A Junior.

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hi, I'm going to be a junior this year and I'm excited for the future! Unfortunately, planning for college is a headache, especially when my parents think it's waaaay too early to plan. I don't agree with them, I want to start my college search soon. At first I thought about moving to NY for college, but realized I probably wouldn't make it into some of the schools I had in mind. I think it's safer in California. I'm here to ask for advice about getting into the UC's. Thinking about UC Davis, UCSD, and maybe Berkeley. Here are the grades and extracurriculars I've done so far. If you need more info please ask, this is my first post. :)</p>

<p>Freshmen Year
English/English H: A/A+
Conceptual Physics H: A-/A
PE: A/A
Spanish 1 H: A-/B
Geometry/Geometry H: A-/B+
World Civ./ world civ. H: A+/A</p>

<p>GPA:
First semester: 4.00
Second semester: 3.67(unweighted),3.83 (weighted)</p>

<p>My schedule was messy freshmen year because I joined IB a bit late. My geometry, history, and english classes became honors during second semester.</p>

<p>Sophomore Year:
English H: A/A
US History: A/A-
Spanish 2 H: A-/B+
Photography 1: B+/A-
Pre Calc. H: A-/B+
Chemistry H: B/B</p>

<p>GPA:
First: 4.00(weighted), 3.89(unweighted)
Second: 3.8750(weighted), 3.8333(unweighted)</p>

<p>EC:
Joined: Key club, NS, Journalism
Sports: Badminton JV
Volunteer: Library and hospital.</p>

<p>Time to explain my grades! Sophomore year was definitely harder for me because of chemistry. I'm not proud of my B's because I didn't try hard enough so I deserved it. Chemistry, was hard for everyone that had the same teacher as me. I know some classmates with straight A's that had a C in that class. I was supposed to take US History H, but the counseling office screw up my schedule when they changed my Alg 2 class to pre calc. I took Alg 2 over the summer and got a C. My first C since 7th grade ): I don't know if colleges will look at that grade. </p>

<p>Here are my plans for next year...
Classes: all IB
English HL, History HL, Biology H, Spanish 3 H, Philosophy SL, Math SL.</p>

<p>TESTS: SAT(maybe 2 times, I'm studying now), PSAT, IB philosophy, IB Math. </p>

<p>EC: starting a red cross club and continuing clubs from Freshmen year. Also continuing with the same volunteer work. I think I might volunteer more though. </p>

<p>I can already imagine the workload! I'm so scared for my tests and I heard IB stuff is intense. I'm going for the diploma, but I have to see how junior year goes. I'm really scared of the tests I have to take too. Ugh. Oh and my rank is 42/665, which is 6.3%.</p>

<p>Anyways, will my grades from freshmen and sophomore year be a big disadvantage if I'm going for a UC? I don't really know what I want to major in, but I want to work in the medical field. So which colleges should I put on my list? I know that was a lot of reading, it was a lot of typing on my part too. Please leave some advice! Thank you! ;D</p>

<p>Sent from my SPH-D710 using CC</p>

2

<p>To begin, your Freshman and Sophomore years isn’t even all that bad. Getting B’s isn’t the end of the world, okay? ;)</p>

<p>I don’t think no one can tell anyone what colleges to go to. Personally, I think it’s your job to research the colleges that you would like to go to. Choose a college/university that you think you’ll feel the most comfortable in, and have a chance at. Also, colleges/universities don’t look at your middle school grades so, yeah lol. There are a lot of schools that have good science programs such as University of Virginia, Johns Hopkins, Virginia Tech, University of the Sciences (especially its 0-6 Pharmacy program) and many others. It doesn’t really matter what undergraduate college/university you go to as long as you complete your pre-medical prerequisite classes (as known as premed). You can major in anything you like as long as you have good sGPA and a good MCAT score. But that’s a different story lol. Good Luck and enjoy the rest of high school.</p>

3

<p>Thank you for the advice! I’m praying that my junior year won’t be so bad lol. I feel like compared to the other people on here, my qualifications aren’t good enough for UCs and a lot of colleges. I’m going to use my junior year to bump up my gpa and add more ec. Again, I thank you for the reply! Do you have any advice on how to start looking for colleges? There are a lot of colleges and I don’t know most of them. </p>

<p>Sent from my SPH-D710 using CC</p>

4

<p>Good question lol. Start looking at your state colleges, and see if you like those first. State schools are really good too and have great education programs. Also, don’t worry about the students on CC, focus on you, and only you lol. Some students on here just like to share their treats so everybody can feed from it (bad analogy lol :o). Some colleges/universities are good for its science, education, nursing program and etc. I didn’t know most colleges either, but it helps if you start looking close to home :).</p>