3.4 UW / 3.9 W gpa.....am I doomed? Impossible for the Ivies or the top tier schools?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hello world,

I am a junior in HS and I am not asking anyone to chance me. Actually, I kind of am, lol. Anyways, I just calculated my HS gpa, divided the courses, and here is my exact data:
Freshman year (9 classes total, 2 from MS, 6 HN classes): 3.35 UW, 3.69 W
Sophomore year (yikes! 6 classes; 1 AP, 3 HN): 2.95 UW, 3.49 W
Junior year (3 APs, 1 HN): 3.81 UW, 4.34 W

So…ya. Saying that my sophomore year was a little rough is a bit of an understatement. My freshman year wasn’t so hot either and I don’t have much of an excuse, I was just a mess who just wanted to netflix and chill all day. Anyways, my point is, #1: will colleges look at these stats and be forgiving of those first 2 years? My plan is to keep this “upward trend” up until the end of senior year, and I’m going to be taking 4 APs and 2 HN classes.

Also, for the “chance” question, even if I did have such a crappy gpa for the first 2 years of HS, #2: will I still have a not bad shot at some of the top schools (Columbia legacy ED maybe, Vandy EC maybe [still have to visit to decide whether or not I will apply ed to this], USCa, NYU, etc) if you look at everything overall including my ECs (you can look at my previous ec post if you want, its pretty impressive in my opinion) and recs (my county supervisor for my job, my history teacher and counselor all love me!!! so I am pretty safe in this dept.)?

If this matters to you, I am possibly in the top 20% of my class this year, maybe 30% overall? I am not exactly sure because my school doesn’t do this but I am sure colleges will compare my GPA to the rest of the people at my school.

And I have not taken any SATs yet, so there is no info on this currently!!

Thank you all for your help (-:

2

by the way, overall if I calculate the gpa with all my classes it is a 3.4UW/3.85W

3

You should focus on understanding the high school material for classes you did not perform well in first, so you don’t make the same mistakes in the future. The schools you listed may not be realistic but you should not get hung up on prestige.

4

From what I observe, Ivies/Vandy are a real long shot for you, even if you get high 99th percentile test scores. You’d have to win some national award(s) or be published or something. Sorry if that is blunt difficult news. Nevertheless, there’s no harm in applying to those reach schools…you may win the lottery…but don’t count on them. There are lots of ‘next tier’ schools that are great quality which you should focus on.

My son with 3.72 UW and 35 ACT did not get into the two Ivies he tried (legacy at one). He did get admitted to CMU and we are thrilled about that.

As you can see on these boards, it is incredibly competitive these days for the top schools. Seemingly ‘perfect’ kids get denied.