I’m an international junior year student. My education system is somewhat different from that of the US schools. We have a kind of traditional subjects and topics. We don’t have the culture of extracurricular activities here as we don’t consider them in the college admission process, in fact, just school grades are the factor to get into a college depending on your rank compared to the rest of students all over the country.
My Academics:
I got 93% in my sophomore year.
I got 98.1% in my freshman year.
I didn’t take standardized tests yet, but I’m preparing myself right now to register for the upcoming trial.
My Extracurricular activities:
IEEE technical organizer.
Microsoft Student Partner instructor at the Coding Lab.
Founder of the first Computer Science club at my school powered by Hack Club (San Francisco).
Head of the IT committee of TEDx at the local university.
Translator at TED and Coursera.
The scientific chief at the Students’ Union.
IT manager at my school’s library.
My accomplishments:
Finalist (1st place in Computer Science category) in the local ISEF science fair.
1st place winner award in the first regional NXT robotics contest.
Nominated for the World Robotics Conference in China.
Was invited by the US embassy to be a presenter at the Maker Fair.
I got nominated to the Microsoft Developers Conference as a reward from MSP for my performance with the newcomers.
I got a recognition from my school for reconstructing the IT of the library.
What’s your intended major?
Take the SATs, improve on your ECs, make them different.
Computer Science.
What’s the problem with my ECs?
Not any problem. But if you’re going for the elite, the best of the best, you’re going to have to set yourself apart. Add that to the fact that you are an international student, the deal just gets worse. Most schools are need aware for international students. That is also a competitive major.
Your grades are really good, so that’s okay.
What country do you live in?
From Egypt. You told me to make my ECs different, how to do it?
Your choice. Do some volunteering, help the poor, maybe build an app?
Building apps or websites is something regular for me. I remember creating a voice-controlled application when I was in grade 6, other for my research project at ISEF, and I made around 4 websites for my blog and when I was working as a freelancer.
Working for Coursera and TED is a freelance voluntary work, I translate courses and talks for free.
What is your point then?
Nothing else. Do volunteering, help out the poor and disadvantaged.
Your academics and EC’s are good.
No need to help the poor or disadvantaged, unless you’re the son of a government official or privileged in some way - in which case, recongizing that privilege and using it as force for good+showing your ability to work with people from different faiths and social backgrounds than yours would be a plus. Anything that shows you’re a kind individual who treats others respectfully regardless of age, gender, socio-economic background, or faith, is expected. (And, yes, your online profile will be checked due to colleges having nasty surprises.)
You COULD spend some time helping girls and women’s empowerment or gay youth but that is kind of dangerous in Egypt.
So, now, devote a lot of time to your SAT prep and, possibly, find a way to be kind to others on a regular basis.
To help yourself more substantially, you should also investigate all US colleges, not just the ones you’ve heard of because everyone’s heard of them. Get a Fiske Guide or a Princeton review’s Best colleges (up to the 2015 edition is fine if you can’t find a new edition) and run through the descriptions, looking for a variety of acceptance rates.
As an international, the #1 factor will be how much your parents can pay, except for Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, and Amherst.
OP… read and absorb the last paragraph above. It’s key to getting in somewhere in the US: apply widely and intelligently (don’t pick just “famous” schools everyone else is applying to.)
Your chances are terrible. It’s simply because you’re applying to colleges that have a 5-7% acceptance rate. In computers, your degree is going to be employable no matter where you go. For an elite school, it might give you an initial bump in salary, but since you’re in an industry that relies on experience, it takes very little time for everyone else to catch up. Within 4 years, you’re going to be making about the same as everyone else.