<p>I have got a 2100 in my SAT1 and will be receiving my SAT2 marks shortly.
These are my high school marks:
9th grade:75%
10th grade:87%
11th grade:55%
12th grade: 66%</p>
<p>My marks have dropped in the last two years.
The counsellors at the college fair strongly suggested that I give an explanation for the downward trend.
The reason my marks have dropped that I used to study under the ICSE system till the 10th grade.It was a system which promoted ratioalisation and deep understanding of the matter at hand.
In the 11th and 12th grade I found the curicullum{HSC} very marks oriented which encouraged learning by rote. All the questions asked in exams had to be answered verbatim form the text to get marks,which is really dumb and annoying…
As high school marks are an important factor I wanted to explain the downward trend but did not know how to frame it. How should I convince the admission officers that I am a good student. I was afraid of sounding like someone who cannot adjust to a new system and makes excuses for her low rankings .
How should i convince them that I am a hard worker under a good system?</p>
<p>The only way that I think that you can explain that is by going to whatever college you can gain acceptance to and then doing very well there. Then, if you wish, you can transfer to a better college.</p>
<p>Adcoms don’t make decisions based on students’ promises. They make decisions based on the hard evidence that is in students’ applications. Grades particularly are important since the best predictor of college grades is students’ high school grades. </p>
<p>I also doubt that most of the people in your class have such low grades, so it will be hard for you to convince adcoms that a bad system is why your grades are weak.</p>
<p>an adcom told me that I should be honest about it and state that I made the best of what I had… thats not too convincing right??
also should I get the teacher to state in her recommendation letter that I made the best of what I had?</p>
<p>Hopefully that’s not by American grading system… because then I’d be impressed that you will even graduate. If this is really by US grading system, I would suggest forego 4-year college and go to a 2-year college to bring up the grades.</p>
<p>I would also submit an example of what you were being asked of in order to get those marks since I’m not quite getting this…</p>
<p>those grades are by indian standards i assume. They are not bad for indian grades because an 80-85 in india is equal to a 100 in the US. High school is extermely hard in India. Make sure your principal writes a strong letter stating how hard the grading policy is and stating what the rest of the class usually averages. Also have your principal explain what the ICSE and HSC systems are becuase there are no such educational systems in the US. By the way, what are your induvidual scores for the sat 1 (breakdown by section).</p>
<p>the scores i have recieved are from indians schools.
my SAT1:verbal:610
math:780
writing:710</p>
<p>cool prachi and u need not worry …there is a solution…just write the class average and a ranking u get on a school letterhead and it will be fine…</p>
<p>ive asked the teacher [of the 11-12th grade]add in the recommendation letter:
talthough the garding policies and teaching methods are different in my 9-10th and 11-12th,yet i have scored more than most of the students…
does that statemnt give the impression that the 11-12th school was k and the 9-10th the correct way of evaulating my abilities?</p>