENCE! YAY! Right now I'm older than people seem to expect applicants to be. I'm actually feeling super weird and frightened about everything college-related (well, sometimes), and I have literally no idea what my reach/target/safety colleges can be (for one thing, everywhere the GPA seems to be valued too much, and I hate it: I have no way to change my past, you see). I'd really love to get into MIT or Stanford, but I'm afraid it's very uncertain so I need to have some safety options: I'd really love not to spend another year away from college.</p>

<p>My SAT is north of 2250; SAT Subjects are both more than 750.
My GPA is ~3.3-3.4 in US terms (yeah, a bunch of C's). I didn't really care about it (GPAs don't matter back where I from), I had work to do, and my school was kind of advanced. I'm not sure, though, that I want to put this apologetic thoughts in my application.</p>

<p>I'm kind of freaking out sometimes. I'm not sure what do I expect (comforting words? more realistic college suggestions? advice on my application? explanation on how the system works for people in my circumstances?), but people seem to show their stats here, so I decided I could, too.</p>

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<p>Stony Brook? Tulane (at the match level)?</p>

3

<p>With Cs, even with your extracurriculars, your chances at MIT and Stanford are very slim.</p>

4

<p>Out of Richmond, Emory, Southern California, Amherst - anything probable?</p>

<p>I have some other interesting ECs (paid publications in popular press; events organising; giving lectures; tutoring people (paid, again)), not sure how much they really count against the ominous gpa.</p>

5

<p>Amherst: Reach
USC: High match
Emory: High match
Richmond: High match</p>

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<p>Thanks you, Catria and AmaranthineD!</p>

7

<p>There’s no way to predict from this summary- if you have collected some valid experiences and can show how they make you an able candidate, likely to thrive and contribute there, you may improve your chances. It’s not uncommon for internationals to be a year or two older. if you are more than that, this will depend on how you package yourself, not just hs performance, but what you learned/accomplished in the meantime, how you stretched yourself and advanced. </p>

<p>If you really have no idea what a reach/match/safety is, you need to dig into those schools’ web sites, learn all you can about what traits (beyond stats) they value. Make this work for you, not against you.</p>

<p>Ok, now I see you are 21. Not that much older. But still, you have to use the right approach. Because you have had this extra time since hs, have made choices and etc. Have you applied yet?</p>