<p>Hello,
I'm currently a student in HS with a 4.0 GPA and I'm taking 5 out of my 7 classes next year as AP classes. I just moved in from South America and it troubles me a little that the American colleges appreciate very much students with ECs and those who belong to clubs and Honors Societies and such things. And besides that I just got the results from my first SAT and got 1670. I will surely take it once or twice again to hopefully raise my score.</p>
<p>The first question is: does taking online courses on edX and coursera help me in the college application? Do this courses count as ECs? The main problem I think I might be facing is that because of the fact that I just got to the US I haven't been able to do any ECs.
I have taken although a course in human rights for peacekeeping, a course in international human rights, a course in economics and will be taking shortly another one in justice and law and some other courses.</p>
<p>Second question is: does speaking more than one language help me out with college applications?
The thing is that I speak already Spanish, Portuguese, English and French fluently and took 3 years of Chinese classes before coming to the US.</p>
<p>I got my eye on University of California, University of South California and New York univeristy.
Any help will be appreciated, please!</p>
<p>Oh, and besides that, I’ve just started my own website focused on healthy practices for a healthy heart. I don’t know if that would help too.</p>
<p>Online Courses do not count as EC’s as far as I am aware? I think speaking more than one language is great, but I am not sure it’s going to be any type of “game changer” for an admissions officer, and I do not even know if it is part of the application process actually lol. </p>
<p>Your GPA is great, but you really need to promote yourself with EC’s or sports. Even if you brought up your SAT score to the 1900 range, it would still be difficult to get into a school such as NYU. As for UC, it depends on which UC school you apply to (UCLA, UCSD, UCSF, UCB,etc.). Your minority status will help you out a bit, but at this stage, what would really matter are teacher recommendations and fantastic essays. The UC schools especially have many minority applicants of Latino descent.</p>
<p>It’s a bit difficult to tell what you’re interested in based on the courses you’re taking and your website. Since you have taken a course in HR peacekeeping and International HR, I’m assuming you’re interested in international affairs? In that case, your website wouldn’t be of much assistance to the application, but it could be a nice tool if you were applying to say a medical institution at one of the schools.</p>
<p>1) Online courses don’t really count as extracurriculars in most people’s eyes.
2) Speaking more than one language certainly boosts your chances a little.</p>
<p>You’re going to need an SAT score much higher than 1670 to get into USC, NYU, UCLA, or UC Berkeley. Unless you can attain at least 2000, you may be out of luck. However, look into some of the lower UC schools; you could always apply there and then transfer to a better school after a year or two.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>