<p>I am hoping to get into a high calibre university and it would be great if you could give me any advice to improve my chances! </p>
<p>I am currently an international student (junior year) in a British school, so I already took my IGCSEs (9A*, 2A) and am doing the IB now. My IB subjects are HL Math, Chemistry, Physics and SL English Langlit, Mandarin B, Economics. Realistically I am hoping to get at least 40/42 for my predicted grades.</p>
<p>I will be taking the SAT for the first time in January and am expecting a score in the 2200s: 800 Math, ~750 Writing, ~720 CR. I am planning to retake if I do not get 2300.
I already got an 800 on SAT Math II and will most likely get 800 on Chemistry and Physics.</p>
<p>In terms of academic performance I think I have a realistic chance to get into one of the best universities in the US or UK, but I am worried I do not meet the expectations in terms of extra-curricular. I've consistently taken part in the school orchestra activities for the past 7 years, and I thoroughly enjoy tennis, but that's about it... I really don't know what I should do. </p>
<p>One more thing: I am grade 8 on the cello (narrowly failed diploma a few weeks ago)! I am planning to mainly use this to my advantage in my application essays.</p>
Well if you are going for Ivies, then I supposee very low chance all you really have is a pretty good SAT score, and extracurriculars are narrow but you should have at least 5 or 4 you are very active in to get into high calibcaliber schools. Also, your grades seem to be on point, but once again you don’t seem particularity “well rounded” as Ivies would say.
But, you have a good chance at many public schools of high merit in the US, including GIT, University of Wisconsin at Madison, University of Texas at Austin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with significant money at each. Really depends on what you set as “high caliber” the schools I listed are among the top 50 in the US.
I’m not sure about this, but my experience tells me that when US colleges look at international students they don’t weigh ECs much, because they understand it’s not part of the academic culture abroad. So, as long as your scores and grades are near-perfect, you have as much of a chance as any international applicant of getting in–that is to say, a very slim one.
Out of curiosity, what are the “obvious reasons” you want to attend these universities?
@warriorblade101 : I understand that my EC’s are rubbish, and that is why I am asking for any advice on this forum. I go to an international school in Hong Kong and I feel like there aren’t great opportunities in terms of EC.
Also, I do not quite understand what you mean by not being “well rounded”. At IGCSE level I attained A*s in Bio, Chem, Physics, History, English Language, English literature, Mandarin, Math, Further Pure Math, and As in Econ and Music. Am I still not “well rounded”?
@merlion : Could you please share where you get your experience from? Are you an international student yourself?
@tw97824
I didn’t mean to seem so brash, so I’ll clarify a bit of what I said to make more sense. First, if you discuss the limited opportunities for EC’s l, that’ll show that you made best of everything avaliable. And second, regarding the “well rounded” I didn’t mean to explicitly refer to only the academics, but also in terms of the EC’s. That being said if had limited opportunities in terms of EC’s, then talk about that in the essays. But, knowing you had limited pool of opportunities, really made be think about if you were given more opportunties, you would certainly take advantage of them (in a positive way ofc), much as you have done so academically with your “A*s in Bio, Chem, Physics, History, English Language, English literature, Mandarin, Math, Further Pure Math, and As in Econ and Music”.
In summation, if you talk about the limited EC’s avaliable you and place emphasis on your grades, and keep up with the activities that you are doing now and you will have an above average chance at a any school you choose to apply to.
