<p>My dad's working on a green card. dunno when that'll be done.</p>
<p>My family income is ~60k, but we have very little savings, so my parents will provide very little. What might help is that my mom is going back to China this year. And hopefully that'll decrease our presented family income to like 35k (how much my dad makes).</p>
<p>The red flags in my applications were in my SATs (poor reading), GPA (hard college classes owned me), not a lot of leadership positions and awards. Essay wasn't extremely focused.</p>
<p>My strengths: took math up to Linear Algebra and science classes at city college, passion for sports</p>
<p>This is what I'll do: retake the SATs, retake my college classes, start a club/fundraiser, and find a part time job</p>
<p>My worry: When I retake a college class, both grades in the same class show up, but the new one gets counted in the GPA. I'm worried because my transcript will have three horrendous grades, even though they won't be counted. By horrendous, I mean D+, C, or somewhere in that ballpark. But I WILL get A's the next time I take them.</p>
<p>My dream college(s): stanford, mit, columbia, maybe U penn because I actually stand the slightest chance. </p>
<p>Any suggestions, comments about my chances, or colleges that I should also apply to please.</p>
<p>If you’re a current freshman then I would consider staying at your current college and getting your GPA as high as possible, and then transfer for junior standing. By then your SATs will not be required or carry very little weight. When will you be retaking those classes? If they will be in your regular academic year, as in next semester then it will reduce your number of potential credits. Also, I’m pretty sure that the transcript shows whether or not courses were retaken.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t limit my view of dream schools to the ivy league because there are many colleges with even better engineering programs.</p>
<p>I love stanford because it’s near the pacific and san franscisco.</p>
<p>I love columbia because it’s in NYC, lots of stuff to do. City is frantic, but the campus is awesome, I heard.</p>
<p>I love mit because… well it’s mit hehe</p>
<p>Right now, I’m just desperate to get out of Iowa and go somewhere new. My reason is that here, there’s a lot of party dogs and drinking and smoking. I hating biking at night through the college housings because I would smell the fumes as I pass by party houses. Also, I get honked at and insulted by drunk <a href=“mailto:jack@55es”>jack@55es</a>. Much of my reason for wanting to attend a prestigious university is a sense of isolation from the typical - if you know what I mean.</p>
<p>I’m currently a graduating senior. I will work to get everything better and more appealing on the application. Yea, the old college grades will show up, which is what I’m MOST worried about, along side my family’s financial situation.</p>
<p>There are many, many schools that will get you out of Iowa. Creating a list of schools where most with perfect grades and scores can’t get in, much less an international with shaky stats, is probably not the best route.</p>
<p>Even if you could get into Penn it’s not need blind for internationals, has little aid for them and it goes to the very top of the pool.</p>
<p>I’ll still take my chances at the need-blind colleges. Along side that, I’ll look at less selective colleges like U of M and USC (which is still pretty selective but screw it).</p>
<p>thanks for the insights by the way, hmom</p>
<p>Now. Assuming my dad pulls a green card out of his butt so that everything becomes normal for me, how will the bad grades reflect on me? Someone says that it might be good considering that it shows that I have retaken and mastered the subjects. Besides, do ad coms take into consideration how lazy HS seniors are? I swear I have the worst case of senioritis that my school district has seen in years.</p>
<p>Based on what you write here and your thread about success, I’d have to say it’s time to understand that it’s all about internal motivation and find yours.</p>
<p>No, it’s not better to have to retake courses and it won’t be seen as your mastering them and adcom have no sympathy for those who have senioritis. Why would they when they have to reject the vast majority of the applicants who haven’t slacked?</p>
<p>So do go and read some books about success and self motivation, because you need to stop the downward slide. And start getting real before day one at whatever college you’re going to because to even have a chance at a school on the USC level you will have to have a whole different work ethic from the start.</p>
<p>No one can you can turn this around. And all of those great schools will be there for grad school if you start now.</p>
<p>uh don’t listen to hmom5, i don’t think colleges care that much about grades, i totally slacked off second term senior year (all my high school career actually, i never really did well) and i still got admitted for soph transfer to an ivy
my college grades weren’t that much better
my best advice is for you to find a passion, and be really really really really really really really really really really really really really good at that one thing, and win competitions and stuff in that area on a national level
the competitions aren’t even important, more often then not they are BS, but you wanna look good on paper so you might as well
just “do what you love, love what you do” and if you like it enough you will do well in it
i know a fellow kid from my hs who graduated with a 78 avg and is at MIT now
hope is not lost fellow slacker :)</p>
<p>and no, we are not URMs, athletes, or anything of that sort (however, both my friend and i have placed in math and science competitions on a national level)</p>
<p>Being in national competitions isn’t a common thing to have on your transcript. What hmom says holds true for the large majority of applicants. I probably wouldn’t put USC as less selective because in terms of engineering, their program is probably ranked higher than the ivies, and on top of that you wouldn’t be a Cali resident. I would look into U Rochester, Lehigh, Rennselaer, and maybe Duke.</p>
<p>Don’t know if there is a reliable list of need blind colleges, you probably would have to find out from their websites individually. It would probably be best if you made a list of colleges with a variance of selectivity and then find out if they are need blind.</p>
<p>Do you mean need blind or schools that meet full need? Two very different things. Most colleges are need blind, most do not meet full need.</p>
<p>Schools that meet full need with no or a minimm of loans are almost all top schools. There are very, very few merit scholarships for transfers. Some schools that meet need for freshmen do not meet need for transfers. You need to read the web sites of the schools you’re interested in.</p>
<p>Based on collegeboard stats, I think U of M is my best option. Room + board + tuition rounds to about 20k, which is cheaper than anywhere else that’s not Stanford.</p>
<p>But I’m skeptical about collegeboard because my friend’s sister apparently got a lot of aid from u of michigan, and collegeboard says u of m’s average FA is around 8k.</p>
<p>would it be my best investment to spend some money and go to Minneapolis/St. Paul?</p>
<p>and now I just checked the expenses at the U of M website. Apparently, the annual out of state tuition is wrong on collegeboard. So I take back what I just said</p>
<p>Given your family income, you will do much better with aid at private colleges than OOS publics which have little aid for OOS students on a relative basis.</p>