<p>Hi everyone!
Please chance me based on the stats below:</p>
<p>CIE IGCSE: 8 A*'s, 2 A's, 2 B's</p>
<p>CIE AS:
Math - A
Bio - A
Chem - A
Physics - A</p>
<p>CIE A2 Predicted grades:
Math - A
Bio - A
Chem - A
Physics - A</p>
<p>SAT I (First try - I had a really bad day):
CR - 670
M - 700
W - 680</p>
<p>Retaking in Jan, hoping to improve to:
CR - 750 - 800
M - 800
W - 750 - 800</p>
<p>SAT II (First try):
Math II - 800
Chem - 720
Bio M - 740</p>
<p>Taken again in Dec, hoping to recieve:
Chem - 750 - 800
Bio - 770 - 800</p>
<p>TOEFL iBT - 116</p>
<ul>
<li>Fairly good EC's, lots of leadership positions, founder member of clubs that I am most passionate about (Public speaking and community service). </li>
<li>Essays are good. Not brilliant, though.</li>
<li>Hardest courses that my school offers.</li>
<li>No ranking system in school, but I am definitely the top student in all the subjects that I take. It doesn't help that there are only 30 students or so in the graduating class :(</li>
<li>No financial aid required.</li>
</ul>
<p>Universities that I hope to get into:
- Johns Hopkins
- Duke
- Harvard
- Yale
- Rice
- Princeton
- UPenn
- Stanford
- Colgate
- NYU</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your time! Good luck to everyone with their applications!</p>
<p>I am an international applicant too (btw where are you from?). would be great if you list your ec’s. What about your recommendations? Are they good?
Johns Hopkins - match
Duke - match
Harvard - reach (don’t get this too personal, it is reach for everyone)
<p>I’m from Sri Lanka, but I live in Qatar How about you?</p>
<p>ECs:
Gavels movement, now in Toastmasters. Basically an international leadership programme focused on public speaking. Vice President for 1 year. Hope to be President this year.
Public speaking clinic organised by me and cousins every summer for less fortunate students in Sri Lanka.
Heavily involved in student government. Grade 9 - Junior prefect; Grade 10 - Youngest elected Head Girl in school history; Grade 12 - Senior prefect.
Spent last two summers shadowing doctors, learnt loads in that time (I hope to do medicine in the future).
Co-Founder member and president of charity committees in both high schools I attended (New school in Grade 11).
Co-Founder member and president of library committee in old school, co-founder member of present school’s library committee.
Editor of old school’s newspaper. Planning to introduce newspaper to present school.</p>
<p>These are the EC’s that I want to put in my CommonApp form, although there are more ‘glamourous’ ones, if you like, like travel and stuff, but these are the ones I honestly am most passionate about. Some of my friends think that I should include the travel and all, to stand out, but I feel like these are more of who I am… I’m not really sure what to do about that. Help please? </p>
<p>Part time jobs (It’s not much :P):
Tutoring Grade 8, 9 and IGCSE students 6 hrs a week for mathematics.
Baby sitting in Grades 9 and 10 (Does that even count?)</p>
<p>Recommendations:
School counsellor - Meh. She doesn’t really know me, and I know for a fact that the first paragraph of the letter is copied and pasted off my maths report card -_- but I can’t say anything because I am not supposed to know this (A)
Maths teacher - Very good.
Biology teacher - Nearly excellent.</p>
<p>Thank you for chancing me Haha, Harvard and Yale I’m applying to just for the laughs Duke is my dream school for pre-med, so I’m really happy that I stand a chance :D</p>
<p>Also, there aren’t any national academic merits or so here. It’s just… every school to itself mostly. So I’ve only got awards like school topper and awards for various subjects at school alone and things. And this one mental maths inter school contest… I guess that could be a national thing? I don’t know.</p>
<p>Point is, I don’t have any academic distinctions. Will that bring me down?</p>
<p>It is important to understand that every small details puts you above other potential applicants. Include everything. If there is no enough space for listing all your ec’s attach a list, and mention them in order of their interest to you. your travel history shows that you are not just bookworm, but you are interested in rest of the world, you want to learn what’s there behind those frontiers, shows that you are inquisitive. :))
but it is totally ok if you lost interest in those activities, it will in no way put you in disadvantage. So I think you should include those too.
yes, you should include your job as babysitter, why not? it shows that you are responsible, that people trust you.
Lack of academic distinctions may hurt your chances, that’s why mention reasons why you don’t have them, directly or indirectly.
your essays should be amazing if you love public speaking, that’s a plus. (good job!)
BTW love your toefl score!!!
Counselor recommendation is not so important, but it kinda shows that you are not VERY popular in your school, cause if you were, counselor would definitely know you well or He/She sucks at being school counselor
but on the other hand there are many applicants whom their counselors never knew so it is not a problem if counselor recommendation is a bit “dry”
well the rest looks great.
you have a great shot.
If I forget something I’ll post it here :)) (if I am welcome of course )
But as I heard getting in premed school is really tough, isn’t it?
anyway, I am from Kyrgyzstan (bet you will google it! :))
and we are in the same pool for princeton more=merry
well good luck and all the best.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot for the advice, I will add the extras in the Additional info area
Thank you!
The counsellor thing… it might be a bit of both. She’s crap, and I’m a bit of a trouble maker (A)</p>
<p>I’ve heard of Kyrgyzstan, such an exotic name!
Might see you in Princeton, who knows? :)</p>
<p>And you are most welcome to post whatever. Good luck with everything!</p>
How about you?</p>
Duke is my dream school for pre-med, so I’m really happy that I stand a chance :D</p>