Hi, I am a sophomore. and my grades aren’t so well. Last year, I was an all A-level student, but now I am taking honors. Here is what I got 1st quarter.
PE: A-
Health: A
Foods: A
Spanish Reg:B- (I know. I need to work on this).
Advanced Math Honors: B (I struggle the most here. My goal is to work my way up to pre calc honors).
English Reg: B (Though, I can probably get that up next quarter. Got an F on the first few quizzes because my teachers grading style was so different from my last years).
Biology Honors: B (Very good, yet very hard teacher. B is great in his class).
US History Honors: A- (1 point from an A, I can probably get this up next quarter).
So yea… those arent too well and I am kinda depressed. I want to go to premed, so that later I can go into Dental School.
Extracurriculars:
Track
Started club in high school freshman year, so I am co-director. (Rock music club)
Classical, Rock, Jazz pianist for 10 years and very well proficient… soon will be advanced.
Done some music writing competitions for our school. (I love to write music, also my writing is respected by many teachers).
I work at a restaurant, and I mascotted. (I dont know his this counts).
Goal is to get over at least 100 voluntary hours at the end of HS.
My first choice college is Umass Amherst. I will also apply to Holy Cross and UCONN in the future.
What are my chances in getting into any of them at this rate.
Improve GPA, study hard for your SATs, and remain a well rounded student EC wise. Build nice relationships with your teachers for recommendations, and you can get in where you want to. All it requires is hard work.
You are three months into your sophomore year. It is way too early to tell but, yes, if you keep applying yourself you can get into a very good college.
When you have some difficulties along the way, talk to your teachers. Familiarize yourself with what the colleges you are considering value in their applicants. Learn to read the common data sets for each. Make sure you have a range of safeties, matches and reaches that are affordable to your family and that you would enjoy attending. Do some preparation for the SAT and the ACT. On your ECs, remember that colleges want to know what you are passionate about, and they like to see you stick with them. But most of all, try to enjoy high school.
Check out Cal Newport’s web site, Study Hacks for great advice on preparing for college. And no, you don’t need to be ‘well-rounded’ in your ECs. Your grades and test scores are much more important, and one or two ECs in which you excel is all that you need for selective schools. For most, just ordinary involvement in the few things you like the most is more than enough. Don’t get on the volunteering/school club/sports/music treadmill. It’s entirely unnecessary and detracts from your academics. Your interests seem to be writing and music - invest yourself in these two areas and ignore the rest. Chalking up volunteer hours is pointless unless you happen to enjoy what you are doing - which is a good enough reason to do it, but only if it doesn’t take away from your other more important activities (including getting enough sleep).
Thanks guys. I am trying really hard. I have improved from so much last year. (Not that I did bad. I had B’s in Regular classes, and was still able to move up.) Though with my quarter grades. Idk. It doesnt seem like I will do better next quarter. Im gonna try to get peer tutoring in Spanish and Math.
Do you know that Holy Cross supplies an evaluative committee letter for applicants to med and dental schools? If you don’t know how that affects your chances of getting into dental school, then you are not ready to make an informed decision about attending HC. Of course you may decide to apply and enroll anyway
NO, it means HC only allows its best students to apply by limiting how many will get special recommendations. Since you’re unlikely to be in the top 10% of their admitted students, you’d be stuck.
For UMass and Connecticut College, you need to have English Honors next year (will be very useful to write those essays and handle college courseloads), Spanish up to level 4, Math up to Precalculus Honors or calculus regular, two more classes in social science including your choice from Government, Economics, European History, or World History (Honors preferably), Chemistry Honors and Physics Honors, plus a few classes of your choice. AP Environmental Science, AP Psych, AP Human Geog, AP Psych are among the easier APs.
See if you can take AP bio?
I am taking AP Music theory next year. I am trying to take AP bio as a senior and AP stats. Now a few problems.
My Bio teacher has a reputation for screwing up everyone later on to the year. Quarter one is the easiest quarter. So I dont know what to do. I am so scared. Lots of people got dropped down to regular Chem because of him.
For my math honors class, my teacher said that B students are most likely not going to take honors Precalc.So I do not know if I am going to take it. I want to though.
Though he said I will probably make it back to Honors Calc after.
English Honors next year is my goal. I did screw up first quarter, but I am confident I can bring the grade up, now I know how my teacher grades. Though, obviously, as a regular class, the class is beyond slow, and I hate it. Also my teacher has a hard time teaching, but still I feel like I can get through it.
I will definately make it to Spanish 4, but I am most likely not going to get over a B. It is my weakest class lol. But I can try. I am going to get tutoring.
With that attitude, you won’t. Grades aren’t something that just ‘happen’, nor is it likely you have maxed out everything you can get from your intelligence in 10th grade. But one thing is for sure - if you don’t do something different, if you don’t believe you can do better, then it is nuts to expect different results. So if you’re saying here that you’ve thrown in the towel on better grades, then might as well toss the towel labeled “dental school” next to it.
My bet would be that as you get older and classes get harder, you have never sat down to re-evaluate how you study or how you can do it better. If you are not using techniques like self-testing or interleaved study (or don’t even know what those are), if you prepare for a test by re-reading the material a few times, you have ample room for improvement!
There is a great book about the current research in how people learn, called “Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning”. The book is written for a non-academic audience and has lots of suggestions specifically for HS kids. I strongly suggest reading it to make sure you are using the most effective techniques to study. For most math/science classes you can get Problem-Solver books such as “Biology Problem Solver” which are useful in the self-testing they will explain to you. These are like SAT prep books for academic subjects, organized by topic so you can match it up with what your class is studying, with thousands of worked problems.
I agree! As long as you continue to apply yourself in school and work hard to develop strong relationships with teachers. It is entirely possible that you could attend anyone of those schools, especially since UMASS Amherst has a relatively high acceptance rate.
Thanks, I am going to buy the books! uhm. Hopefully I can make change… I need my grades to be higher. I have already changed my study habits recently, and I am putting them to testing.
Here is the truth. Nearly everyone who wants to can get into a “good” college. Every May a list is circulated of colleges and universities still looking for applicants. Colleges are just as worried about not getting enough students as you are worried about whether you will get into a good college. The colleges on this list would surprise you. Go to school and learn a lot. Be engaged in your school. Find activities you find meaningful. The rest will happen.
don’t worry too much yet. Don’t get into too much trouble as well.