I am a sophomore in high school and I am getting A+ for all my other classes including AP Calculus BC except for an A in AP World History. However, I’m not the best English student and I think I am stuck with an A- in English for the first semester. How will this affect my admission to colleges like Harvard compared to colleges like Caltech and MIT?
It won’t. It’ll be your extracurriculars that will affect your chances to those schools.
^^^ the above statement isn’t really true. It is the full package that will determine your success. Grades, test scores, recommendations, etc.
You are only done with 1st quarter. Little early to determine your semester grade.
What if I do in fact get an A-?
I mean you’re taking ap calc bc as a sophmore lol, you’re clearly a very strong student. You should be fine, as long as your other grades stay high. Focus more on extracurriculars, if it looks like you spent all of high school just studying that’s kinda lame to AOs.
“What if I do in fact get an A-?”
You’ll be rejected everywhere and will be lucky to earn $7.25 an hour for all of eternity.
Seriously, is this post a joke? A humble brag?
No groundwork it is not a joke. My school doesn’t give out A+'s so I really hate to see an A- appear on my transcript.
An A- in English during Sophomore year won’t make a whit of a difference. Also, stop focusing on how this or that little thing will affect your chances of acceptance to any individual school. Do your very best, and try to get some idea as to what you want to do with your life.
College is not a goal, any more than high school is a goal. Your goals should be related to what you will do in the decades after you finish college. The entire purpose of attending college is to help you achieve your goals. There is not a single goal that can be achieved only by attending a specific college.
Having “attending MIT” as your high school goal is unhealthy, and counterproductive. It is the same as a mountain climber putting “getting on a Qatar Airlines Flight to Nepal from New York” as their major goal when they train for mountain climbing.
I am not even sure if colleges pay attention to -/+ grades since many schools don’t do them.
My school does A- but not A+ which is why I’m worried.
You need to relax or you are going to burn out.
@BoyNextDoorIII you missed the point. Many other school don’t use either so if you get a 90 or 99 you get an A. Colleges take this into account when comparing students.
First, take a deep breath.
Second, take another.
Every minor bump in the road is not a disaster. One A- in English, or one unexcused absence in PE will not sink your chances at top schools.
Avoiding internally inconsistent and contradictory writing on you college essays would help, and might also help your English grades.
Seriously, if you are getting A+ in every class, I would ask yourself, how many people have gotten into the schools you describe? If few, one of the reasons could be rampant grade inflation at your school. An A+ should be a student who is outstanding in every way. There are many sujects ( among them English) where subjective opinion will keep you in the A-/A range. Lol.
When I read posts like this, I have to pause and ask myself if the person is really serious. No one is getting into any of those schools based on an A+ average. A’s yes, but solid high level national and international achievements. Hey, you might be at Exeter or something and just studying all the time too.
By having A+ I meant getting 97%+
Hmmmm.
Invent a time machine, go back and re-take your class and get an A.
Otherwise, move on to your next class, continue to do your best, and accept the grades you receive. Learning to deal with the ups and downs of life is an important lesson.
Again… My fault for not making it clear but when I said I had all A+ I’m saying I have 97%+. However, my school counts that as an A.
As everyone is trying to tell you, that A- is not going to make a difference in where you end up. Seriously…stop stressing about it. And the fact that your school doesn’t have A+'s isn’t going to matter. Each school will look at your grades in context of your school’s grading. And many college recalculate GPA to make it more fair across the board. But everyone knows English/writing is somewhat subjective and as someone stated previously they are MORE going to care about how you write in your essays (and your English grades on standardized tests perhaps).
Seriously, work hard but try to enjoy high school a little!
Don’t worry about A-. My son got B+ both semesters of sophomore English and is attending Caltech. He also had several A- grades, though not in the college classes he took while in high school.