<p>Hi all,
My situation is really weird. My parents are Argentinians and I was born in Manhattan because my mother was working at Cornell University. After I was born, we went to Argentina, where I lived 15 years. I did my freshman year in a top private school in Argentina, which was really hard and my grades were good compared to my classmates. But then, my family of 7 and I left Argentina and we are now living in Miami. We got here in the middle of the school year so I skipped half of my sophomore year. I am continuing the IB program and I have really good grades and a really hard schedule. Im a rising senior and Im in the search for colleges, the thing is, my Argentinian GPA was a 2.9 and then my sophomore and Junior gpa here were average a 3.7. So, my hs gpa is a 3.34 average. I got a good ACT score (31) and my schedule was ApCalc, ApLit, Apush, IbSpanishBillingual, IBChemistry and many others hard IB and Honors classes. So, what do you guys think, are colleges going to care about my gpa in Argentina? Also, I want to go to a good engineering school, anywhere except north west. Just forget about the money, I just need to know some good engineering schools that match my profile. I play soccer, Judo, the guitar and I'm was in the math club, science club and national honor society at my school. Also Im gonna be on the science club board next year.
Thank you</p>
<p>In all likelihood, your Argentinian average wasn’t a “real” 2.9 since numbers don’t have the same “meaning” accross cultures (in some educational systems, 6/10 means Honors…) Can your high school separate both grades and calculate your GPA only based on your time in the US?
Obviously you can look into the Florida publics, plus UMiami. You likely have a shot at Bucknell and Lehigh, too.
However we can’t just “forget about the money” since it’s pointless to apply to schools you can’t afford. Talk with your parents: what’s their budget?</p>
<p>In a lot of school systems in the US, middle school goes thru grade 9, and high school is 10-12.</p>
<p>So, no, colleges aren’t going to care about your freshman grades in Argentina. </p>
<p>^check with the colleges. Most of the ones that I saw address this are looking at your grades from 9-11. College does not care what category your district places 9th grade.</p>
<p>You can address the Argentina thing with a letter to the school. You can also address the GPA thing by researching the ‘norm’ at the school in Argentina.</p>
<p>^ Good advice. 
A way to circumvent the problem is to have
1° an indication of what percentage students in the school got x grade
2° have the Argentina 9th grade GPA counted separately and clearly indicated as being from the Argentina school.</p>