will this hurt my chances at top schools?

<p>Im an international student from the philippines and i really want to go to brown/columbia.
i know its ambitious, but i have to ask....will this hurt my chances (disregard the "me being international")?</p>

<p>--well, my letter marks here in my school is B+, but in percentage...its 90-94%/100.
i did a little research and i found out that an A there in the US is actually 90-100%/100 (correct me if im wrong)</p>

<p>anyway, will this "B+" of mine hurt my chances? or do you guys think brown/columbia will know that a B+ in the philippines(or in my school) is 90-94%/100...or equivalent to an A in the USA?</p>

<p>Particularly as an international, a B+ is probably not going to change your application at all. For internationals it seems that one needs to have more than the super SAT scores, GPA, and EC’s. </p>

<p>As for the grading, it’s completely different in different places. Although 90 and 93 are the most common cut-off, it doesn’t mean much. A B+ in the Philippines is not an A in the US. I remember reading about a study that showed teachers grade based on their local grading scales. Therefore if a teacher was teaching somewhere where an A was a 90, and moved to somewhere where an A was a 93, the teacher may change his or her practices so that “90” work was now considered “93” work. </p>

<p>In part of Canada, an 80 is an A. This does not mean that an A in Canada is a B or C in the US (Although sometimes I wonder), it means that the grading scale is different.</p>

<p>Your guidance counselor is supposed to send in a school report along with their evaluation. This report gives lots of information about your school, including how grading works. Talk to your counselor and be sure that they include something that gives the percentage breakdowns for grading.</p>