<p>Your parents need to understand that US admissions is not numbers-based, and there is no guarantee that you will get into UC Berkeley or any other school, certainly not the Ivies and other super-low-odd schools. And so the right course of action for you is to find several other colleges with higher admittance rates (maybe 40% or more) that you can also add to your list, instead of just schools that are reaches for everybody. You might want to add more schools like Purdue to your list - that’s the kind of level you should add more of. UC Berkeley and Michigan are top schools in their own right with not a lot of space for internationals, so you should not count on them.</p>
<p>I totally agree with happymomof1. Plus, I am Indian too, but my education has been completely in the USA. But my parents are Indian-born. I think I understand how you’re feeling; there is this need in India to attain the highest education possible. I love this determination. </p>
<p>However, I think you need to expand your potential colleges because you may likely not get into an Ivy League because of your low number of extracurriculars. But I think you will get into UC Berkeley because international acceptance rate there is increasing. Just make sure you illustrate the hardships you encountered during your recent life in your essays and additional information sections of the UC App.</p>
<p>Remember that not going to an Ivy League is not bad. AT ALL. There are so many alternatives with the same “caliber” of the Ivy league, such as Rice, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, and Carnegie Mellon. I’m glad you stated colleges like Carnegie and UMich. I wish you the best of luck; I’m pretty sure you’ll get in UCB.</p>
<p>This is the Cal 2010 freshman profile
<a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/campuses/files/berkeley.pdf[/url]”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/campuses/files/berkeley.pdf</a></p>
<p>This is UCLA’s
<a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/campuses/files/ucla.pdf[/url]”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/campuses/files/ucla.pdf</a></p>
<p>and a few more UCLA details; this for 2011</p>
<p>[Profile</a> of Admitted Freshmen, Fall 2011 - UCLA Undergraduate Admissions](<a href=“http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_fr/Frosh_Prof11.htm]Profile”>http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_fr/Frosh_Prof11.htm)</p>
<p>10 percent of their admits have unweighted 4.0 GPA’s!</p>
<p>In the US, I believe number of A-G’s, honors and AP’s really counts for UCLA. not sure about for international students.</p>
<p>41 percent admit rate for internationals, 33 percent out of state, and 22 percent in state. Can’t tell much about the applicant pools though. I suspect a lot of Californians can’t even afford IN state tuition!</p>
<p>I would suggest studying for the TOEFL exam, because while your English is fairly good, it is not excellent (though maybe that’s because you are on the computer?). Scoring low on that will pretty much dismiss your chance at any top school in the US.</p>
<p>I shall apply for USC and Purdue as well but I am still determinant for getting into UCB :)</p>
<p>And that’s exactly what I liked about UCB so far that they at least give you a chance to explain yourself and additionally they have the requirement of Personal statement which involves mentioning your hardships and reasons for scoring low GPAs.</p>
<p>Those links were really enlightening,thank you and it also makes me a little hopeful to get into UCB as an international applicant.
But I’m really not sure of 2 things
1)What would my 92% (10th grade finals) and 71%(12th grade finals) be in terms of GPA.Any idea about the % to GPA conversion??
2)I’m also not sure if a 32+ ACT score in all subjects could compensate my low GPA.</p>
<p>I have my 1st and last TOEFL the next month.
and lol…no my English is much better than this.Its different and casual virtually than on an actual test paper. 
My target is to score 100+.
I have just given a SAT practice test from the Official SAT study Guide online course and I scored
702(CR)
721(Writing)
800(Maths)</p>
<p>I assume the english score is good because it was my 1st attempt and I still have few weeks to to improve.</p>
<p>“IIT - JEE” “world most difficult exam”. What a superiority complex.
Even Harvard (world no.1) and Cambridge (world no.1 in Qs) claimed to be “one of the best” and never “the best” though proven through ranking or statistics.
Difficulty is relative and the fact that a huge load of candidates unable to score well do not suggest the difficulty.</p>
<p>Sure.
High School-
I have been the main player of my high school football and throwball team for 5years.
Been the main Prefect leader during my 8th,9th and 10th grade.
Main group directing leader of Scouts & Guides curricular program.
Represented my school for inter school debate competition.
Participated in each and every grand school event.</p>
<p>Jr.College-
Got nominated for the Chemistry Olympiad during my 11th Grade
Participated in the IT(Information Technology) exam at the National level (these 2 were the only academic exams offered by my jr.college)
Gold medalist in Indian classical Inter college dance competition </p>
<p>Outside college-
Again a Gold medalist in National level singing competition.Music is in my blood.
Won many singing and dance awards in community events
We do not have community service programs available in schools and colleges here but since I am a firm believer in helping the needy I spent 1 and a half yr tutoring math and science to the the poor unprivileged kids.
Additionally,built a huge dome shaped house for pigeons and other birds who die in large number during the monsoon.This may sound funny but I actually love these wild birds and so I did this out of my own scholarship expense :)</p>
<p>Well,getting back into the crux;do you think I have a chance getting anywhere good with these above mentioned activities???</p>
<p>Hi Kiera - Just my 2 cents here.
You have been given LOTS of good advice here. None of us are reviewing your file at the moment. Admissions to highly competitive colleges will depend on your GPA, SAT score, SAT subject scores, your class ranking, your recommendations AND compared to other applicants from India. Your posts come up as somewhat scattered. The best advice for you is to use the educational advisor (if there is one in the city you live).</p>
<p>And life does NOT get over if you don’t get into a Ivy or a top 20 or even if you dont study in the US for undergrad. There ARE plenty of colleges in India too especially with so many private ones. I would suggest you take all the advice given to you, take the tests, apply and then come back to the board to chance you.</p>
<p>Berkeley admission calculator: [UC</a> Calculator](<a href=“http://■■■■■■/UCcalculator]UC”>http://■■■■■■/UCcalculator)</p>