Stanford - A Levels?

Non-U.S. Educational Systems
You should consult the application instructions for information about which transcripts and school reports will be required as part of your application. However, if you attend a school that does not teach an American curriculum, please be aware that your school will need to also submit the International Supplement to the Secondary School Report as part of your application. This form can be found in the "School Forms" section of the Common Application website.

There is no need to have your marks converted into an American GPA. We require that official documents from your school which note your grades, marks, or any predictions, be sent directly from your school as part of your application.

You should probably contact them (on the phone is best as you can explain your personal situation and ask questions if you don't understand their response fully) and ask - they may want the GCSE & A-Level equivalents of a high American GPA as well as the SATs

Thanks, another question, will they accept me if I only got 2 A*s, 4 A's, 2B's, 1C and 1D for my GCSE's?

As someone from the UK who applied this year and got accepted to Stanford (and a few other of the top universities in America), and indeed goes to a school which sends the most number of students from the UK to the US, whilst your admission is not down to one factor in particular, those GCSE certainly won't help your case.

They're very poor results, particularly when you compare it with the herds of students who shall be applying with nothing but A*'s. Thus it won't help your application at all.

I figured it won't help my application too much but do I still have a chance if I ace my A Levels and SAT's, and I also went to a pretty bad school where I got one of the highest grades so will it help if I mention that. I'm not trying to blame it on my school but I think I'm smart enough to have got much better grades.

On the contrary, US unis take context into account more than UK unis.

That's not strictly true; whilst it wasn't a Stanford representative directly, we had the admissions officer from Harvard attend our school for a talk at the end April this year, and she made it clear that the most competitive US universities (so Stanford included one would assume) do not take school history into account as say a UK university would.

In terms of your grades OP, if you were the top student in your school (and scored the best results someone has at your school over a very long time period), clearly you worked hard and thus they will factor this in if your (as I said in my previous post) reference mentions it. It still won't put you ahead of say students with straight A*'s, some of whom have also likely attended a poor school, but may make the gap smaller. More importantly however, you'll still be expected to be proactive (regardless of your school background) when it comes to extracurricular activities; in other words, regardless of what school you attended, you should have been involved within a depth of EC's during your GCSE years and prior to be a competitive applicant.

I've only *heard* of such things happening but I've never actually talked to anyone like that. Everyone I know who got in somewhere had good grades. I wonder how "holistic" the process is for non-US citizens.

As for international students, I think many people don't realise that its actually harder for us to get into US universities than it is for domestic students; and when you consider that the acceptance rate at most top US universities is around 5-6%, and around 3-4% for international students, having solid grades are a certified must frankly.

As someone from the UK who applied this year and got accepted to Stanford (and a few other of the top universities in America), and indeed goes to a school which sends the most number of students from the UK to the US, whilst your admission is not down to one factor in particular, those GCSE certainly won't help your case.

They're very poor results, particularly when you compare it with the herds of students who shall be applying with nothing but A*'s. Thus it won't help your application at all.

As someone from the UK who applied this year and got accepted to Stanford (and a few other of the top universities in America), and indeed goes to a school which sends the most number of students from the UK to the US, whilst your admission is not down to one factor in particular, those GCSE certainly won't help your case.

They're very poor results, particularly when you compare it with the herds of students who shall be applying with nothing but A*'s. Thus it won't help your application at all.