<p>Okay so here's the deal...</p>
<p>Current Grade Level: Junior
School: Private American School Abroad- VERY competitive (I am an American citizen who has lived in a foreign country for grades 9-11)
Ethnicity/Gender: Indian/Female
GPA: 3.6 (And yes, that's weighted :\ , but I have explanations.)
SAT Score: 2230</p>
<p>Basically, this is the story: I've lived in the states for most of my life, but I moved abroad to a developing country during freshman year. Since then, I've been to three different high schools, and each one was more difficult than the last. The school I'm going to right now is extremely tough academically and on top of that I'm an IB Diploma candidate. </p>
<p>I took one AP class in 10th grade (Usually the school doesn't offer AP classes to tenth graders, but I was one of the 5 who got in) and got a 4 on the exam. As of now, I'm doing the International Baccalaureate for grades 11 and 12. </p>
<p>Oh and one more thing. My school only calculates weighted GPAs and I know that doesn't matter because colleges recalculate and all that, but my school does make sure to emphasize how tough the curriculum is. Plus, I made Directors Honor Roll or Honor Roll all four years of high school. </p>
<p>The issue with my GPA is that each time I moved my grades dropped and I have issues adjusting to living in new countries I guess. And now I'm a junior, and the college stress is starting to take its toll on me :/</p>
<p>Extracurriculars (I do live in a third world country so community service options are ABUNDANT, however keep in mind that everything else is NOT meaning that internships and other opportunities are nearly impossible to get):
- Lit Magazine
- Yearbook
- Community service club that spends time with children in slums doing arts and crafts, music, etc. (Leadership position)
- Community service club in which I spend two hours every week teaching underprivileged children English
- Habitat for Humanity- Spend two weeks during freshman year building houses for underprivileged in villages.
- Youth Newspaper (Not the school newspaper)- Writes about social issues in the country, etc. and offers journalism training
- I have published various articles online and in magazines in the States
- Internship with Citibank during the winter
- I also spent one summer as a camp counselor at my school (I'm not sure that's relevant though?)</p>
<p>That's about it I think...I tried to keep it more or less focused so I didn't include other random activities. </p>
<p>I want to major in journalism (I hope my extracurriculars sort of illustrate that) but I'm also leaning towards business (hence the citibank internship). I was thinking of majoring in business and minoring in journalism or vice versa. Or a double major? I'm not sure because although I'm set on being a journalist, I've heard from basically everyone that you don't need a journalism degree and it's better to have a degree in something else. Plus, my parents really want me to do business. Any journalism majors who could help me out?</p>
<p>Schools: I REALLY want to go to USC. I seriously have my heart set on it. But I don't know how likely it is with my GPA b/c I was looking at the stats of the kids at my school who got in (Since I'm not even in the country, let alone the state) and the lowest GPA accepted was 3.99. I'm not even kidding. So I guess they have higher standards for international kids.
Other schools I'm looking at are UT Austin, Northwestern (no harm applying), U of Washington Seattle, U of Illinois- Urbana-Champaign, Pepperdine, Purdue, Wisconsin- Madison. I've got matches/safeties too so don't worry haha.
But I wanna get someone else's opinions. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>Sorry this post turned out to be longer than I had planned...</p>