<p>GPA:
I live in Australia, we dont get GPAs we get UAI, my estimate is 99.55... (does anybody know what that would be for a GPA? thanks for that)</p>
<p>Achievements
Year 12
* The 36th International Physics Olympiad - Silver Medal
* 2005 UNSW 44th Annual School Mathematics Competition - High Distinction </p>
<p>Year 11
* invited to the Physics and Informatics australian olympiad training camps
* 2004 Australian Economics Competition - Prize Winner
* 2004 UNSW High Schools Programming Competition - 7th in Australia</p>
<p>extracurricular
* Computer Program Club - Club Leader
* Volunteering services to elderly people on weekends in the retirement village
* Member of the Australia Army Cadets
* Playing school badminton, hockey and touch football teams</p>
<p>random stuff
* Duke of Edinburgh: probably get silver soon
* Pass with Honours in Speech in Action level 6
* Wrote my own scripting language
* Want to become Super Saiyan level 5 (lol)</p>
<p>applying for: CIT, MIT, havard, yale, princeton, stanford
career aspiration: research in science+computing, want to create some cool science and computing stuff</p>
<p>Thanks a lot for replying.
By the way, which university would I have more chance in? And what should I focus on in my essay?</p>
<p>You already know you've got good stats, dude. If you lived here, you'd have great chances. I don't know the rates for each school individually, but we'll assume the ivies have around 10-15% admission, and international students make up 5-10% of the class, so about 1% of the applicant pool is admitted international students (sorry for the weird wording). I don't know how many people from other countries apply, so I don't know what percent is admitted, but from this crude formula, 1 is a very low number.</p>
<p>If you want to go into hard sciences, your best choices are CIT, MIT and Stanford. Princeton, Harvard and Yale are prestigious, but they don't focus on sciences as much (except Yale is big for biology). They're rich, though: HUGE endowments. I'd say you have the best chance at MIT, maybe CIT and Stanford (what a coincidence :) ).</p>
<p>I'm not you, so I can't tell what to focus on with the essay. You have to pick something you really care about.</p>
<p>wow. perfect SAT I, high GPA, and IPhO, that is really really impressive. You obviously have high chances to getting into those schools you've mentioned, but one drawback might be that you may appear to be a mere bookworm. Other than your physics and programming achievement, there isn't really anything that stands out and says something about yourself. Make sure you write a stellar essay. I hope you will get into those schools! =D</p>
<p>P.S. don't you need to take new SATs? I thought the colleges now wanted the new SATs from the applicants.</p>
<p>I say you have a pretty good chance, but many schools only take so many internationals. If you were American, you would obviously be in at those schools, but since you are Australian, your chances decrease significantly.</p>
<p>For example, Darkseeker (i think that is the name) form Taiwan won two IMO gold medals (a perfect score last year), but even his chances were relatively low because he is an international.</p>
<p>thanks! I was also sort of worried, since I saw heaps of international people here, and they all have pretty scary credentials (model UN, international competitions)... it looks like USA is a people magnet. Well, you have put some hope back into me. </p>