<p>Hi everyone. I'm currently experiencing a lot of confusion regarding US colleges, and would be eternally grateful if you could help me sort it out. :)</p>
<p>So, I'm a swedish high school student that's aiming to study in the US for college, which is in two years. I think I'd be considered a sophomore going by the american system, since I just started my second year and high school here is only three years in total.</p>
<p>Alright, so here's my problem. I have absolutely no idea how this works. Up until last year our grade-system consisted of "Failed", "Well done", "Very well done", and "Excellent", roughly translated. We just recently switched to A-F, so I have no idea how to calculate my GPA or anything like that, since that isn't used here either. We also have 9 subjects a year, where three of them are languages (swedish, english, spanish). AP-courses don't exist here, either. High school clubs are very rare, but there's always the option of starting one.
I am completely lost. Looking at people in this thread and on google in general that are from the US and are taking a lot of AP-courses in diverse subjects, are in a lot of high school offered clubs and have 4.0 unweighted GPA is making me feel like there's not even a point to me dreaming about this, since I compared to them have accomplished a lot less. Not to mention the transition with the grade-system in my freshman year along with along with issues at home basically brought my grades down a whole lot. I either got B's or D's. Though I am fluent in four languages currently and I'm taking the only advanced course there is, and that's in english. Getting excellent grades from this point on I know isn't that hard for me, but last year sadly was one of the hardest years of my life (a lot of horrible things happened) which resulted in my freshman grades taking a major hit.</p>
<p>Anyway, I'd be really grateful if someone could help set this straight for me. Is it pointless for me to apply? My top choices were UC-schools, mainly UCLA, but that is looking more and more like a pipe dream to me. Do I even have a shot, and if so, what is it that I have to do?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
there are a few Scandinavian students here on CC with awesome stats, but I don’t know whether they’re representative of the pool of applicants you’ll be competing with - yes, you don’t need to compare yourself to US students as you will be compared to those from your region, generally speaking. As for admission, sophomore grades aren’t useful, colleges consider your junior and senior gpa, so try to accommodate to New grading system and to do well (I mean get mainly As.with just a few Be at.most) next year. take SAT early enough to be able to write it again - to us internationals it’s harder because we aren’t familiar with the format of it, whereas US students are exposed to it all the time. next, do you need FA? UCLA does not give any aid to intls, as most unis in CA, with an exception to Pomona and one more I guess (but I don’t remember which one sorry). remember that ECs play a big role in US admissions - whereas some educational differenties may be excused by your being international, engagement may not. It’s not that US schools find their students ECs, this works the same as anywhere else, they find it by themselves. the only difference is that, comparing to Europe, they have rather more free time to it! Good luck with your application, everything is possible, just give it a try