<p>I’m applying to Bowdoin in ED this November. I’m just wondering if I have any chance so I hope you guys will help me to find out.</p>
<p>I’m an international student from Viet Nam and this is sth about my profile:
*School: Ha Noi - Amsterdam High School (No.1 high school in Ha Noi, and top in Viet Nam), AMS for short.</p>
<p>*GPA: 9.3/10.0 (I don’t know but if converted into 4.0 scale, it would be 4.0)
Class rank: 5/37</p>
<p>*SAT (super score) 1950:
M: 770
CR: 540
W: 640
(I’m quite worried about SAT scores and if the Oct scores won’t go up, I’m not submitting SAT scores)</p>
<ul>
<li>Academic Achievements:</li>
<li>National English Exam: 3rd prize (trying to)</li>
<li>4 consecutive School Merit Scholarships awarded each semester.</li>
<li>Grade 10: 2 semesters</li>
<li>Grade 11: 2 semesters</li>
<li>My high school’s class requires entrance exam and the acceptance rate is about 2.5 to 4% </li>
</ul>
<p>*Activities:
Youthday of Viet Nam:
2010: guest
2011,2012: leader of SOS group</p>
<ul>
<li>Grade 7: class vice president </li>
<li>Grade 9: class’s youth union vice president</li>
<li><p>Grade 10,11: class’s communist youth union vice president</p></li>
<li><p>Get a part-time job in a company in July 2012</p></li>
<li><p>2012: School’s culinary club (a club about cooking)</p></li>
<li><p>Participate in Ams’ Got Talent (AGT) in 2010, 2012</p></li>
<li><p>Organizer of AGT in 2011</p></li>
<li><p>Organizer of school biggest annual prom in Jan 2012 (the followed event after AGT)</p></li>
<li><p>Organizer of school first summer prom in 12/08/2012</p></li>
</ul>
<p>*Contribution: $50k+ </p>
<p>please tell me if I have any chance, and how to improve it. I just love this school sooooo much :(</p>
<p>tks for your advice. I just hope the Oct scores will be greatly improved. </p>
<p>So I’m just wondering if without SAT scores, how will my other qualifications grant me an admission? And which criteria you suggest me to improve?</p>
<p>Your CR score is not so good. In fact, it’s mediocre. You need to get about 640 to avoid the cut. Your M score is awesome. Your GPA is fair in this context, but you might make the case that grading at your school is much, much tougher and stricter than at U.S. schools – I don’t know if that’s really the case, I’m just throwing that out there. Your class rank is okay, but top 10% is better so try to advance to 3/37. Your extracurriculars are average. Have you looked at the sites ranking the admitted class by their hard stats? That might be helpful to you. Best of luck.</p>
<p>thanks for your feedback I really appreciate that.
I’m just wondering if I’m not submitting SAT scores (as it’s too low), will it hurt my chance a lot?
About the GPA thingy, actually our whole class of 2013 is divided into 12 departments and my class is English one with 37 students. If considering my GPA out of the whole class it would be about 20/500 as the highest in the whole class is 9.4/10.0. So how that works?</p>
<p>I also think my extracurs are average comparing to those of my classmates but you know proms in viet nam is not as frequent as in US and the school plays absolutely no role in organizing. We have to ask for sponsors, sell tickets, make contracts, etc… all by ourselves. So if I try I can make that a really significant activity (of course only if I can :)))</p>
<p>Anyway, really tks for the advice. I’m surely gonna try my best on the Oct SAT.</p>
<p>They don’t care about the scores- there’s no penalty for not submitting but theres also no cut point below which you are automatically out. Since you are international, they would likely cut you some slack on CR anyway.</p>
<p>actually I’m retaking the SAT on Oct and I hope I can add it up to 650, hopefully.
Also I’m probably getting a Second or Third Prize in City English Contest, if that helps a little bit.
Have just had a great interview with John Thurston yesterday and I just love the school more and more.
I also forget to include some of the sports that I’m taking up during my secondary school (golf, tennis, badminton, swimming).</p>
<p>So if there’s anything else to improve my strength as an applicant, feel free to suggest it to me. I’d be most grateful :D</p>
<p>While Bowdoin doesn’t hold it against you if you don’t submit your SAT score, its admissions staff also admits that digs more deeply into your academic performance to assess your capabilities and qualities as a student. Your grades become the only evidence in your file as to your academic qualities and therefore matter more than they would for a person who had the same grades but also submitted strong SAT scores. In your case, because your curriculum is so different from a standard US curriculum and because you are not the no. 1 student in your division or even in the top 10%, that process may hurt you. In other words, re-take the SAT and work really hard to get the CR score up. You have a great math scores and a decent writing score (working on trying to move that one up too).</p>
<p>I should explain more about our curriculum just to avoid any misunderstandings. We have to take 13 subjects per semester, and the highest GPA of my class is 9.4/10.0. The whole class (about 500 students) is divided into 16 smaller classes with 12 departments, each major in specific subjects. Mine is class English 1. So if calculated in a larger scale, I’d be in top 5% of the whole class. So I hope that my GPA won’t be considered my weakness. </p>
<p>I’m working really hard right now. Hope the work will pay off. </p>