<p>@jamzter07- I will be applying for financial aid. And my grades aren’t anything special. In IGCSE I had 5 A<em>s, 2 A’s and 1 B (in one sitting). In A levels I have 2 A</em>s upto now, and my physics and chemistry grades will be released this August. By the way, which school are you from?</p>
<p>@jamzter07- " We spent lakhs of money on o levels and a levels, and still it’s really hard to be accepted into a decent uni. "</p>
<p>Dude, with this type of mentality you shouldn’t even apply to US colleges! You’ve vague ideas about college application. Spending lakhs of money at High School won’t secure your place at US colleges. Adcoms neither care about Cambridge/Edexel Grades nor discriminate against Higher Secondary Certificate holders. US application is a holistic process, so your academic background is not going to help you that much!</p>
<p>@Ivyaspire - Before you judge my comment, i would ask you to analyse instead of vaguely just speaking your mind. The chances for a bangla medium student to get in a good uni in the top 50 is slim to none even without asking for any aid. Instead of being so skeptical why dont u see what the OP said? No EC’s. And no english background. Regardless of merit in the local language, what a US uni would like to see is a student with impressive scores in an education system that MATTERS and is HIGHLY regarded. With international students already being at a disadvantage, and adding to that we are ‘Asians’ the selectivity in any good uni is very high. So you ask yourself, in a uni not taking ECs to account and judging on High school and college graduation certificates and stats, which would the prefer - an IB/ A level student or a HSC student? And im not even going to mention the difference of English comprehension between the two varieties. We are trained for foreign education. Academic background is not taken into consideration? - i pity your opinion.</p>
<p>Those r good grades, you should be prould. BIS bro. @Tanzim</p>
<p>Okay. I did not want to get into any argument here, but its getting really hard for me to remain silent on this issue.
@jamzter07 - I see no reason for being so condescending towards bangla medium students. Whether you are from bangla or english medium doesnt matter. Its all the same when you are applying abroad. There are many bangla medium students who are currently enrolled in some of the top-notch universities in the world including MIT, Harvard and Stanford. Even this year a bangla medium student got accepted into Columbia University with full scholarship. As for the SAT, once again there are many bangla medium students who have done exceptionally well and have even ended up with 2300+ scores. What admission officers look for is talent, and talented students can be from both bangla and english medium schools. And when it comes to English skills, although english medium students might be better in general, there are a lot of Bangla medium students who are exceptionally good in English. So I see no point whatsoever in discriminating against students from bangla medium. My apologies if I have been a little rough, but what I have mentioned are all facts.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, I believe we shouldn’t post anything regarding this issue here anymore. This thread is for helping one another out and having friendly discussions rather than heated arguments.</p>
<p>are people from BD like this??? arguing among themselves???</p>
<p>lets drop this and actually talk about college…</p>
<p>When are you guys going to take the TOEFL or IELTS? Are you gonna take both or just one of them?</p>
<p>Lets just ignore biased comments,anyone with proper knowledge about US admission knows that english medium/bangla medium does not matter. What matters is You,how wellrounded you are.</p>
<p>@jamzter07- Yup. Agreed. Lets just drop this. So, which universities are you looking at other than Alabama State University?
@amyharvard- You don’t have to take both the tests. Any one will suffice. Although TOEFL is more popular in USA, I find the IELTS easier. I guess I will be taking the IELTS in November or late October.</p>
<p>Last few posts were hilarious.</p>
<p>Hello everyone! We need to make this thread active!</p>
<p>Glad there’s something on Bangladesh in CC 
Hello everyone, i’m planing on applying this spring and I’ve got a few questions. First of all how do you get stuff like School reports and teachers recommendations if your school doesn’t provide them? I don’t know about other schools but my school doesn’t have a councilor or anyone to help students with college admissions. What are or should be the standard procedures for someone in my situation? Thanks! :)</p>
<p>Pcuser20, for teacher recommendation ask any two of your school teachers(the teachers that really know you well,they will write about not only academics but they need to write about how you are unique as a person too) and the principle to write letters of recommendation for you. And you should be able to get the trascrips from your school, ask your principal. the rest is the same, SAT, IELTS/TOEFL etc btw when are you taking the SAT and IELTS/TOEFL or have you already taken them?</p>
<p>Today was my IELTS listening,reading,writing exam,and my speaking exam was on 15th aug. pray for my IELTS score! anyone took the 17th aug IELTS test here?</p>
<p>anyone taking the october SAT? Or the November one? What about SAT subject test? are you gooing to take two subject tests or three? I will give two in october5th. I am thinking of physics, chemistry or math. Should I take “chemistry,math” or “physics,chemistry” or physics,math?</p>
<p>Bump bump bump</p>
<p>@shareezy, Hi ! this is an anonymous forum, so we don’t have our name on the display. we can talk anyway. And btw college confidential has a rule that you can talk only in English, so please maintain that rule. Btw are you a student? Are you applying for next fall? When are you taking the SAT?</p>
<p>I’m not so sure about chemistry. But, I found Physics, Math & Biology the easiest.</p>
<p>Good to see a Bangladeshi thread that’s fairly active! Wish there had been one when I applied (back in 2007- yes I’m a dinosaur).</p>
<p>Anyway I’ve been skimming through the posts on this thread and it seems that there is still a fair amount of confusion about how the application process works (which is perfectly understandable). So here are my 2 cents:</p>
<p>1) Please check on the availability of financial aid BEFORE you make the decision to apply somewhere. There is no point getting accepted to 5 colleges that all want your $50,000 that you don’t have. Definitely check the college websites, but also find out what kind of aid packages past applicants received (e.g. by searching old threads on this forum).
2) Even if you are a genius, follow the 3-4-3 rule for applications (3 reaches that you have shot at, 4 matches which are colleges for which you are a good fit, and 3 safeties that you are sure of getting into). If finance is an issue, then you should be even more conservative. For instance, consider applying to 1-2 decent colleges outside the US which you are fairly sure of getting into and which are affordable.
This means that if you only apply to the top 10 (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MITetc.) and nothing else, the chances of ending up with egg on your face are very high. Tons of students every year make this mistake and waste a lot of time and money (some of them are so smart that they apply to the SAME colleges the following year, and of course end up with the same list of rejections).
So keep some matches and safeties in hand and avoid such a scenario. How do you decide which colleges are matches, reaches and safeties? Find out the typical profile of students who got accepted in the past: this forum is a great resource for that.
3) ECAs are usually a problem for Bangladeshi students because of, let’s face it, the sorry state of our schools. But just because your school doesn’t have the “How to Knot a Tie Leadership Society” doesn’t mean you haven’t done anything worthwhile in your 18 years. Think outside the box when it comes to ECAs to include (but don’t make things up).
4) Essays are HUGELY important. Don’t leave them to the end. Get feedback from your friends, siblings, teachers (don’t be embarrassed to show others what you wrote).
5) The objective scores (e.g. A Level/HSC results, SAT scores) are weighed even more heavily for Bangladeshi applicants because we tend to have limited ECAs, our recommendation letters carry less weight etc. So try to do your very best in the SATs and leave adequate time to prepare for them.
6) Finally, make good use of this forum! CC is a golden resource for applicants because there is such a wealth of information that you can find here, and the people answering your questions tend to be knowledgeable and helpful. </p>
<p>All the best for your applications folks!</p>