<p>Hi. I am a student from Portugal. I study in a public school in Amadora, a suburb of Lisbon, Portugal's capital. I would like someone to comment on my chance of getting into Yale.
My school is public school (non-international), so i have taken the normal education everyone gets around here, no IB, no AP or honors. Anyways, i'm always looking for the best.</p>
<p>I have won 2 merit awars for grades: Best Amadora student, for 9th grade, and Best School student, for 10th grade. I'm in 12th grade and they haven't announced the winner for the last 11th grade.
My GPA is 18,1 (in a scale of 20) and I am (since 11th grade results havent come out), ranked 1st in a class of about 350. Despite my GPA, my grade in Maths and Physics is 20 out of 20. I help all my class mates (and not only) actively in order to help them improve their grades.
Since my english learning has been of a basic level (the mandatory), I scored 540 in Crittical Reading, 770 in Math (98%) (my strong point), and 600 in Writting, in SAT I. I'm taking the SAT II in Maths II and Physics the next week and im looking forward to score 750+ on both.
I've competed in Maths Olympiads for the last 5 years, going to the national stage once and regional stage 3 times. Also I've competed in Physics Olympiads twice (they only occur once every 2 years), and competed at national stage. Participated in many other mathematics minor competitions.
I've participated in Chemestry Science Fair, and attended to several Masterclasses and lectures about Physics, in universities.
I have already been in two science trips (payed by myself), one to NASAs space camp, in Turkey, and other to CERN, in Switzeland.
As you can see my real passion is Science, and more specificly Physics.
I've won 1st, 3rd and 4th places in 100m sprint athletics, at school level, for the last years, and won 5th place at regional level.
Besides that, I've been playing piano for 5 years, and practised Muay Thai for 1 year, having participated, respectively, in a piano concert, and a real Kickboxing competition. This year i am also cooperator in a list for school's student association.
Ah almost forgot, In 10th grade is was elected to be the representative of my class year, among about 400 students.
How you see my chances of being accepted?
There are not many like me here in Portugal...</p>
<p>I know, but you think i dont have any chance? Wont they consider i have never had deep english learning? Most english i learned was through internet to be honest. It would be kinda hard to be rejected because of my non-perfect english profeciency, despite all the rest. Looking forward to recieve more comments :)</p>
<p>Your critical reading and writing scores are simply too low. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up only to be disappointed. There are may international kids who score higher in English. English is generally the most important subject in high school.</p>
<p>I think what people are trying to say is that Yale likes students who already are proficient in English. They would rather spend their time discussing the subtleties of the language in a piece of work than provide a standard education in english to international students before they are able to write lengthy papers. Yale is a liberal arts college first even though it offers the sciences. This means it values students who are proficient in english prior to becoming students.</p>
<p>That said, everyone DOES have a chance… If you really want, spend the money to apply but it may very well be in vain.</p>
<p>You are talking about one of the most selective colleges in the country, so the competition from other Intl. applicants is very strong, particularly given the fact that Y gives need based FA to Intl. students.</p>
<p>While some consideration may be given to applicants who do not speak English as their first language, it would be for scores more up in the 600+ range. With your score, adcoms will be concerned about you being able to succeed in high level coursework with lots of reading.</p>
<p>^ +1. Without more proficiency in reading and writing English, you would not be successful at the top tier colleges since you will be required to write and critically read at a very high level. With the exception of an occasional idiom, I don’t recall my international classmates being at all limited in English fluency or reading ability. For some, English was not a second language but their third. As Entomom wrote, Yale’s nearly unique position to meet all financial need to internationals gives it the ability to cherry pick the strongest 100-150 international applicants applying in the world. Your scores (and writing) will be problematic.</p>