<p>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</p>
<p>Hi guys - anybody out there following the Ashes?</p>
<p>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…</p>
<p>@ 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</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Anyhow, okay, I have a few questions:</p>
<p>If I apply Early Action to Yale, say, will my ATAR (<em>gag at new name) be sent in?
Because the deadline is November 1, but the ATAR (</em>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…</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>That being said… also, pretty much EVERYONE who posts on this site seem to be incredible applicants… Would anybody mind ‘chancing’ me?</p>
<p>These are the places I’m looking at: (I know they’re crazy competiive places, but I can dream, can’t i? =])</p>
<ul>
<li>Yale University (Early Action)</li>
<li>University of Pennsylvania (Regular)</li>
<li>Cornell University (Regular)</li>
<li>Northwestern University (Regular)</li>
<li>University of Chicago (Regular)</li>
<li>University of Michigan, Ann Arbor</li>
</ul>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>I really doubt any of the Aussies studying in the states will have any access to the Ashes coverage rorschahman. :)</p>
<p>haha kittikhun thats what I thought… i was like BAULKO haha. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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 :(</p>
<p>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…</p>
<p>yarr im a korean who studied in australia for 8 years :)</p>
<p>what the hell is ATAR though haha i have no clue</p>
<p>ATAR is the new UAI. freaking eeew. now people can’t get 100UAI, the max is 99.95… they dumbed it down. TOT</p>
<p>What?! We’ve always had 99.95 as the maximum over here… ;x</p>
<p>Score choice, as far as I know, is that you can choose which SAT sitting to send in. Like, you can sit it 5 times, but you can choose just one to send. Bit dumb, but hey.</p>
<p>Your ECs are great because they sort of show some focus. As I said before, I don’t believe in chances. =P Since all of this is a huge lottery anyway. You’re as competitive as they come, and if you write a killer essay, I’m sure you’ll have a decent chance.</p>
<p>Also, your SATs are fine. A 2230 is quite respectable. But with score choice, I guess there’s no harm taking em again. I’d also strongly suggest the ACT. Much easier. =P</p>
<p>Rest of Australia, yeah?
I wouldn’t be as annoyed if they hadn’t dumped it on us in the MIDDLE of our HSC…
What happened to forwarning etc.?
- I feel bad for the people in our grade who would’ve gotten 100s…
Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank… sigh. Everyone except Queensland’s got it now.</p>
<p>So that’s score choice? I thought you had to report ALL you scores, for EVERY sitting in your application? Never knew it was voluntary…</p>
<p>Thanks about my ‘chance’, it’s sweet of you to say that… I’m not too worried about the essay, I come across pretty well in my writing, I figure that’s how I got published, lol…
But my year9~11 transcript is really, really, bad… ahwell. nothing i can do now.</p>
<p>But amen to that lottery thing, admission to Ivies is crazy…</p>
<p>Yeah, I’ll take the SATs again in December, probs…</p>
<p>Is ACT really that much easier?</p>
<p>You used to have to report all your scores, but I remember them changing it very recently. I’m not 100%, but I’m quite sure that’s what score choice is.</p>
<p>I found the ACT much easier. The SAT seems to focus more on “natural knowledge”, which is a whole load of crap because all the american kids spend hours prepping for it. The ACT focuses more on “studied knowledge”, so more on stuff that you do in school; so I think it’s better for internationals whose academic life doesn’t have the same focus on these tests.</p>
<p>You don’t have to spend hours pouring over vocabulary and stuff like that.</p>
<p>I didn’t prepare for my tests so take my results with a grain of salt. I got 2110 on the SAT.
(Offtopic, but I hate writing. =P
“Let’s see…correct this sentence…Okay. A is bad…B is bad…C is bad…D is bad…must be E then. Hold on a second…E is bad too!”)
And I got a 35 on the ACT, which converts to around 2350 on the SAT.</p>
<p><em>shrug</em> Maybe I just got lucky. But I’d take the ACT over the SAT any day.</p>
<p>yeahh i didnt even know you could do ACT in australia ahah
sucks to me for not researching properly</p>
<p>Haha, I didn’t know either actually.</p>
<p>I just went to the local american international school for my SAT, then I saw the students there with an ACT book too! So…2+2 and… xD</p>
<p>Also, for the sake of my dignity. A 35 on the ACT converts to a 2360! …yeah.</p>
<p>2360!!! woww… how’s ACT different from SAT?
because the writing section really pulls me down…</p>
<p>If you do the ACT you will probably need to do their essay section anyways, most schools require it if you want to take the ACT instead, or like you take the ACT without writing and then the SAT subject test that has writing in it, but I could be completley bullcrapping here. I did the SATs only cause I couldn’t be bothered to go out to the American School and do the ACT, besides science psh. and Hey I prepped for the SATs and I self studied so I am pretty happy. I spent hours pouring over those books though, had SOOOO many, but yeah alot of US kids have SAT prep, like tutors and stuff which you CAN get here, at least in Sydney but its SUPER expensive, I spent less on the books then I would have on one prep course here. </p>
<p>But I got 2210 and still got into some decent schools, okay maybe not ivies, but I didn’t really want to GO to the ivies and my grades weren’t exactly THAT stellar.</p>
<p>Uhh yeah. Most schools want you to do the ACT with writing.</p>
<p>The ACT is nicer in that it has science. But one mistake pulls your marks down by a number–that is, if you make 1 mistake, your mark for that section is 35, if you make 2, it’s 34. That goes on till like, 30 or something.</p>
<p>But that said, there are 4 sections, and I found it slightly easier. So…=P No harm trying if you have the money/time, I guess.</p>
<p>And you can use sparknotes to look it over too.</p>
<p>science!??!?! i dropped that ASAP, back in yr 11.
i think i’ll stick with SATs… lol.
ahwell. cbb to study for ANOTHER kind of test anyhows.
i gotta sit the LNATS in september too… TOT
tQ for info though…</p>
<p>Hey guys I’ve been offered a cadetship position with KPMG and now I’m so confused as to what I want to do 
A cadetship is where you do a commerce degree while getting a paid salary from kpmg because you’re doing part-time study/work for 4 years and at the end of it you wok with them for 2 yrs to get your CA prof qualifications. The thing is you have to sign a contract and you cnat bakc out of it after it starts (Feb 2010) but I only find out aboput US uni decisions in Apr. And I’ve done some SATs and registered to do more! Anyone in similar situation??</p>