<p>hello all!
my current situation has been bothering me for quite a while... as i said before in the title, it is a highly unusual situation and so far, the only solution is to directly contact an admissions officer from a prospective college . nonetheless, it would be great if you guys could share your views on my dilemna</p>
<p>BEWARE, the story is long. -_-, fastforward to bottom of the post for my questions
my story:
i am an american-born chinese who was educated in the states until i was 13 years old. my father had lost his job and our family decided to move to china because of financial conditions. i was put into a regular middle school along with all the other 1st year 初中students. it was an extremely hard transition for me. although i was chinese, i was completely oblivious to chinese culture... in other words, i was very very americanised.
i could speak choppy chinese, recognize simple chinese characters and could barely write chinese.
after three years of extremely hard work and lots of determination, i graduated from 初中at the top 5% of my class.</p>
<p>by sheer luck of the draw, and a bonus 3 points on my 中考 because i was a foreigner, i got into the second-best upper middle school in the city. in a city with a population of 6 million citizens, i consider it one of my greatest achievements.
this is when the going gets tough. my school was one of the best in the city-- that meant that the courseload was VERY heavy and the teachers were VERY tough!（i imagine all of you went through the same thing）. my grades were a C average at most. i had a's in english, b's in chinese, b's and c's in math, and c's and occasional d's and f's in physics and chemistry.
these grades may seem dismal, but in reality, i am still at the top 15% of upper middle school students. if you convert that to u.s.a. standards, i am confident that i am at the top 1%</p>
<p>MAIN DILEMNA:
right now, i am taking classes as a community college student in california. (there's a long story behind that too)
i noticed that many universities, especially private ones, request a high school transcript.
unfortunately, i did not attend a day of american high school. so:
1. Do I give them my Chinese high school transcript?
but if i do that, my grades put me at an extreme disadvantage because i went to a very competitive school. chinese schools are a lot harder than american schools. If I should have to do this, it would be very unfair to me. </p>
<ol>
<li>Do I count as an international student? They say that international students should submit a TOEFL score or ELTS score.
I spent my last 5 years in mainland China, but English is definitely my first language.</li>
</ol>
<p>Thank you all for spending the time to read through my rambles! Any advice or help is appreciated!</p>