Ask HN: help me get admitted into a great university

Hello, I am Ivo Georgiev, 17, from Bulgaria. I assembled my first electronics project (music amp) at 7, wrote my first program at 10 all by myself. Since then, I have built a game, helped start a quality Bulgarian media website, made couple of mobile apps, took some freelance projects and contributed to/built open-source software. My dream has always been to start a software company. I have always had a concise idea of what this company should do. But it is only until 2012 that I started working seriously on that. Anyway - to the point. I am one year away from finishing high school, and I honesty don't know where I see myself in one year. I see that a lot of students on HN are considering directly starting a startup - but being in Bulgaria does not exactly help me. I am sure about two things - I want to live in another country ( any place with a nurturing startup infrastructure ), and I want to go to a prestigious university (because I want to be surrounded by brilliant people) and study computer science.However, I have two problems - 1) my academic record - the only thing I have are my high school grades ( 6 - the Bulgarian equivalent of an A - in every subject except geography ). In Bulgaria, we don't have accelerated programmes or any academic help for students like me. So my excellent high-school grades are all I have here. I am taking SAT and CAE in a few months. I have a nice programmer portfolio, but I don't know how important is that. And 2) - even if I do accepted into a prestigious university - my family (middle class in Bulgaria) cannot afford it. Of course, there are scholarships with which I can make it, but that requires an even more outstanding academic record.My question is - if there are people reading this who, at some point, were facing a similar situation, please share your story. Actually, any advice from anyone would help - which university should I choose, how can I get admitted, and how to support myself financially. Thank you.

I can to some extent explain the college process in the US.

The first is that grades matter, but only to a point. Colleges have to work with all sorts of crazy grade point systems from all over the world. Not all school districts have the resources for premium programs (AP, IB, etc). They also have to deal with how those premium programs are reflected into your grade average. So I think as long as you make the cutoff grade average (say 3.15/4.0), it doesn't matter if you have a 4.0/4.0 or 3.9/4.0, they're going to move on and look at other parts of your application like your essays and letters of recommendation. HINT: They look for "well balanced" individuals, so you have a lot of academic achievements. You may want to try volunteering for this next year, or joining a club (preferably outside of your core skills) of some kind at school.

Secondly, in US there are typically 2 ways to get scholarships. The first is merit based (for grades). Since you're going to private organizations for this mostly, their requirements are all different. In some cases those organizations want to help a particular set of students (particular gender, race, or religion) so your competition is going to be less intense.

There is also "need based" scholarships available for students. If you can't afford college, there are scholarships or subsidized interest loans to help. With some private organizations again they may filter applicants depending on what their endowment is for.

Another option to support yourself during college is to work. It's possible to work and keep your grades up, even at top schools.