SAT score : 1540/1600
SAT Math level 2 : 800/800
SAT Physics : 780/800
GPA : 3.33
E.C’s :
I know 6 foreign languages ( including english ) and 3 regional ( Indian ) languages.
I am an ‘A’ ranked officer in the National Cadet Corps ( Junior Military ).
I play guitar and have passed the grade 1 guitar examination with distinction.
I have done about 100 hours of volunteering.
I have won the best speaker awards in Model United Nations and also the Best Debater awards at state level.
I have won state level awards in badminton, chess and swimming.
The second-in-charge of all the college fests organizing teams.
Also, I have interned for a education counselling company.
Intermediate fluent in 2 programming languages ( C++ and Java ) ( self-taught).
Note :
My intended major is EECS or CS+BUSINESS or CS major i.e whichever one is possible. I will do apply for financial aid.
The following are the universities I am looking forward to apply to :
Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, Harvard, Stanford, MIT, UCB, UCLA, CALTECH, UChicago, Cornell, Yale, Princeton, CMU, GeorgiaTech and UPenn.
What are your opinions about my chances to getting accepted at the above colleges ?
I’m an international student and here in India we do not have the GPA system. Percentage system is used here and thus I calculated the GPA on basis of my percentage. A 4.0 GPA equivalents to a 100 % result which is next to impossible to achieve taking into consideration that the education system here doesn’t want any 100% scorers and thus, the max % a student can achieve is about 96-98%.
Also, can you people help me with which high school results do I have to send ?
The GPA that colleges require should be of all grades from 1st upto 12th, the whole (previous) year or the current semester’s GPA ?
And what about my case in which the GPA is unavailable but there is percentage available. Do I need to convert my % to GPA by some education authorities ?
High schools vary, but at mine, a 4.0 equated to an “A,” which was 93% or above. Not 100%!
So if a student received 2 As and 2Bs, his GPA would be 3.5. My kids’ high school reported a GPA based on a scale of 1-100. I helped them convert the grades to a 4.0 scale.
Do not calculate your GPA by yourself. The result will not be helpful, and is likely to be misleading (n.b., @MaineLonghorns approach won’t work for you). The Indian system is well known, and most colleges will be well able to do it for themselves. You will be compared to other Indian students on the same system.
Grades are sent by your school for secondary school only, not primary school.
Chancing for students from India is very difficult: the competition is intense as there are so many talented, disciplined and highly motivated applicants all chasing seats in the international section (which is rarely more than about 15% of an entering class) of the same universities. If you have already applied, consider it like the lottery. If you are planning on applying in 2018 for 2019, work on your essays and on getting recommenders to know you well enough to be able to write about you as an individual. Work on figuring out which of those dream schools you actually think would be a good fit and put extra effort into those. If you really, really want to go to the US, pick some other, more realistic, places as well. If you really, really want to go to the UK, figure out what you actually want to study and choose your course accordingly- writing a strong PS for the range of courses you listed is unlikely. Be aware that you are very unlikely to get any meaningful money from UK universities.
@collegemom3717 Thanks for the insightful review of the whole system. I initially am more inclined towards University of Chicago (Private university) but I’ve heard drawbacks of many kinds present in UChicago. The main drawbacks being not-so-remarkable career placement, grade deflations, improper faculties (due to which there is a considerable amount of lecture shunt-off’s. So please advice me if I should consider UChicago or not and what else can I do to improve my chances or strengthen my application.
P.S : How do I apply to these universities ? Are the scores and other all docs required should be scanned and mailed to them ? As @collegemom3717 said that my school will send them over to the universities, what procedure do I or my school have to follow in order to send them ? Also, as one can see in my EC’s that I know 6 languages but since I have learned on my own using books and online resources, I do not have a course completion certificate or anything of that resemblance that defines that I have mastered this language. What type of proofs will the colleges require me to submit for these languages ?
P.S 2 : Can I send the whole application along with all scores, my school results, my LOR’s, my SOP’s, my essay’s and other required docs on my own in one single mail or through a single application? Is it necessary for the SAT scores to be sent by the college board, LOR’s to be sent by my teachers directly to colleges or my school results to be sent directly to the colleges by the school ? Can’t I gather all docs and send the whole application in one go ?
P.S 3 : What other proofs (if required) do I have to submit for the EC s that I have submitted above ?
I think I am missing something. How is it possible that somebody who has an ‘education counseling company’, participates at the state level in things like Model UN, knows enough to list ECs as part of their profile on an American college info site, and has taken SATs has no idea how to apply to college in the US / UK? If your secondary school organizes students to take the SAT there must surely have been some conversations about the application process? Students in the year ahead of you must of talked about doing the application, writing essays, etc?
Anyway, taking your question at face value, and assuming that you are applying for 2019 entry, the Common Application (for applications to US schools) opens August 1 and UCAS (for UK) opens ~Sept 1. Both systems are fully online. You complete the student sections and a school representative uploads your school records (both academic and ECs through the school, such as participation in sports / arts / student government) and a reference letter. The people who write your recommendation letters upload them directly (or the school representative uploads them). No further ‘proof’ is required for your ECs. The only language proof required will be for English (eg, TOEFL), if your secondary school is not taught in English. For any other languages, the only tests will be placement tests for languages you plan to study at university.
As for UChicago, there are “drawbacks of many kinds” at every university. For you (unless you have citizenship or a green card), what you call “not-so-remarkable career placement” won’t matter because that refers to placement in the US, for which you are unlikely to be eligible (though I believe all of last years CS students graduated with jobs), Similarly, grade deflation doesn’t matter unless you are applying to law or medical school in the US, as GPA is not really relevant for you in India, and most other types of grad school will look at the school and your coursework. I have no idea what “improper faculties (due to which there is a considerable amount of lecture shunt-off’s” means at all. But nobody here can advise you as to whether UChichago is a good choice for you. It’s not what would come to mind for somebody interested comp sci at an MIT or CalTech level, and I assume you have done enough homework to know that there is a strong humanities core curriculum but beyond that we don’t have enough info to have a useful opinion.
@collegemom3717 So the thing is that here in India (just saying my side of the story as you may have had some other experiences with different kinds of students across India ) I hadn’t thought to study in the US initially but after a few years had gone by I decided to take this thing up seriously. Now coming to you doubts,
I do not own an Education counselling company. I just interned there and my work revolved around preparing the site and content related to the site i.e content about different fields.
I have done research on this admission process for about 2-3 years now and also had a talk with about 12-15 educational consultants. Thus, I know ; all I know about these things through my " homework".
I have known all about this process through my own with no one to guide me. My school does not provide SATs. I have taken it individually by registering at the college board website. No senior of mine or anybody within my reach had ever known this process or anything about admission in US.
Also, can you tell me if I can upload my records on my own as my school is kind of a backward school and no one is qualified enough to handle this type of works.