Are my chances of getting into a top school ruined?

Applying to College
1

<p>Hi! I'm some what new to this site and was hoping to get some feedback.
So I am currently a junior in high school and I started off the year strong first semester as a full IB Diploma Candidate but, due to my mom getting a new job in California, everything seems to have gone down hill since then.</p>

<p>At first, I was able to get into an IB school here in California, but due to issues with transferring courses over, I was forced to drop the program. Then, the guy my family was renting a house from decided he wanted his place back and we had to move again; causing me to change schools.</p>

<p>Now, because I transferred in so late in the semester, I had to just take whatever classes had space. So my junior year transcript has gone from 7 IB classes first semester, to 6 classes second semester:
AP Lit.
Pre-Calc.
AVID (my counselor made it sound better than it is)
French 2 for no credit (I was in IB HL french at my old school a.k.a. french 4, but this was the highest the school offered this year)
2 PE classes (plus summer school to make up the credits for graduation)</p>

<p>I am signed up for 4 AP classes next year (all my counselor would let me take) but I am worried that it still won't be enough.</p>

<p>I feel like my changes of getting into a good school have been ruined and it is really frustrating because of how hard I worked the first 2 1/2 hears of high school with my school work on top of family issues. The most irritating part is that all the staff members and teachers seem to be big advocates of doing the community college transfer thing.
Sorry for ranting, but if anyone has any advice or suggestions about what I could do it would be greatly appreciated.</p>

2

<p>There’s a spot on the common app that allows you to explain things and you should be able to put all this on.</p>

3

<p>No, your chances are not ruined. Just keep up your GPA and do well on your SAT/ACT. Make sure you get to know some teachers and your guidance counselor since they will be writing your letters of rec. All you need is for the GC to confirm that you took the most challenging courses available to you in their recommendation. The absolute number of AP courses isn’t important so long as the rec includes the limitation that they place on how many you are allowed to take. And use that extra space on the common app to explain your situation, as CollegeIsAMaybe suggested.</p>

4

<p>Your experiences will be a great essay topic - how I stayed sane and remained an A student despite going to 3 high schools in 4 years. Keep up your grades, and you will be fine. (Better than fine :slight_smile: )</p>