<p>It’s true that the rank issue is doubtful. But marks in Indian state boards look downright terrifying unless you have the rank to go with it. In the languages, highests were about mid 70s out of 100 in my school, to put things in perspective. Hence my decision to put in the rank.</p>
<p>@confusedhexagon - I’ve applied for fall '13.</p>
<p>As I see it - there’s no harm in applying. I’d suggest make a list of 8-10 top colleges(a mix of reaches & matches, as your safeties are in India) with a good math program. Make sure that these colleges are generous with aid. Do your best in the remainder of your school year, try to show your passion for math via the essays, stack up few more awards in your fields of interest maybe?etc - basically put your best foot forward. You never know what happens.</p>
<p>BTW, we’re in South Point High School Kolkata. It’s a pretty good school to put it lightly (loads of olympiad qualifiers , KVPY/NTSE awardees etc. ) and internal marks are low compared to what we score on boards. </p>
<p>Would you consider Penn better or worse than Mich in terms of selectivity ?</p>
<p>Penn’s harder to get into than Mich. For engineering - both are equally good. Depends on the major and also on what you are looking for.
Penn gives need based aid to Internationals, albeit very less.
Michigan doesn’t give any aid, but may have scholarships.</p>
<p>You can use college search services on College Board, CC, Cappex and also use rankings from QS Top universities, Times Higher Ed, US News - to compare different colleges.
Use internationalstudent.com to sort colleges that give most aid.</p>
<p>I know about South Point school - my impression - “A huge bunch of nerds”! Haha!! 
Anyway - fact is, your school is not going to help you much in getting into US universities, you have to help yourself.</p>
<p>Yeah, thanks. I’m fine substituting percentages for GPA, though, right ? I don’t know how it’s converted to a 4-point scale or whether I should even bother. Also, I mentioned my school as , most importantly, our internal marks are low compared to boards/central board/ICSE etc…hence I’m thinking about the effect of that on my app, and whether I can make colleges take that into consideration.</p>
<p>Wherever there is a question regarding GPA, leave it blank/not reported.
When your counselor/Principal fills out your secondary school report - tell them to upload your transcripts with a graded observation legend.
Your counselor/Principal can mention stuff about your school through the the School Profile which they need to upload.</p>
<p>@Hexagon…I think that u’ll get in MIT…Your math is cool!!!</p>
<p>^ True. MIT is a better bet for people with more olympiad/subject oriented ECs. They like that.</p>
<p>I know, MIT happens to be my dream college (or maybe it ties with Princeton :D). I want to go there, and BADLY!
Last year, MIT, Caltech and HYP rejected a guy who had much better math performance than me. He went on to win a silver medal at the IMO after his rejections. If someone who’s that good can be rejected, then it’d be rather silly of me to have high hopes. But he applied in a hurry, scored 2100 odd on the SAT, etc. These factors might have contributed, but trust me, he really knew his subject.
Well, let’s just hope for the best. :-)</p>
<p>Past/previous results have NO bearing on your decision or result…so don’t reflect that guy on yourself.</p>
<p>Yeah, I should get that out of my mind. It’s hard, though, because I personally happen to know how incredible he is at math. Btw, would a 30-40 point SAT score increase be of any use? I’m more or less confident that my score won’t decrease if I retake, but I’m not sure how much I can increase it by.</p>
<p>@confusedhexagon Silver Medal at IMO and yet rejected? Mind sharing his name?</p>
<p>Well, he didn’t have a medal when he applied. The IMO is held in June, long after the admissions process gets over. His name is Rijul Saini, btw. Awesome guy, he’ll be coming to the IMOTC this year as a coach. 
Btw, do you think it’d be a good idea to get recommendations from teachers at the IMOTC? Can I put those recs in my application in addition to the ones from school teachers?</p>
<p>^ Yes you can have additional recs. But don’t go overboard. One additional rec, preferably from a person in your field of interest, is advisable.</p>
<p>Okay, then I’ll see if I can get a single additional rec from the camp. Thanks for the info. :)</p>
<p>i just have the NTSE certificate and a score of 2210 (CR-690,M-800,W-720(10)) 
@confusedhexagon…what do we have to tell the principal?O.o</p>
<p>Haha!! Is this becoming a South Point thread?? :p</p>
<p>You all seem to be similar - good/awesome SAT scores and NTSE/KVPY/Olympiad awards.</p>
<p>A word of caution though - to be admitted with aid at need aware unis - you need to be a top candidate & at the same time “Unique”. The adcoms need to have a reason to accept you.</p>
<p>Also, not many top schools accept more than 1 student from a non-feeder International school - so even if you guys are awesome and better than the avg student at uni X, they’ll only accept the best amongst you.</p>
<p>Just food for thought that^.</p>
<p>Sharoy? xD
Really? xD
Idk what we’re supposed to tell her. I’m planning on talking to my CT first. Let’s see what she says.</p>
<p>@rishav17…well,im not applying to HYPSM…
@confusedhexagon…what are you going to say to your CT? [i like my username 
]</p>
<p>@Sharoy: I’ll tell her everything that I possibly can about UG applications to foreign unis. I need to talk to her about the school counselor issue, that’s my main concern. Should talk about the recs too, I suppose, but I’m not too worried right now.</p>
<p>@rishav17: Is it fair to count us together? I mean, we have 2 parallel boards. 100 CBSE students, including the OP and Sharoy and 300-350 state board students, including me. We’re practically two different schools. Their 11th grade finals are over, mine are yet to start.</p>