<p>Hello, this is my first post, so I am, as all other novices, diffident in my chances. So, I am originally from Ukraine, my family moved 1 year ago to U.S. and I finished my junior year in U.S. My guidance counselor in my school, which is a good private school, didn't give me an ability to take any AP courses in my junior year, and I was not very aware of what is that when I arrived to U.S., since in My country only our last year of school matters. I got around 3.6-3.7 GPA and took SAT this June for the first time. My score is 1860, but I am preparing to take it again in October and aiming to break 2000. Also I already have 5 APs in my schedule for the next year and I will self study AP Statistics. I want to apply to mechanical Engineering. I am very passionate about it. Also I play drums, ran track and field all year and speak Ukrainian and Russian. Also I am good at writing essays and I have a pretty interesting life story. So I am wondering whether I have any chances of getting into Lehigh University, Villanova, and I would like to try City University of Hong Kong. Also I am open to any suggestions of other colleges where I should apply, since I don't know about them a lot. Thank you for your attention.</p>
<p>And if colleges look at my grades from freshmen and sophomore classes that I had in Ukraine, I have around 3.8 (if not more) GPA in both those years. (It is hard to transfer our grading system into american, but all my grades are around A, some A- and some A+). Oh, and I also can do 41 pull up in a row, play chess pretty well and studied drawing by myself, I think my pictures are not worse than ones of the students in art classes in my school.</p>