Ruby_x3

Hmm very quiet in the aussie thread. Are you people getting ready for the states at the end of August? time flys!

Well i went to the annual tertiary expo here in Brisbane today annnnnnd i can't believe I actually thought there would be overseas universities. :P I expected there to be none but i was still semi hoping and believing that maybe some US uni's would be there, since it is the biggest teritiary expo there is and it did say in the ad that uni's from 'overseas' would be there but noooo. The only one that i would call overseas is a Switzerland hotel college. The other ones are 2 NZ uni's. My friends and I looked sooo retarded, we were literally the only ones that got brochures and booklets from this many uni's and had like 6 bags full each. It was ridiculous and painful to carry and everyone was staring at us. :P We had to carry it back to the train station too. I talked to the student ambassador of USyd for a while, he was very enthusiastic about the uni and the opportunities it had. When I asked about student life he said 'that's a whole other speech i can do'. haha. I also asked about UMelb and the newly revamped curriculum that mirrored that of an American one. The guy said it focuses less on specialisation in the early years and more on breadth of study in that you could do a range of other subjects to broaden your knowledege. It didn't sound that different because you still had to choose one of the 6 degree programs when you enter, do that for 3 years and go on to grad school. Some of the programs I asked about didn't even need grad school so you're basically still specialising in those 3 years.

Funny how ANU are ranked no.1 but UMelb said they're ranked no.1.

st.g.i.dragons

sorry i was on hols for a week

rankings are unreliable. uni is what you make of it (or so i've heard)

beeish

end of august? try middle of august haha.

I move in on August 19 and start school August 24. yes we are retardedly early I do know that.

I agree with st.g.i.dragons whats good for some people is completley wrong for others, rankings are bull crap

st.g.i.dragons

I fly to NY on the 20th and start internationanl orientation on 24th and start school 31th D

beeish

New York? Isn't your uni in mass.?

st.g.i.dragons

yeah but my nanna and great uncle etc is in NY. so ill be there for 4 days before greyhounding it up to Worcester in mass

rorschachman

Hi guys - anybody out there following the Ashes?

sora2712

Hi everyone: I had no idea there'd be other Aussies here!!
Is there anybody applying to the Ivies, 2014?
I'd love some advice/rant sessions...

st.g.i.dragons

@ sora. we've been here a while. welcome
read some stuff we talked about before, it will explain almost everything you might have in question haha
if not, ask away we'll do our best to help ya

sora2712

thanks, st.g.i.dragons...
i've just trawled through ALL the posts, lol, and i picked up somewhere you were Korean-Australian too? Or maybe that was somewhat else. lol.

Anyhow, okay, I have a few questions:

If I apply Early Action to Yale, say, will my ATAR (*gag at new name) be sent in?
Because the deadline is November 1, but the ATAR (*shudder again) is released mid-December...
I'm worried about this because my school's a public-selective, consistently ranking second in state, or thereabouts, so my 'ranking' and 'general grades' aren't as high as might be expected...

Also, what is the 'score choice' in SAT? Does this mean you can choose the scores from each section of the SAT and combine them to present your best overall SAT score?

That being said... also, pretty much EVERYONE who posts on this site seem to be incredible applicants... Would anybody mind 'chancing' me?

These are the places I'm looking at: (I know they're crazy competiive places, but I can dream, can't i? =])

- Yale University (Early Action)
- University of Pennsylvania (Regular)
- Cornell University (Regular)
- Northwestern University (Regular)
- University of Chicago (Regular)
- University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Background: Female Korean-Australian with Australian Citizenship.
(Lived in Australia for 16 years, came here when I was one and a half)
School: Competitive-ness wise, my school's ranked second in the state? Our median rank for those graduating is usually within the top 1% of all students in the state...
No idea how this'll work for me though, since it's an Australian school.

Obviously no GPAs or AP courses, because of Australian curriculum.
SAT1: 770CR, 770M, 690W (def. will retake, expect 2300-ish next time)
SAT2: Will take Literature, Maths2 and Korean... I suppose I'll have to get 800 on all.

ECs etc...
-Volleyball Team: 4/5 years.
-Basketball Team: 3 years.
-Silver Duke of Edinburgh.
-Attended Saturday Korean School for 9 years.
-Have a variety of awards from Korean Consulate... cbb to list them all.
-One of 10 students from Australia accepted into a Cultural Scholarship Program to Korea in year 10.
-Came third place in state-wise essay contest in year 10.
-Came first place in a global essay competition in year 11.
-Am published, and editor of a book on ethnic experiences. (Can anyone tell me how useful this sort of thing is?)
-Peer Support Leader
-Volunteer as Peer Reader
-Member of School Tutorial Service
-Currently doing an online Biology course with Northwestern University.
-Completed 2 terms of a Community College Course on (Chinese) Mandarin.

I know my ECs aren't much, and I will definitely pull up my SATs... but do I have a chance at all? A realistic one?

Thanks in advance.

kittikhun

Let me guess sora2712 you go to Baulkaum Hills High School? What global essay competition did place first in? That would have felt awesome to have won.

I really doubt any of the Aussies studying in the states will have any access to the Ashes coverage rorschahman.

beeish

haha kittikhun thats what I thought... i was like BAULKO haha.

Sora2712.... if you apply Early Action your ATAR won't be sent in because they will probably make the decision before you even get your ATAR i.e. if I remember correctly aren't most decisions made in December? But you'll probably need your predicted ATAR and your final results i.e. your school marks. I had a deadline November 30 and December 1st last year so thats what I did, but since they weren't EA or ED I just sent in my HSC results when I got them, cause they are your final transcripts.

Yeah I had the same problem as you with the rankings, as did most people here, you can probably find a rant or two about it somewhere in this thread (mostly by me haha) but don't worry about it, get your careers advisor or someone in your school to write a letter explainging what the school is, like the selective system it is likely your school already has a form letter for this written cause they would have had kids apply to US schools before, I know my school did and we were ranked (slightly) lower then you. My rank was like 45/160 and I still managed to get into two pretty competitive schools (admit rates ~21%) true I got rejected from both Ivies I applied to BUT I didn't really want to go there so I don't think my heart was really in the applications.

Can't help you with the score choice thing cause thats a new thing, didn't start until AFTER I'd finished taking the SATs

sora2712

rofl, good guess... I should've just said top 3, then it'd have been more ambiguous.
ahwell..
damn, I was relying on my ATAR... because at this rate, only about 7 of my units will be above 90% in my school report... and I know I'll be able to get at least 98 ATAR, no matter how badly I do... EURGHHHH.
Nah, I don't think anybody from my school's applied to an overseas uni before, because they didn't have an explanatory letter ready when I asked for one, when I was applying to the Northwestern Uni online course... Our school's pretty new, selective-wise... 10 years-ish?
@kittikhun: err, i forget... something like the Global Rev. Ham Suk-Hyun Essay Contest?? It was the first time it was held, it's the reason I got published and am even applying to American Universities... sighh.
I was only told that I'd be applying to these unis around 7/8 months ago? Talk about short notice...

st.g.i.dragons

yarr im a korean who studied in australia for 8 years

what the hell is ATAR though haha i have no clue

sora2712

ATAR is the new UAI. freaking eeew. now people can't get 100UAI, the max is 99.95... they dumbed it down. TOT