<p>Ravenbelle - They will probably assume that is an area of strength for you. Those scores though, being on the lower end of possibilities, will mean that you will need an even more compelling application. Hopefully your ECs are strong and you show leadership and character through your essays, recs, and interview.</p>
<p>Being an international student from India, I don’t really have stellar EC’s. Our system of schooling is academic oriented. My EC’s look good in the lens of my own country. But, they tend to incline more towards the sciences, especially towards Computer Science and Astronomy. </p>
<p>My academics are top notch according to my country’s standards (I am not being pompous!). I featured in my country’s point one percentile of successful candidates. So in such a scenario, does the importance of SAT and/or TOEFL scores get magnified for my application to ‘Harvard’?</p>
<p>I don’t actually know much about international stats. There are others in the Harvard forum that would be able to answer that question better. But in general, once your stats reach a certain point, it is the rest of the application that decides whether you get in.</p>
<p>As for EC’s, remember that an EC does not have to be from within your school. Only about 1/2 my daughter’s EC were within her high school. The rest were not. In fact her most unusual had nothing to do with her school. I will state though, that in her case, the leadership roles were within her high school (in contrast though her brother’s leadership was not from within the school). My point is that you do not have to be limited by your high school with respect to your ECs.</p>
<p>I usually help my grandfather at his Senior Citizen Society in organizing events. I also ‘teach’ them of the new technological developments of the age viz. using computers for searching information, operating mobile phones for communication et al.</p>
<p>Apart from this, I also help my mother, a homoeopathic physician, in maintaining records and in preparing and distributing medicines in various NGO’s. As I have already graduated from high school, I accompany her to these places and help her.</p>
<p>I am also working these days at a coaching center as an assistant and a student counselor. </p>
<p>‘smoda61’, would Harvard view these activities in the same light as the one’s that I did in my school?</p>
<p>What you have mentioned above are ECs. Now you need to figure out how to define them on your ap. It is also possible that an essay could evolve from these experiences. </p>
<p>My daughter’s favorite essay is a vivid account of her first encounter with a Mako shark while deep sea fishing and the effect that it had.</p>
<p>thanks smoda and powerbomb.
I was hoping they would view it that way and I plan on majoring in Theatre/Politics.</p>
<p>My ECs are not a problem =)
but smoda61 could you please read my essays? You seem very wise and helpful =D</p>
<p>Ravenbelle - I’ll PM you my e-mail address but I have to warn you that I have had never read anyones essays and cannot promise that I have any skill at it. I can ask my daughter to also take a peak though given I know she has read a number of her fellow freshman’s application essays.</p>