<p>I’m not sure how funding for thesis work is done. I do know my daughter’s thesis play had a small budget, and managing that budget was part of her thesis.</p>
<p>No boundaries at all between art and science at Reed. Lots of cross-disciplinary majors. Too few students for everyone not to know everyone else, too.</p>
<p>What is very confusing here is how we are to interpret your gpa. I am not familar with the scale you use. (My daughter’s was on a dual scale 4.0 = perfect A, but you are also give a weighted scale for Honors/AP classes.)</p>
<p>If you were a B average as you say, how can you be in the top 5% of the class? Is the grading that rigourous that only the top 2 or 3 percent are A averages? Sorry if I am being dense here.</p>
<p>Also you mention CalTech is ideal but you don’t have the grades for it. Did you research on that and talk to an admissions person? Top 5% should qualify for any school in the US. Not get you admitted, but merely put you ‘in range’ of accepted students.</p>
<p>You asked about Brown and grad school and yes they have a very good rate of admits to PhD programs. Earlier poster is correct that it will depend on your undergrad performance overall, the research you did and the reccomendations of your professors, as well as the tests.</p>
<p>My daughter has a friend from Brown who was admitted into the PhD program in Theoretical Physics at UC Berkeley with full funding, and some special award, can’t remember sorry.</p>
<p>Since our school doesn’t have any ranking system, I do not know whether I am really the top 5% among my peers; the top 5% is based on three teacher evaluation letters. In the common application, the teachers are asked to compare me with other students in my class year, and both of my English and also Chemistry teachers suggest I am top 5% in various area such as “academic achievement”, “intellectual promise”, “creative, original thought”, “productive class discussion”, “disciplined work habits”, “maturity”, “motivation”, “leadership”, “interity”, “reaction to setbacks”, “concern for others”, “sed-confidence”, “initiative, independence” and “overall”; and that is how I claim I am top 5% from the very limited information I have. In Canada, we have a different methodology on calculating GPA (we only consider the top 4 or 5 subjects in the final years of school), and I said roughly about 15% to 20% of students get “A” in that situation; and I got 90% based on that methodology. </p>
<p>However, many of my classes were given “TS” credit (Transferred) because I skipped two grades in all Sciences, mathematics, chinese language and art after I landed Canada; I don’t know how to put those TS credit into GPA.</p>
<p>Talk to your school guidance counselor about the equivalencies of your school’s and US schools, and how competitive you would be. Your school will have to send out this information to any schools you apply to so they should be able to assign more accurate numbers than you can. Excellent students from a great variety of colleges/universities get into the top grad schools. Focus first on schools that are a good fit- that match your academic ability, interests and many other nonacademic factors such as social, geographic, town/school size…as you will do your best in a place that nourishes the whole you. Do not only focus only on the academics, use the college years to grow as a person as well. Make sure you visit the areas you are interested in as cultures vary in different parts of the US.</p>
<p>I have tried talking to my counselor already and they said there are too many different schools in US, therefore it is very very hard to provide accurate information to me. They said it is my duty to proof I am capable to do well in colleges. </p>
<p>However, as I understand more about colleges and universities, I think the most important part of undergraduate education is the exploration of “who I am” as a whole person; there are so many knowledges in world we can’t master them in four years, people will keep learning without a professor everyday after graduated. I just want a place where I can stay quietly do my physics and mathematics for four years.</p>
<p>Thanks for your advice, I will take it from heart and try to grow spiritually.</p>