<p>Ok, so basically I'm a student currently living in Korea and would like to transfer to a U.S. college after my first year (of college in Korea). I would deeply appreciate any kind of help with:</p>
<p>1) How in the world is one supposed to translate recs (I'm assuming translation is essential)?
and
2) most of my education took place in international schools, so when I suddenly transferred to a Korean high school after my sophomore year, my grades went for a slight plunge and (because of the differences in educational perception, yadda yadda yadda) I have only 1~2 ECs.
So, what I was wondering was: will the admissions officers take this background into account when they evaluate my application or...no? (by the way, I'm aiming for Amherst or similar.)</p>
<p>(Oh yeah, and: grades in Korea are entirely determined by how high you rank in exams - do most admissions officers know this or not?) </p>
<p>Haha, sorry for the question barrage, I have zero counselors here or anyone that can offer any kind of realistic advice on the U.S. admissions process. Thanks in advance :)</p>
You basically have three options: You can translate them yourself if and only if your teachers are comfortable with this arrangement and you are confident in your ability to convey the actual meaning of a recommendation in English. (Some phrases that might sound perfectly fine to you might sound like a subtle criticism to an American audience.) You can ask an English teacher or an acquaintance of yours to prepare the translation. Or you could pay for an official translation by a certified interpreter.</p>
<p>The admission folks read quite a lot of applications from Korea and will be familiar with the educational system. I am sure they will forgive you a dip in grades when you transferred schools, as long as your grades have recovered since.</p>
<p>OMG i was wondering exactly the same. i am from europe though, my school has absolutely no idea of what to do with my grades and i found a conversion table on the internet, by an organization called WES for world education services… they might have one for korean too. but i really don´t know if i should really use it, i mean, this is just a private organization that offers to translate your grades into american equvalents…
do you think if the school thinks it´s ok, then it should be alright??</p>
<p>Do <em>not</em> convert your grades unless the colleges you are applying to explicitly ask for an evaluation by an outside organization (a few do, most don’t). Selective colleges receive many applications from abroad and know what your grades mean in the context of your school system. A conversion will necessarily lose and skew information, and that’s not in your best interest.</p>
<p>So: translate all of the documents into English, but leave your grades on their original scale (and state which scale they are on).</p>
<p>yh i asked admissions office at princeton. they told me not to convert anything, but to make sure everything is in english, plus that we are welcome to attach additional information, but they said it is not necessary… </p>
<p>@whaleflower I was wondering the same. I am also an international student, and I don’t now how to translate and send recommendation to universities when I am sending online?</p>
<p>b@r!um, thanks for your reply - sorry that I didn’t get back to this earlier. But I have to say that I find the rec situation utterly bizarre. If I am actually allowed to translate recs myself (btw, I speak better English than Korean), then I’m basically given complete freedom to change and/or falsify portions of, if not including the whole entire recommendation letter? How will the colleges that I’m applying to know that what I’ve translated for them is actually valid? </p>