<p>As you can tell by my username I REALLY want to go to Harvard. I am now a freshman in highschool on my second semester and I feel like I absolutely destroyed all chances of EVER attending this university. I want to get your opinions on if I still have a slight chance of attending Harvard.
Here are a list of my grades from last semester (WARNING THEY'RE REALLY BAD):</p>
<p>Design Draw for Production - Quarter 1 : 73% Quarter 2: 75%</p>
<p>Photography - Quarter 1 : 73% Quarter 2 : 50% (I know this should have been one of my best grades but my teacher kept losing my projects and I was not one willing to redo the entire thing and hand it back in)</p>
<p>Physical Education (Does this even count? I hope so LOL!) Quarter 1 : 93% Quarter 2 : 98%</p>
<p>Now hear me out. This next semester I am planning on raising my grades by A TON. So far I've been very successful. I just wanted to know for the next semester and 3 years of high school I did well do you think I still have a chance of getting into Harvard?</p>
<p>I am planning on taking all honors classes except Geometry next year and AP European History. </p>
<p>So far I have one extracurricular outside of school which is Dance. But I am planning on joining numerous clubs Sophomore year and sticking with them until Senior year. I am also going to start volunteering and my goal is to get at least 300+ hours in volunteering. I am also planning on taking the SAT spring of Sophomore year and retaking it Junior Year if I need to. I also am planning on taking the ACT instead of continuing on with the SAT Subject Tests. If I took the SAT Sophomore year could I still take the PSAT Junior year for a chance to qualify for NMSQT?
Please give me other tips on things that would look good on my resume and represent me well as a student! Thanks in advance! P.S I am planning on going into the medical field.</p>
<p>first, don’t think of high school as only 4 years b4 college. it counts for its own sake for your happiness, development and life. it counts.</p>
<p>don’t pick any one school which will only make you happy. not harvard, not your state school.
you will want a range of schools, each with its own merits, to consider.</p>
<p>do activities which you enjoy. you can not predict what schools want, except that they want you to be passionate about your activities. don’t do too many things at the expense of doing some things a lot. don’t try to look good on paper. try to be your own person. </p>
<p>schools will notice if you become a straight A student going forward and they consider the upward trend. I personally think that all As from now until the end would generally give you the same chance as most Harvard applicants - which unfortunately is still around 8 % or so.</p>
<p>10th grade psats are for practice, 11th grade psats will determine nmscholarships, as far as i know</p>
<p>i hope that this helps and wishing you good luck</p>
<p>Uhhhhh yeah I’d say with 7 Cs 4 Bs and an F your first semester of high school you’re not doing too hot. If there was some insane extenuating circumstance and you had >95 in every class for the rest of high school, you would be back on a competitive track (and this year, 97% of those applicants are going to be rejected RD). But it doesn’t sound like there were extenuating circumstances. You need to look at less selective schools, in 3 years, and for now get off CC and enjoy high school!</p>
<p>With your attitude I think you stand no chance of acceptance. First, you were not willing to redo work to raise your grade in photography? Any prospective Harvard student would do ANYTHING to raise his score. </p>
<p>Second, you cannot just aim for one school. Everyone wants to attend Harvard when he is young, just like everyone wants to be president. You are not alone. Sometimes you just need to pursue your dreams and apply “sideways” like MIT says. Don’t make Harvard your dream, make what comes after college your dream. </p>
<p>The vast majority of Harvard students are in the top 10% of their high school class. If you are NOT in the top 10%, your chances are slim-to-none – unless you have a huge “wow” factor, such as being a recruited athlete, Intel Finalist or award winning concert pianist.</p>
<p>Dream about boys or girls or games or sports or righting the wrongs of the world. Why waste time dreaming about a specific college? Consider that in five years after graduation hardly anyone will care. After 10 years, no one will care. GL</p>
<p>Being a freshman, you still have time to right the ship. But if I’m being honest, you are off to a dreadful start. If you ever had any hope of being Harvard material, you wouldn’t give up after one semester. Just finish high school as strongly as possible. If Harvard happens for you, then that’s good. If not, it isn’t the end of the world.</p>
<p>Don’t plan on joining various clubs next year – they are very low priority. Join the ones that really interest you only. The types of schools you’ll realistically be targeting will not consider extracurriculars whatsoever. Focus on your GPA. That is the single most important thing for you at this moment. And then prep for ACT or SAT.</p>
<p>I just wanted to add that my grades so far are straight a’s into this quarter. Harvard obviously isn’t the only school I’m thinking of applying to but it helps motivate me by making it my main goal. I think about it this way. If I aim for Harvard I will be determined to succeed and if I don’t actually get into Harvard hopefully ill have the stats to get into another good school.</p>
<p>“If I aim for Harvard I will be determined to succeed and if I don’t actually get into Harvard hopefully ill have the stats to get into another good school.”</p>
<p>Ok but my question is have my suffering grades my FIRST semester of highschool ruined everything or do I still stand a chance. I know for sure with more time and effort I can rock my second semester and the rest of highschool.</p>
<p>Input your grades from your FIRST semester into the above calculator and guesstimate what you would need to achieve during the latter half of freshman year, sophomore year and junior year to get a 95 to 96 GPA. As you can see, once you slide downnhill, it’s very difficult to recover.</p>
<p>you have not ruined your future. you can still go to an ivy league school , you can still become a billionaire, and you may be ahead of George Bush 2 towards being president.</p>
<p>i think that you may want to have a ‘paradigm shift’. i mean that you should work on being calm, steady, secure, motivated, focused, dedicated. these are better thoughts than accomplished, superior, eligible, marketable. the world will understand if you become a consistently superior student that you have improved yourself.</p>
<p>It is rare for Harvard to admit anyone with ONE C. You have 6 extra, and an F to boot. In the easiest semester of high school. If you get straight As from here on out you might have a snowballs chance in hell (AKA average applicant chance), but that seems unlikely since you’re already struggling.</p>
<p>I disagree with unicameral2013, except for the last part, “that seems unlikely since you’re already struggling.” Basically, it’s 9th grade. You’ve got three and a half more years to shine. I don’t know how you managed to do this badly in your first semester of freshman year, especially considering you’re aiming towards Harvard, but if you do somehow manage to pull your socks up and get a 94+ GPA for the next three and a half years, you’re all set in terms of GPA. Admissions really are holistic, and you haven’t ruined your chances by doing badly this early on in the process. It’s much easier to recover from poor freshman grades than it is to recover from poor senior grades in the admissions process.</p>
<p>To get into Harvard, though, you will need more than just good SAT/ACT scores and a good GPA.</p>
<p>^I think we are saying the same thing. IF he gets it together and pulls high As the rest of his high school career he could be a competitive applicant. It just seems extremely unlikely because reasons for bad grades weren’t “it’s an anomaly, both my arms were amputated this semester” (only legit excuse for an F in photography…). Rather, he was unwilling to put in the work in a super easy elective.</p>
<p>He CAN do it but Harvard is very unlikely. It’s like saying a 400 pound man will one day make the Olympics - it’s POSSIBLE, but pretty much not going to happen unless ridiculous changes are made</p>