<p>I’m thinking of attending a university in Europe since I’m not too sure how successful I’ll be at getting into a selective school here with my grades that I currently have. I’m a high school sophomore and enrolled in Pre-IB courses. Freshman year. I averaged 2-3 Bs at the end of the semester. Sophomore year has been rough due to personal issues but I came out with 4 Bs the first semester and for the last one I’m looking at 5-6. (Yikes, I know.) I know with American colleges if they see you even have 2 Bs your chances are pretty much done. Are European schools different? Do they consider your grades as heavily as American universities? </p>
<p>Depends on where in Europe. In Great Britian, grades are basically the only thing used to determine admission. Since schools in the UK are not liberal arts, standardized tests such as the ACT and SAT mean nothing to them. They also don’t look at extracurriculars that don’t directly correlate with your intended major. If you want to major in a science, they want to see you get all As in your science and math classes and 700+ on SAT subject tests for science and math, and they couldn’t care less if you’ve never taken a history class, and vice versa. For example, Cambridge says applicants must have 5s on 5 AP tests in their subject area or 3 SAT IIs with score of 700 or higher in their intended major to be considered competitive. It’s almost impossible for American students to get into UK schools right after high school (ie, last year, Cambridge only had four American students enroll as freshman, and I think not many more than that had actually gotten admitted out of hundreds.) Unless you’ve been planning on attending a European university since the start of high school, it would probably be just as hard to get into a good European school as it would be to get into an even better American school. It’s an entirely different ball game, and it’s too late to look towards that option if you haven’t been planing for it. But that might strictly just be in Great Britian. Also, European universities are going to be extremely expensive to an out of EU student. Since college is pretty much socialized in lost of the EU, non-EU citizens have to pay an insane amount of money to access the education being funded for by others, and all British universities I’ve looked at give no financial aid to non-EU students. Even if you are an EU national (like I am), if you haven’t lived in the EU for at least two (I think) years, you don’t count as an EU student (darn rules, cost me like $16,000 a year). I hate to break it to you, but European schools are expensive and won’t give you aid at all and are more interested in grades for admission than American schools. You’ll definitely have better success applying to schools in the US than any European (at least UK) schools, so start looking for some schools in the US. Hope that helps!</p>
<p>To clarify a few points in the post above, in the UK GPA per se isn’t a big deal. What British universities usually want to see is high scores in AP exams and/or SAT subject tests as closely related as possible to the subject you plan to study. If you’re going to be doing the IB they will want you to get a certain score in the exams, but internal class grades will only factor insofar as they’re likely to predict your scores.</p>
<p>If you want to apply to the UK, for the most part, the only thing they’ll look at is your IB predicted/final grades, whichever is available. Unlike in America, however, you only get to apply to five British universities. Look into Sciences Po, maybe?</p>
<p>Right…for UK, if you are taking IB classes, they want to know your IB exam results and not your grades so much.</p>
<p>Here’s Cambridge, a school with an acceptance rate of 22%. If you look on page 7, you’ll see the acceptance rate of American students is only 7.8%. There are similar trends at other UK universities. American students aren’t really taught in a way that is conducive to the style of British universities. It might be worth a shot, but I would also apply to some safeties in the US. </p>
<p><a href=“Study at Cambridge | University of Cambridge”>Study at Cambridge | University of Cambridge;