Chances US Uni from Europe

[Thomas Jensen]

Background

Status: Caucasian Male
Country: Denmark
School Type: Small Public School (~60 Students)

Academics:

Scores:
SAT I: Not taken yet
GPA: 3.51W
Rank: 20%/26 (rank/class size)

Senior year course schedule and predicted grades:
Biology SL - 4
History HL - 6
Math Studies SL - 7
Danish A1 HL - 6
English B HL - 5
Spanish ab. SL - 7


Extracurriculars:
1. Board member, local volunteer group LEO
2. ~10 Teamsports
3. Project to draw attention to homeless in the city

Colleges of Interest:
1. Notre Dame
2. Cornell

3. University of Pennsylvania (ED) (Ed= early decision)

4. Emory

5. UC Berkeley

6. NYU

7. Copenhagen Business School

8. Stocholm School of Economics

9. London School of Economics

Hooks: First in family to attend University

I go to a High School ranked #24 in the nation.

Edited June 21, 2013 by Thomas Jensen

[ak18]

Hey

Ok so looking at your IB scores, they're decent, pretty good actually. You could probably bring up your bio grade this year anyway. It depends on what you want to major in as well, because while US unis do look at your overall grades, they'll focus on specific subjects depending on your major. I applied for engineering so the colleges especially evaluated my maths HL, chem HL, and physics SL scores.

It also depends on your SAT I scores, and from the american unis you're applying to, most such as cornell, UPenn and Berkeley definitely need subject SATs as well. Your extra curriculars are ok. But when you say 10 teamsports you might want to be more specific (if you're the captain of a team, or you've played a sport for many years...) maybe you also play an instrument or something?

Also, your essay will matter. So make sure when you do your application you do your essay really well.

Some of this schools, you'll get into, but some, such as UPenn, Cornell, and even Berkeley might be slight reach schools (only because they get thousands of applications and they choose the best of the best)

Hope that helped. You can pm me if you want more help.

[GirlwiththeBlueBox]

Unfortunately, you seem to have a lot of Ivy League schools on there such as Cornell and University of Pennsylvania. You'd need to be almost first in your class, so your current class rank (20%) is much too low. You'd need to have many more extracurriculars than you have and Ivy League schools usually only take GPAs of 3.8 at the absolute lowest (and your test scores need to be amazing to pull this off!). Sooooo... I don't think you'd get into Cornell, University of Pennsylvania or Berkeley with your current CV. However I think you might have a shot at Notre Dame and Emory.

I wouldn't include the bit about your high school being #24 in the nation. It's not really that important. You could be the worst student in the world and go to a really good school. Universities don't really need to hear about how good your school is because it's not you! However the bit about you being the first in your family to go to university is really good and a lot of universities like that.

My advice to you? Aim a bit lower when it comes to applying to American universities. You're an international student so it's automatically harder for you to get in than it is for a local student and you're Caucasian male, which also automatically puts you at a disadvantage. There are a lot of good American universities that aren't Ivy League, so do a bit more research on them before you throw away your dream of going to university in America.

[Guest Positron]

You'd need to be almost first in your class, so your current class rank (20%) is much too low.

I wouldn't include the bit about your high school being #24 in the nation.

I wouldn't necessarily include that either, but I think mentioning it is justifiable. Class rank doesn't tell about one's skills per se, but about one's skills in comparison to the skills of his/her class mates. Thus class rank is of very little use to the admissions officer if he/she doesn't know the level of those to whom the applicant is compared against in the class rank. A class rank of 20% in a top school is probably a lot harder to achieve than a rank of 5% in a bad school.

Edited June 21, 2013 by Positron

[Thomas Jensen]

Thank you! I will focus on Bio and English this year, practice for the SAT, and not throw away my dreams for going to an American college, thank you