<p>hello, everyone! it’s me, the poo cleaner from korea, if you’ll remember.</p>
<p>courseload, courseload. nearly all the prospective applicants seem to talk about it, but does it really hold any significant importance? i hope not, because this doesn’t apply for me. everyone in korea has to take the same classes:(</p>
<p>also, if i have a nice nice GPA and a **** **** rank(ultrahyperspsycho competitive korean high school), should i just kind of fail to mention my rank on my application?? or make sad excuses somewhere on my essay?</p>
<p>If there are only a certain set of courses offered at your HS, Columbia will see that and take into account the fact that you took the only courseload offered to you. However, it may be good to supplement that with self-studied APs, or classes taken elsewhere if possible.</p>
<p>You can’t not mention your rank; if you HAVE a rank and you KNOW your rank, it’s mandatory to mention it.</p>
<p>Sad excuses are never a plus. Also, if your HS is really that competitive, the college will see THAT too. Essays are not the place for excuses, really.</p>
<p>i self studied five APs and got 5s, but how will they know whether or not my high school is competitive? it’s just a regular korean high school, not a foreign school or anything of the sort.
Our ranks are also given for every subject, there’s no such thing as a total rank. On the subjects that i felt were important i have good ranks on. The ones I felt weren’t, well, they blow hard.</p>
<p>i must also mention that in korea, scores that you receive in school are not of much importance. The entrance exam that we all take in our final year of high school nullifies pretty much everything else (3 years of study for one day of testing). hence, we don’t really place that much emphasis on our in-school exams. ugh this is rather frustrating.</p>
<p>you should stop worrying about things you can’t control. no one will hold you responsible for your country’s educational system and there will be a regional adcom who understands the korean system and can properly interpret your stats.</p>