A Few Questions.Extremely self-conscious right now.

lydia444
Fri, 19 Dec 2014 05:53:21 +0000

I’m currently a high school student in the states( holding H-4 visa). I went to elementary school in the city I live now. I do hold Chinese citizenship and will thus be put into one of the most competitive international applicants pool. I have a few questions regarding the admission process and my chances of getting in schools and hope the lovely CCers might be able to answer some of them…??? But really just want to talk so that I don’t stress myself out.
I applied to Rice ED, and got rejected( hurts a lot but is not devastating). Accepted by: Colorado school of mines( I live in Denver, CO), University of Denver. Deferred by: Case Western Reserve “because of my financial aid request”, oh well( frankly, I didn’t apply for much)

Stats and others:
SAT 2260, CR690, M800, W770 essay 10
SAT II: Chem 780, Math II 800
TOEFL: 114, SP/R/W:28, L:30
APs: APUS 4, AP Lan 4, AP Human Geo 5, AP Chem 5, AP Comp Sci 5, AP Chinese 5( only took for college credits, hope it doesn’t look bad)
I go to basically the best public high school in Denver metro area( it’s decent but definitely unlike those highly selective boarding schools)
GPA: 3.85/4.44 both will go up by about 0.1 if first semester grade of senior year is counted
Senior year course load: AP physics, Calc BC, AP econs, AP Lit, and Biology H. straight As in all of them so far.
class rank: top 5%. However my school doesn’t show class rank on the transcript anymore.( because of the size of the study body they say)

I’m still applying to top schools for RD, but not requesting for financial aid any more( really underestimated the impact that would bring, OUCH)
Rice says on its website it doesn’t give need-based aid for int. students applying for ED, but I accidentally sent them a CSS profile( it was stupid. don’t do it) I still have no clue if it has anything to do with the rejection.
I have a few other things going against me too.
I spent my freshman year in China under a different grading system. The credits were transferred, but only counted as pass/fail grades.
I don’t have any strong leadership. My sophomore year grades are not as strong and wasn’t filled with many challenging courses either. ( 2 honors classes, 4 CP/selectives and all As)
My state test(TCAP) scores are not so well either and they are on the transcript. Technically colleges don’t take them into consideration at all, but IDK really.

And here goes the questions:
Is it necessary for me to submit the original ninth grade score report?( it has horrible translation and might even be more confusing: “semester” is used meaning “school year”. And all I have is just a piece of A-4 paper)
At this moment, I have Northwestern, Wash U in St Louis, and U Michigan on my list. Because of getting rejected earlier by Rice, I feel like I don’t have much chance? Or am I just over thinking since there’s always a factor of luck and I might not get in whatsoever?
And also, is having a class rank on my transcript actually gonna help?
I’m always really outspoken and vocal in class. I received a number of years of education in US( I did include it in my essay as a part of my identity). Are those going to be advantages? and if so, how substantial the advantages will be?( will it make up for my weakness in other words)

In the end, thank you for your time to all that read the post