<p>I'm currently a sophomore attending a Texas HS. I have roughly a 3.55-3.6 GPA so far, depending on how this semester ends. I ****ed myself as a freshman. I didn't like school, didn't like my teachers, thought that the work was stupid, etc. I did not complete many of my assignments, and ended up with like a 92.7 AFTER Pre-AP bonuses. This first semester of 10th grade, I've continued with my habits from last year, and I have B's and C's (these will come out as A's and B's on my transcript due to bonuses) in most of my classes. During the past several weeks, I've been considering what my future could be if I really focused on the prospect of attending a prestigious university, and used this as motivation to work hard, rather than just saying empty words to myself. So that's the basic introduction.</p>
<p>I really, really want to go to Columbia, Harvard, or Stanford. I have the potential to start making 97+ before bonuses in all of my classes (all Pre-AP core classes with AP World History), and I'm starting to work on practicing for SAT/ACT, I'm shooting for a 2250+. Essentially, my questions are:</p>
<p>1) How badly will my freshman and first half of sophomore year hurt me?</p>
<p>2) Assuming I can make the changes that I plan to, and I maintain myself for the next 2 1/2 years, is there a good chance of me getting into one of the above institutions?</p>
<p>Also, I've read from people that got accepted to Columbia that having lots of community involvement in the form of volunteer hours and other similar activities helps tremendously, and can be a deciding factor, so any information about this type of thing for college applications would be useful.</p>
<p>If we told you you didn’t have a good chance at acceptance to these schools, would you not make any of those changes? You see it doesn’t matter what anyone here thinks, and it makes no sense to speculate at this point. Ramp up your academic efforts and try to find your passions, and you will come to the end of your junior year with the best possible GPA and EC’s for whatever college options turn out to be best suited to your interests and abilities.</p>
<p>Thanks for the refreshing cup of cliche. I can’t really answer your question at the present, but I usually respond positively to negative criticism, so I would probably work even harder, because I’m the type of person that feels that they have something to prove. Of course, telling me that I have no chance at these schools now, the effect disappears because I’ve identified it already. You’ve been vaguely helpful, thanks anyway.</p>
<p>My real question remains: is it possible for a full 180 to save my chances at an Ivy or other prestigious institution? I’m really willing to do whatever I need to do here. If there’s anything that a student can do, I can do it, the incentive is there, I just need to identify the task.</p>
<p>Well…even people who never drop the ball get rejected from ivies, so all you can do is get as high as you can and give it your best shot. You obviously have to try to boost everything if you want any chance at those schools. Yes, ECs do matter a lot in these schools (but you have to show dedication - not just a long list of random activities/hours)</p>
<p>An upward trend in GPA will help you out, as will stellar ECs, and stellar essays. Just pursue whatever ECs you have with dedication and pour a lot of time into them. that should get you started someplace.</p>
<p>I am stunned that you were so dismissive of MommaJ. She isn’t the one who posted a fundamentally unanswerable question in the first place. You may think her answer was hackneyed, but it’s the most accurate and complete answer that anybody could honestly give to your question. Anyone who says differently is selling something.</p>
<p>With admit rates between 6-8%, even the all A with all AP student, with national honors and phenomenal essays has little chance at any of these schools.</p>
<p>The issue is do you want to go to the best school you can? If yes keep working hard and improve your attitude. You will need 2 teacher and a counselor rec that say you’re a great person to have on campus, not just that your grades are good.</p>
<p>To be blunt. Upward trend is helpful but colleges are comparing you to other kids who work their butts off to keep a straight A GPA throughout high school. But what’s done is done, you can only look forward.</p>
<p>Scold someone for being dismissive and sarcastic by being dismissive and sarcastic. I like it.</p>
<p>Anyone suggesting that I, essentially, try my best and let admissions sort me out is missing the point. First of all, telling me to “try my best” is astoundingly ambiguous. What I mean by this is that it is impossible to try my best in every aspect of my life, so there are obviously going to be sacrifices in certain areas. The heart of my question is, out of all of the areas on which I could focus, improve and master, which ones should be focused on, and which should fall by the wayside, if I am going to stand any chance at these choice schools? Grades are an obvious concern, consider it done. I’m already improving in this area, and semester exams are this week, offering more opportunities for improvement on this semester average. </p>
<p>As far as “finding my passion,” I’m a blank slate. Unless Columbia has a shortage of chess players that they are looking to fill, my passions won’t help me out any. It may help for you to think of it this way: Columbia/Harvard/Stanford are the mold, and whatever that is, I need to transform to fit that. If you think that this project of changing myself to get into a specific school is superficial and is reversing the process as it should be, by all means, refrain from posting. The same to those of you that would like to help, but simply have do not have a concrete idea of precisely what I could do to maximize my chances at acceptance. </p>
<p>Just curious, how many of you are Ivy League/Stanford/other selective school alumni, or are currently attending?</p>
<p>I didn’t expect a post on CC to be fruitful, but figured it was worth a shot.</p>
<p>Radical, as an alum of one of your schools of choice, trust me when I say there is no mold. In fact, that’s at the heart of why these schools are so hard to get into.</p>
<p>You know the obvious, great grades and scores. Those will keep you in the running. You must take your school’s hardest classes. You must develop relationships with your teachers and counselors so they know and like you well enough to check the right boxes and write the right things on your recs. Those will have to include that you’re among their best students ever and are a truly remarkable student and person.</p>
<p>Next comes the key. You will need an activity outside of the classroom in
which you accomplish something few else have. It could certainly be chess if you can achieve national level talent and the accolades that go with it. It can be anything that makes people say “that kid is amazing.”</p>
<p>Waverly is right in saying there is no mold. Colleges want many different types of people with diverse backgrounds and achievements, so as much as it may anger you to hear that there is no straight-forward answer to the complex question you’re asking, all you can do is find the things that interest you (join a couple activities/clubs that sound interesting and then slowly drop the ones that you don’t really like as much) and pursue them.</p>
<p>Chess is a good start. Get more involved if you aren’t already - practice a lot, compete in tournaments, and try to get awards (especially national ones). And then go beyond that. Perhaps you can volunteer to teach chess lessons to people in nursing homes or elementary school students or your peers.</p>
<p>What may help you in finding things you’re interested in is bouncing off of a current interest. You like chess, so I imagine you like strategy and thinking. Perhaps you’d be good for competition math, or programming, or even debate as that requires a lot of quick thinking and strategical speeches/questions. Try exploring those and see what happens.</p>
<p>As for your original question about grades, colleges would prefer to see students who can hold up As all throughout high school, but you’re by no means completely out of the game. There are people with strong upward trends who still get in, and colleges like Princeton even completely disregard freshman year when they recalculate your GPA.</p>
<p>Assuming you DO get a 4.0 unweighted in the remainder of your sophomore and junior years and that 2250+ SAT, I’d give you about a 5% chance of getting into one of those schools mentioned. Your 3.6 gpa is probably less than a 3.3 unweighted, which in a word is crap. Unless your nationally ranked in something, or are a URM, even 5% might be generous. GL and HTH.</p>
<p>So why does a 3.5-3.6 student wake up one day and decide the new goal is Harvard, Columbia or Stanford? Why not something a bit more attainable? Can you shoot for UT Austin? That’s a great school if you can get your grades up.</p>
<p>If he gets his grades up, won’t that improve his rank?</p>
<p>Also (in case this isn’t obvious), UTA is just one example of an achievable goal, and I picked it because he’s in Texas. It seems logical that he should work to qualify himself for his state flagship before shooting for the moon, no?</p>
<p>Yes, but the point is that GPA means nothing to UT Austin. The OP will need to check class rank against UT Austin’s thresholds to see whether it is a realistic possibility. Depending on the high school, 3.6 could be either an easy admittance to UT Austin, or pretty far below the threshold, or somewhere in between.</p>
<p>OP, with his Harvard/Columbia aspirations, should be able to utilize his grammar school arithmetic skills to calculate the necessary rank. As for me, I’ll still go out on a limb and recommend that he get his grades up. </p>
<p>Also (in case it’s not obvious, or you didn’t read the post), the point isn’t UTA; the point is that there are plenty of stepping stones in between colleges for the B student and Harvard.</p>