<p>Guys, I am in a perplexed situation right now and could really use some advice from those are into all this college stuff.</p>
<p>About me:
I am 17 and have just graduated from a Russian high school in Moscow with a gold medal (with honors). In Russia I am considered as a smart kid because throughout my school years I have always gotten straight A's and won various subject olympiads. Secondary education in my country lasts for 11 years, so at the beginning of the 11th grade I decided to apply to US colleges. I realize that it was extremely late but I believed I still had a pretty good chance. In November - December I took the SAT tests and TOEFL and my scores were:</p>
<p>SAT Reasoning - 2050 (720 CR, 680 M, 650 W)
SAT II Math Level 2 - 710
SAT II World History - 700
TOEFL - 115</p>
<p>Not so impressive scores considering that I aimed for the Ivies, Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, etc. The BIGGEST mistake of mine was that I didn't apply to any 'safety' schools because I thought that I had a pretty solid chance with Northwestern and NYU. Please, don't tell me how foolish of me that was, it's not the point of this thread.</p>
<p>Now as I don't have any options of going to the US this year, I decided to discover some options of applying to the UK. My friend advised me to apply to the Sixth Form program at a good English school, take A-levels and try to get into Oxbridge, Imperial and some other top UK universities.</p>
<p>So, wise people, could you give me your opinion on the following: is it a good way to complete that 2-year Sixth Form program and apply to UK universities and reapply to US colleges? Also, I think it might be a suitable variant for me as I am not yet sure what career I want to pursue but I am interested in the natural sciences/ engineering department.</p>
<p>Were you rejected - or accepted without adequate financial aid, and therefore unable to attend?</p>
<p>I don’t know what Sixth Form is (and I bet most Americans don’t either) so it’s hard to advise, just keep in mind that there is almost NO financial aid for transfer students. So if you need financial aid, and if the British program would be considered university-level, then American schools would consider you a transfer student, eliminating what little chance you have of getting financial help.</p>
<p>I don’t think you’d need to do UK A-levels to be admitted in the UK. They definitely accept SATs for foreign students, and almost certainly your Russian high school grades. Doing A-levels would just be like repeating high school. Check with the UK unis you are interested in.</p>
<p>If you want to start September 2013 you could probably still find a place in the UK now, but not at a high ranked uni. You understand that UK unis are not like American colleges? There are no minors, no liberal arts degrees. You apply to study one subject and stick with it for 3-4 years. Slightly more flexibility in Scotland but not much. You will probably get no financial aid and it is expensive.</p>
<p>@cupcake
You forgot to mention about your high school GPA.</p>
<p>Got rejected by all the Ivies, or you had applied only to those tops like Harvard and Columbia?</p>
<p>I think you have a good chance in getting into JHU and UC Berkeley.</p>
<p>JHU offers very limited funding, and UC Berkeley don’t offer any funding to the international students.</p>
<p>Also, there are very good universities in Canada with low tuition fees offer a lot of scholarships.
Tuition fees in Canada are generally very low compared to American universities, while many Canadian universities belong to the world top. (Toronto, McGill, UBC…)
They admit students for the Fall, Spring and Summer terms.</p>
<p>BTW, I don’t know anything about British universities. The only thing I know is Oxford offers need-based scholarship to all admitted students.</p>
<p>If you have any questions regarding admission, required documents, FA, …, you should contact directly to the university.</p>
<p>CC is somewhat helpful for students applying for American universities.</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone! I think I need to make some clarifications:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>my GPA at the Russian high school was really close to 4.0 if converted to the US standards, but Russian school do not officially report GPAs of their students so I never indicated that on any of my applications.</p></li>
<li><p>I was rejected from every college except Brown and NYU where I was wait listed. This year Brown didn’t use its wait list due to unprecedentedly high yield. NYU promised to reply by August,1 but, to be realistic, there is no hope even though I informed NYU admission board that I was open to admission to other departments (I originally applied to Stern but indicated my interest in CAS and Poly as well).</p></li>
<li><p>Money is not an issue for my family, I did not request financial aid at any college I applied to.</p></li>
<li><p>Russian grades are not valid for entry to British universities, they write it on their websites. It makes sense because kids in England go to school for 13 years while the Russians attend school just for 11 years.</p></li>
<li><p>I am so damn eager to study in AMERICA, not the UK. So, the idea of going to England is not very appealing to me but it is still better than staying in Russian because our higher education system is corrupt, unfair and simply sucks. Moreover, I am not very certain about my future career, so in this sense US colleges suit me better. </p></li>
<li><p>I also realize that with my credentials I had a really good chance at many nice US schools with excellent education. I wish I’d known that 8 months ago but now I have to deal with reality</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Could you please comment on the following please:</p>
<p>I applied to RUTGERS UNIVERSITY that has been e-mailing me for quite a while and wrote that it finds my scores impressive. It is ranked #68 in the US National ranking, so I believe it is an acceptable school for me. Do you guys think that attending Rutgers for 1 year, retaking SATs (I know I can get 2200+ on the Reasoning test and 750+ on the subject ones) and transferring to more prestigious schools like Cornell, USC, UC Berkeley, UMich, Carnegie-Mellon and some others for my sophomore year is a good idea?</p>
<p>You could certainly go the route of Rutgers/transfer - but personally, I think starting a university with the idea of an immediate transfer sounds like a hassle (as you know, the application process is time consuming) and a bit of a risk. Most universities don’t take as many transfer students as they do first year students - what if you don’t get in to the school of your choice? Would you be happy staying another year, at least, at Rutgers? </p>
<p>How about taking a year off, and reapplying in the fall for academic year 2014/2015? Universities won’t penalize you for a ‘gap year,’ especially if you do something interesting/personally enriching in the meantime (travel, volunteering, etc.)</p>
<p>I also think that not having a “12th grade” may have made your application less desirable.
(Katliamom: Sixth form is a 2-year program for AS and A2 exams, which together make the 1 Levels. Sixth form = 11th+12th grade).
You should email a lot of universities that interest you, asking what credentials they need from Russian candidates: 11th class credentials with secondary school graduation, or an additional year?
(I know that in some provincial systems that have 11 years in India, they request one extra year).
If an additional year is needed and money is not an issue, then going the Sixth Form route would make sense, as long as you take 3 “solid” A-Level subjects (plus a 4th one for enjoyment, like Media Studies, which is actually quite interesting). However you could also try to get into an American high school - I know in Maine some public high schools take fee-paying students even late in the year. This way you’d be in the US and you’d complete your “missing” 12th grade, you could take a bunch of AP classes, you’d retake the SAT, you’d continue your involvement in ECs, and you’d be able to diversify your applications - one problem is that your college list was reach-heavy, and “wild card” colleges at that, ie schools no one even the perfect applicant can be sure to get into.
This school is looking for Chinese students, but why not Russian? Plus if you apply to the South, West, and Midwest, you’ll provide geographical diversity in addition to international diversity
<a href=“Millinocket, Me., High School Recruits in China - The New York Times”>Millinocket, Me., High School Recruits in China - The New York Times;
This school does the same and has welcomed Russian students:
<a href=“Tiny Newcomb, N.Y., Recruits Students Worldwide - The New York Times”>Tiny Newcomb, N.Y., Recruits Students Worldwide - The New York Times;
<p>I don’t think Rutgers would be a good match for you based on what you said about yourself and your skills. However, since you don’t need financial aid, you could go to Rutgers and try to transfer for your Spring semester or for next year.</p>
