<p>Hey that rhymes!</p>
<p>… wait we went through that already.</p>
<p>Yep, it’s definitely dead.</p>
<p>Okay, let’s try to get the life back into this.</p>
<p>Who all have gotten their visas?</p>
<p>not mee…</p>
<p>@Mushoo OH so you went through all the posts but you didn’t post! How could you! What’s up with your visa? Applied already?</p>
<p>Anyways, I just sent in my application for the Canadian visa. Might hear from them in some days. Or at least hope to.</p>
<p>Since there’s no better place to look for college related answers, I’m posting this here. Is anyone giving the PMC test this year? From the A levels kids? I needed the answers to the sample test they’ve uploaded on the website, since, being very effiecient as they do tend to be, they haven’t bothered uploading the answers.</p>
<p>zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz</p>
<p>That unhelpful, huh?</p>
<p>hello all. sorry i’ve joined the discussion a bit late. i’m in a bit of a conundrum. to cut a long story short, i was hell bent on attending an ivy/top US college and wasnt successful in any application. was waitlisted at johns hopkins though. hopkins only took engineering applicants off the waitlist this year, and sadly, i wasnt one.</p>
<p>got into mcgill and UCL in the UK. more interested in UCL. problem is ive applied for chemistry, which i’m not that crazy about anymore, plus there’s no guarantee i’ll get the required grades. not interested at all in going to canada.</p>
<p>my school’s had bad luck this year with ivies. harvard took someone, a legacy, through pretty amazing as well. i really wanted to attend yale. was rejected in december early decision. i was interviewed, thought it went very well. apparently not. 7 months on, i still feel yale is a fit for me, and i still cringe when someone mentions these colleges. </p>
<p>thinking of a gap year, but i can’t go through all the depression and rejection again.</p>
<p>what should i do?</p>
<p>p.s. i’m a published author of a book with ferozsons, have done ECs, 7 A’s in my o levels, and a 2280 SAT</p>
<p>arabian1001night, if it makes you feel any better, I’m in the same desolate boat. 2250 SAT I and seven A’s in O levels and many many ECs. Unlike you, however, I don’t have the option of going to either canada or UK because of the sad aid situation. I’m stuck with the low-cost universities here and the transfer situation is dire.
If I were you, I’d stick to England. The degree is for three years there and Chemical is a pretty up-and-coming field. Taking a gap year is a valid option, but you don’t have the guarantee of things turning out well for you at the end of it. Trust me, I took one. Though I was applying for the first time after my gap year. But still.</p>
<p>Also, what school would that be?</p>
<p>@mohammedeht: LOL well there wasn’t anything to reply to! And plus I was very busy… Khair, let’s pump some life back into this thread. There was an enrollment list going on, I’ll find and update that:</p>
<p>US List:
- Harvard - 1 (LAS)
- Yale - 4 (2 KGS, 1 St. Pat’s, 1 Aitchison)
- Caltech - 1 (KGS)
- Emory - 4 (2 KGS, 2 Aitchison)
- Fordham - 1 (Aitchison)
- NYU - 7 (3 KGS, 4 Aitchison)
- University of Florida - 1 (Aitchison)
- UPenn - 5 (1 Roots, 1 KGS, 2 LAS, 1 Choueifat)
- Brown - 2 (LAS)
- MIT - 3 (2 Roots, LAS)
- Tufts - 3 (1 Roots, 1 KGS, 1 LAS)
- Purdue - 2 (1 Lyceum, 1 PISES Riyadh)
- Washington University - 1 (Aitchison)
- James Madison University - 1 (LAS)
- Rutgers - 1 (LAS)
- UMich, Ann Arbor - 1 (Choueifat)
- Stanford - 3 (2 Roots, Choueifat)
- Bentley - 1 (Choueifat)
- Princeton - 2 (KGS)
- Smith - 2 (KGS)
- Wellesley - 1 (British Overseas School)
- Northwestern - 1 (KGS)
- Cornell - 3 (1 Roots, KGS)
- Grinnell - 2 (KGS)
- Hamilton - 1 (KGS)
- UCLA - 2 (KGS)
- UC Berkeley - 2 (KGS)
- Brandeis - 1 (KGS)
- Wesleyan - 1 (KGS)
- Mount Holyoke - 4 (1 Roots, 2 KGS, 1 Lyceum)
- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - 2 (KGS)
- University of Virginia - 2(1 Roots, KGS)
- Boston University - 1 (KGS)
- USC - 3 (2 KGS, 1 Lyceum)
- George Washington University - 1 (KGS)
- Lafayette College - 1 (KGS)
- Whittier College - 1 (Southshore)
- Claremont McKenna - 1 (Lyceum)
- UMass Amherst - 1 (Lyceum)
- Dartmouth - 1 (Roots)</p>
<p>Other List:</p>
<ol>
<li>Monash University, Malaysia Campus - 1 (PIS Khobar)</li>
</ol>
<p>@arabian1001night: Well it looks like your two options are gap year and Pakistani universities. If you’re going to LUMS, I’d say go for it. Other universities… er… well you could think about a gap year.</p>
<p>If you’re thinking about a gap year (I took one) what you should think about is: What universities can you be almost SURE that you’ll get in and can afford (I believe the only POSSIBLE reasonable answers here are far-east universities as with top US universities you can never be sure to get in, no matter how awesome you are, and with lower-ranked universities you can never be sure you’ll get all the aid you need).</p>
<p>Then you simply need to think whether you’d rather stay in Pakistan, or take out a gap year and attend one of those sure-shot universities (I have friends in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong and they are very happy - it may not the same experience as the US Ivy League, but it’s much better than Pakistani universities). And while you’re on a gap year, you should work really hard on your applications and try to get into a US university with financial aid.</p>
<p>I have many friends too who took out gap years. Things have worked out just fine for almost all of them, but of course there’s never any guarantee.</p>
<p>@All,</p>
<p>So who else is excited about going to uni?! I can’t wait to start shopping and packing, but there’s still so much time to September :(</p>
<p>it seems as if this year most people are off to either canada or uk…not many to the US.</p>
<p>@ Noones Fool</p>
<p>Though I’m sorry you’re in the same desolate boat, it is somewhat reassuring to know i’m not the only one. I wouldn’t have been complaining so much if it hadn’t been for my book. I believed being a published author at 18 makes one stand out a bit. Apparently not. </p>
<p>I didn’t apply to LUMS, and frankly in Pakistan that’s the only place i’d want to go. Aid isn’t an issue, I’m blessed in that respect. What would you say about transferring? And would reapplying to the same universities after a gap year be useless, albeit with a stronger application?</p>
<p>Also, what made you take a gap year? and what did you do during that year?</p>
<p>I’m from LGS. You?</p>
<p>@ mushoo</p>
<p>sorry my above post was meant to address both you and noones fool!</p>
<p>btw where are you heading now? was the gap year any help?</p>
<p>Arabian1001night, transferring would be a good option for you then if aid is not a problem. That is, if you decide to go to UK or canada. From here it’s almost not possible. Taking a gap year would be an even better option if you can find a cause to work towards and do LOTS of volunteer work. Alternatively, you could go back to school and study subjects that are very different from what you studied preiously. Give their A levels exams. This would diversify your portfolio, and if you eventually make it inshAllah might earn you some credits. Also being at school would give you more opportunities for taking up extracurriculars. It won’t entirely be useless, you might get lucky. Also you’d want to add a couple of safeties to your list. Don’t apply to ALL the same universities, and I’d be especially cautious about Yale, which a lot of people apply to from here since for some reason it’s more popular than harvard.
I took a gap year because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I gave a couple of tests though initially for pakistani universities since my father REALLY wants me to be a doctor (yes, THAT old story). For the most part, I researched and worked on my applications and attended a lot of family weddings 
but I also worked at a baithak school as a volunteer teacher. This was after I’d submitted my applications though.</p>
<p>I’m from LGS too 
but I’m from the Islamabad branch. I’m assuming you’re from the lahore defense branch. You guys have amazing counsellors; sabeen aunty and that nuzhat woman. From our branch people don’t end up at good places, noone ever actually applies to the states and our administration is, at best, indifferent. I had a lot of problems with my school forms and ended up with alot discrepencies in them. I think that may have screwed up my applications for the most part.</p>
<p>I believe mushoo is headed to Caltech so his gap year paid off. But arabian1001night, don’t fret too much about it. Whatever happens is for the best. Hopefully things will work out for you.</p>
<p>@ Noones Fool</p>
<p>Thanks for your suggestions Going back to school is something I wouldn’t want to do at all, that chapter is closed. And it would be a waste of resources too, i doubt my family can afford sending me to school again, and then college Plus it would be depressing. But transferring from Britain might work! If I’m not able to fulfill my conditional offer for UCL, then a gap year it is, and I’ll apply in something I’m better at, like law. I made a mistake applying for chemistry, when I’m not even sure what I want to do. Thing is, I’m interested in a lots of different things. I had a mix of subjects at A Levels, bio, chem, maths, sociology and world history. I’m unable to make up my mind. </p>
<p>You’re quite mistaken if you think LGS has good counselling, they’re quite good at advertising and publicity. I’ll tell you quite frankly there was ZERO counselling, we could barely get a hold of the counsellor to post our stuff. We were not counselled at all. AT ALL. Did everything ourselves. Aunty Sabeen is a darling and a role model, but she’s not a counsellor, she was A level coordinator, She has nothing to do with college apps. It was a great disappintment, as most of us joined Grammar in A levels for the counselling. If you’re looking for counselling, I’d say LACAS is pretty amazing, I’ve met their counsellor. But yes, counsellors really help make or break an application, and in our case, our counsellor was also O level teacher, some other coordinator and college counsellor for about 300 students. So you can imagine exactly how much time any of us got. Which was, perhaps ten minutes at best through a 3 month period Oh and don’t even start me on the staff. Indifference doesnt even begin to cover it. We were asked to give a list of our activities and achievements to the teacher writing a recommendation, who then proceeded to write it in bullet form and add a few impersonal comments and their name. This year’s college counselling was pitiful. Perhaps last year’s was better, because students got into Harvard (a legacy), Cornell (2), Princeton (2), Stanford (1), Columbia (2), Bryn Mawr and other places</p>
<p>I think international relations had quite a role in selection of students from Pakistan by the US this year, they took minimum numbers, and mostly from LAS. As far as our school goes, i guess they took so many last year that they didnt bother this year. Shows that we’re dropping, and compared to India, Pakistani students are about 80% less.</p>
<p>So what are you doing now? What are your plans now?</p>
<p>Wow. 
When we came for the defense challenge cup, we were VERY intimidated by the students. Especially your debates team. I think one of them is in princeton now. Lol. But still, Islamabad LGS is crap, even by Islamabad standards, which aren’t very high to go by in the first place. At least your teachers wrote your recommendations for you. I had to write my own, create false email ids and post them. I had approval ofcourse, since they were incapable of doing anything at all. I had to do this after the date had passed because my school had kept assuring me to the last that they had sent the form but my common app told me they were incomplete. Sigh.
I don’t think it has as much to do with international relations as much as it does with the fact that the student pool (international) increased dramatically this year and became more competitive. Most of the kids who got in from here in Islamabad were US citizens (except for the roots kids and the St Mary’s guy who into Upenn). And the international student pool is way more competitive than the US pool, so a lot of us ended up being screwed.
My plan now is to apply to low-cost schools here like I mentioned before. I got into LUMS right after A levels but that was pretty inaffordable and LUMS need-blind policy is a sham. Hopefully engineering at NUST-I’ve applied on the sat seats for both engineering and medicine. Depending on where I end up, I might apply for a transfer after a year to all the good but relatively easier schools to get into, like Mt Holyoke. Not very hopeful about the aid, but it’s worth a shot 
Good Luck with your result!</p>