| | | 
11-10-2012, 09:54 PM
|
#1 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Nov 2012
Posts: 59
| International Student Chances
Mixed 17 year old female. Living in Hong Kong, half Malaysian half German. - First language english
Attending high ranking private school, using the English A level system.
SAT : Taking in January
A Levels : Taking next year, will be taking German, Chinese, Mathematics, Geography and History
IGCSEs :
Chinese A*
Geography A
ICT A
English Literature A*
English First Language A
Mathematics A
Biology A
Physics A
German A* + Orals A
Class Ranking : N/A, but out of 80 students maybe 70 of us get straight A/A*s, so I suppose we are a very competitive school
ECs : School Horse riding "A" Team 4 years ( placed top 3 of 14 teams 3 times ), School Newspaper (2 years, feature writer), Tutoring Ethnic Minority children (2 years), School Squash Team (2 Years), HKAYP (Duke of Edinburgh, Bronze Award), Committee Member of Shark Project (joined with external Hong Kong Shark Foundation), Student Leader on a charity library building trip to rural China, SCMP (Main English newspaper in Hong Kong [South China Morning Post]) Reporters Club member, Participated in a School Building trip to rural Thailand last year [Golden Triangle Area] - may have more to add below
Volunteering : included in ECs above + Flag selling on various occasions, as well as numerous charity walks/sponsored events + helping out at various functions in an out of school charity founded by the mother of a friend who passed away due to an Orphan disease
Work Experience : Likely going to intern at a major law firm + newspaper [SCMP] next summer. May be working part time at Hollister starting next month, will be continuing for the next year/2 years
Awards : Duke Of Edinburgh Bronze Award (HKAYP)
Course Load : Quite large, although in my school majority have large work loads [in comparison to other HK schools]. Taking 5 A Levels
Notes : My school has a strong history of sending students to Colleges/Unis such as Harvard, Brown, LSE [ London School of Economics] , HKU [Hong Kong University] etc.
-Was accepted into the Stanford summer course this past summer, but parents were not able to fund it (not sure if this means anything)
-Run a successful fashion blog (17k+ regular viewers)
-Last report card was mainly Bs, not as good as I'd hoped but I think it was largely due to stress [parents were laid off, we have had quite a bit of economical instability, had to move house to smaller/cheaper location etc]
- Essay writing skills are strong, I read a lot, have done for a very long time
-May have a few ECs to add, some positions I applied for are still pending ; Year Book Committee and MUN Press Corps
-Parents built everything from nothing, grew up in poverty, sent themselves to obscure Unis, I will be the first of my family to have a good chance of going to a reputable Uni/College
-Have not yet decided what I want to major in, but I've been swaying towards Law/Journalism for a long time
Hoping to Apply :
Columbia (dream)
Cornell
UPenn
Kings College London [UK] (2nd dream)
NYU (3rd dream)
Duke
Northwestern
LSE [UK]
ICL (Imperial College London)[UK]
Stanford (long shot for anyone, right?)
(the list is still growing as I do more and more research)(will be narrowing down later on)
-High School graduation year 2014
Please please please let me know what you think, and how I may improve in order to better my chances. Also, I would be happy to give you more information, if you would request it.
University is all I ever think about now, so please chance me! I would love to be more active in bettering my chances! Thank you!
Last edited by mschm95; 11-10-2012 at 10:00 PM.
| 
| Reply
| |
11-11-2012, 01:54 AM
|
#2 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Nov 2012
Posts: 59
|
BUMP!
PLEASE CHANCE ME, help me out!  | |
| Reply
| |
11-11-2012, 09:09 PM
|
#3 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Nov 2012
Posts: 59
|
Bump! Pleeeaaaassseee
| |
| Reply
| |
11-11-2012, 09:41 PM
|
#4 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: MA
Posts: 171
|
Frankly, you sound like an outstanding student, who'd be in the top 5-10% in the better schools in the US. (This is an estimate based on what you said above, of course.)
Have you taken the SAT? It will be very important for you to take the SAT in order to support this assessment. If you get (for example) 2200+, you should be competitive in most of the top schools. That doesn't mean you'll get in, of course, since in some schools only a few of the highly qualified applicants are admitted.
As to improvement: if you want to go into law or journalism, become a stellar writer. Read a lot, write a lot. Make sure your essays demonstrate your strengths in this area.
Hope this helps.
| |
| Reply
| |
11-12-2012, 04:22 AM
|
#5 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Nov 2012
Posts: 59
|
Thank you so much for your response, and I'm so glad to hear what you had to say!
I will be taking my SATs in January, and I'm hoping for 2200+
I was very worried as most of the chance threads are different systems to mine, so they're difficult to compare to mine. Thank so much!
I'd love to hear what anyone else has to say!
| |
| Reply
| |
11-12-2012, 08:43 AM
|
#6 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: MA
Posts: 171
|
Glad it was helpful.
In case you don't already know: you should get the SAT prep books (a 2400 scorer I asked recommends the Kaplan books AND the "official" prep book from College Board), and do many practice tests. Do at least 15, more is better. And do them under the same kind of time constraints, try to simulate the test environment.
Good luck!
| |
| Reply
| |
11-12-2012, 08:29 PM
|
#7 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Nov 2012
Posts: 59
|
Thank you!
| |
| Reply
| |
11-14-2012, 03:12 AM
|
#8 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Nov 2012
Posts: 59
|
i'd love for more opinions!
| |
| Reply
| |
11-19-2012, 09:40 PM
|
#9 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Nov 2012
Posts: 59
|
Bump again
| |
| Reply
| |
11-20-2012, 08:09 AM
|
#10 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Nov 2012
Posts: 59
|
looking for as many opinions as possible!
| |
| Reply
| |
11-20-2012, 08:30 AM
|
#11 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Northern California
Posts: 1,806
|
You said that your school has a number of students with high grades, making your rank low. This will be an impediment to your chances.
Your ECs are all over the place, which also does not help. Nonetheless, if you do get the 2200 SATs, I would call it as the following
Columbia - Reach
Cornell - High Match
UPenn - Reach
Kings College London [UK] (2nd dream) - I dont rate non-US schools
NYU (3rd dream) - Match
Duke - Reach
Northwestern - Match
LSE [UK] - See below
ICL (Imperial College London)- I dont rate non-US Schools
Stanford - High Reach
(the list is still growing as I do more and more research)(will be narrowing down later on)
| |
| Reply
| |
11-20-2012, 08:34 AM
|
#12 | | New Member
Join Date: Nov 2012
Posts: 2
|
i have 1080 sat score pretty bad but i gave it the first time can i get into any uc plz help me more can my personal statement help there was alot of struggle that why i have low sat plz help me fast
| |
| Reply
| |
11-20-2012, 09:16 AM
|
#13 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Northern California
Posts: 1,806
|
Jasdave, you need to start your own thread with much more detailed information like how/what everyone else has supplied.
| |
| Reply
| |
11-20-2012, 07:20 PM
|
#14 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Nov 2012
Posts: 59
|
Thank you bubbles for sale. About my ECs, what do you mean by they are all over the place? How do you suggest I improve on them? Thank you so much for taking the time to read and reply
| |
| Reply
| |
11-22-2012, 08:34 AM
|
#15 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Nov 2012
Posts: 59
|
bumping yet again
| |
| Reply
| All times are GMT -4. The time now is 09:42 AM. |
