<p>@alafae – the elite schools in the US take students who are at the very top of their class – they are looking for students in the top 5% or better; they rarely will consider students who aren’t at least in the top 10%. When they do consider students with slightly weaker grades, it’s because of some sort of “hook” – for example, a recruited athlete. </p>
<p>There are a lot of intangibles in your application and it’s not really possible for for anyone here to evaluate chances accurately. For example, you’ve said that you have won international awards in music… but we don’t know what those awards are or whether they would be particularly impressive to the college admissions departments – nor do we know how well you really play. Did you win those awards a soloist? or were you part of an ensemble that won a group award? There are many different opportunities for young people to perform and compete internationally, but some awards are more prestigious than others – and awards that may be considered very prestigious in Hong Kong may not be as well regarded in the U.S.</p>
<p>You’ve started half a dozen different “chances” threads and you’ve made a variety of different claims and representations about your GPA.</p>
<p>Again, I don’t see any harm in your applying ED,-- it’s just that the chances of acceptance seem very slim. But if you get rejected you are no worse off than if you don’t apply at all. </p>
<p>It is NOT NECESSARY for any students in the US to apply ED anywhere. The vast majority of US college applicants do NOT apply ED. It’s something you read about a lot on CC, but the people who post on CC aren’t representative of the majority of applicants. </p>
<p>Just make sure that you have a list of backup schools that includes some that are not as daunting for admission. I am sure that there are universities in the US that will accept you – there are definitely many universities that will be impressed with your test scores and will give greater weight to them. It’s just not likely to happen at the elite schools where most other applicants have similar scores. </p>