American expat's chances!

TuniQueen
Tue, 04 Dec 2012 06:59:33 +0000

I am an American expat (moved to tunisia when I was 8. In case you don’t know tunisia, its a tiny country in north Africa)*
I want to know the differences, advantages and disadvantages of applying as an expat. Will I be compared to other applicants from my school or will I be compared to Americans?
I go to a distinguished public high school in Tunis (ranked number 1 in the country), and our curriculum is very different and difficult.*
Getting straight A’s is not very common because the curriculum is designed to be very difficult compared to other public schools in Tunis. How can I explain that to colleges?
I also want to know what my chances are*

SAT: 2050 (660 CR, 650 WR, 740 MT)
ACT: 29 (34 MT, 33 EN, 27 SC, 21 RD (very low I know))
SAT 2: 770 French, 780 physics, 790 math2
GPA: I don’t know how to translate my GPA
Class rank: sometimes 15th or 11th and other times 4th or 6th. It doesn’t really matter in my school because ALL of us were valecdorians in middle school. Competition is really really crazy.

Gender:*
female*

Ethnicity:
Native north African (I’m Berber, I know that term barbarian has a bad connotation, but barbarous is my ancestor and he was malicious but smart. I’m also part Arab, Turk, Persian…)
I’m literally African American but I’m not black so I guess it’s stupid to check African American

Awards:
-9th grade national exam award (I got admitted to my current hyper competitive high school, the acceptance rate in my middle school was 0,5%)*
-national literature olympiad, first place. (I wrote a very compelling essay in English)
-best female debater and among the top 3 debaters in Tunisia. (won the nationals and represented Tunisia in the IDEA international debate this summer in Mexico, I was an octofinalist! )
-Pi competition award (in my high school though. I memorized 500 digits for fun)
-second place in a general culture competition (also in school)

Extracurriculars:
-young Arab voices debate club (I spend so much time debating and competed on many levels)
On the national team
Would be the only high school student invited to WUDC! (worlds) Berlin 2013, to adjudicate*
-Pi club (I came up with the idea and ran mini competitions)
-ambidexterity club (I learned to be both handed. I am extremely obsessed about ambidexterity that I spent years perfecting parallel and mirror writing. I don’t know how colleges would see this. They might think I’m crazy, but I really believe that one handed people are handicapped. We have equal hands for equal purposes.)
-piano (played it for a couple of years. No huge awards)
-soccer team (just for fun, nothing big)
-Arabic calligraphy (my teacher thought I was gifted. I admire Arabic letters)
-TIMUN (debate debate debate)
-astronomy club

Work
-9th grade tutor for students who want to go to my school

Volunteer:
Ugh, does cleaning up the streets after a revolution count?

Life experiences:
I spent my whole life between California and tunisia. And even France.*
I learned second grade Arabic in 3 months when I was 8 and managed culture shock
I participated in the tunisian revolution, risked my life, jumped over tear gas bomb and escaped the police that tried to catch my father and I. It was a thrill and the BEST Experience of my life.
I was a prankster. A master mind ! (I’ve been really evil in middle school. I once messed with electronics and my whole school had to leave because the lights were off)*
Fluent in 3 languages and currently studying Chinese
I have friends everywhere in the world. I like to talk a lot. Great adaptation skills*
Obsessed with memorizing numbers (Pi means the world to me!) and parallel writing, literally obsessed.*
Memorized the periodic table of elements, their mass numbers and everything. (memory is among my strongest points)
I eat paper, newspapers, leaves and wood. (never knew why)*
I used to talk to inanimate objects because I thought that matter had some degree of consciousness.
I have an imaginary queendom but it’s in galaxy andromeda.*
I’m fun !

I LOVE math. I want to be an engineer or an astronaut (my childhood dream was to become the first Arab american girl astronaut

I want to apply to schools like Stanford, MIT (my dad was there), upen, brown, Columbia, berkely
I know my SAT score isn’t that good. But I only took it once. And i had to self study English for months because its my country’s 3rd language. I am infinite potential ! I would take a gap year if I don’t make it to top schools this year. Do I have a chance this year though?