<p>I pretty much blew off my first two and a half years of high school, pretty much getting zeroes on all homework assignments and acing a good portion of the tests. As a result, my Freshman average was a 89% and Sophmore was a 90%. </p>
<p>Colleges would know I'm lazy because my final exam grades contradicts everything else, as I've never gotten below a 94 on a final, even if my average for that class ended up being a 85.</p>
<p>Halfway through Junior year, I wen't major tryhard and managed to bring my Junior average to a 92 (without that, my junior grade would have been around 85). I did pretty good on my SATs and I'm interested in going to colleges of that tier, but the average GPA for those colleges are 93-97%. How can I show colleges that I have the ability, that I'm not lazy anymore and that I'll put my best possible efforts for college?</p>
<p>I know that I should have a rigorous senior schedule, to show the upward trend (I'm taking 4 AP classes senior year vs 1 in junior)</p>
<p>How should I put this in my personal essay? Will straight out admitting that I was lazy and have since changed be a good strategy?</p>
<p>Is there anything else I can do?</p>
<p>Thanks everyone in advance</p>
<p>Basic Stats:
9-11 average: 91%
SAT:2060 (740M,690W,630R) Will retake for 700R and 800M
SAT II: 770 US History
1 AP junior year, 4 more in senior
Mixture of honors and regular classes</p>
<p>I'm trying to get into second tier-engineering schools such as RPI, Lehigh, Georgia Tech (may be first, but stats show that it's not as crazy competitive to get in).</p>
<p>Your average isn’t really that far below the norm… Just relax and write great essays, and obviously do well in school next year. Not only do you need to do well to get your GPA up, but to impress teachers to that they’ll write you good letters of recommendation. Also, it would probably help to get 700 CR and 700 W, as well as getting math to 760+, but it’s not the most important thing in the world… Oddly, pretty much those exact scores would put you in the 75th percentile at GT… Didn’t know that when I wrote that! </p>
<p>By the way, I’m sort of in the same boat as you… And in a way, in the opposite. 4.0 freshman year, 4.0 half of sophomore year, then a 3.2 the other half of sophomore year, and a 2.7 for junior year, failed Spanish 3, made 2 Cs… Pretty bad. For me it was just that after having AP classes (all of which I had an A in) regular classes were terribly boring, so I slept through all of them… Next year (senior year) I’m taking 4 APs, so hopefully this’ll keep me focused. So relax, you’re in a lot better situation than I am! You have an upward trend, and while it’s not quite as good as being perfect, colleges like that! </p>
<p>With that said, you need some safety schools too… If I were you, I might also look at WPI and RIT. Best of luck!(:</p>
<p>Yes I have looked at RIT,Stonybrook, Purdue, and etc. schools that I should almost definitely get into… But we’re still not on the same boat: You took a ton more APs than I did, but my upward trend might even that off. I have no idea how 4 APs are going to go for me next year, as I heard AP Chem was crazy hard, and I’ve had mid-80s in regular math all high school, so AB Calc may be tough.</p>