<p>I'm a current junior at a prep school in SE PA. I have some extenuating circumstances and my grades suffered until this year. I will address that in my college essay. Do I have a chance?</p>
<p>Applying: College of Arts and Science or Undecided</p>
<p><strong>Lets say hypothetically the first semester my senior year I get a 3.80+ with 4 APs and an honors class what would my chances be for the schools below</strong></p>
<p>ACT: 27</p>
<p>Awards: 9th Grade Academic Achievement award in Programming, 10th grade JV hockey all star, JV hockey coaches award</p>
<p>Leadership: Head of Programming robotics team</p>
<p>ECs: FIRST Robotics, academic competition, March for Life club, varsity ice hockey, Theatre Society, stock market club, intramural soccer and basketball, Club ice hockey, eBay powerseller, jv lacrosse, and 250+ hours of community service.</p>
<p>IMO I don’t think so. They openly told me at the admissions session that they don’t look at senior year grades/classes, unless you like fail out. Your ACT isn’t high enough to pull you up for a school that says it takes GPA into ~2/3 of their decision. And by essay I suppose you mean the personal statement, but I wouldn’t assume extenuating circumstances will give you that much of a boost.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, penn state places very little wait on the essays. My high school guidance counselor said that they don’t even look at them which I think is true considering the volume of applications they receive. I suggest using this sheet to chance yourself. It’s usually accurate!</p>
<p>Also, your cumulative gpa from the end of junior year is what colleges use. Even if you had gotten a 3.5 you would have needed very high SAT scores to get into main campus. I don’t think that it is reasonable for you to hope for an ACT in the 30’s if you would take it again. I suggest starting at a local commonwealth campus and transfering to U Park later.</p>
<p>I’m curious about the link from bullet – they are using weighted grades, and everyone knows that there is a wide variety of weighting systems. My dd’s school has 4 levels of classes, and each one adds a full point of weight to your grade. So an A+ in an AP class is worth 7.33. How could she translate her grades into something that would apply?</p>
<p>I think in general Penn State would wait honors and AP courses: A=5, B=4, C=3 …
the rest of the courses: A=4, B=3, C=2 … Given the extent of the weighted scale on the bubble chart this would seem to make sense.</p>
<p>It says its “GPA based on a 4.0 scale which takes into consideration” weighted grades - so yeah they probably standardize it. I don’t believe a 7.33 GPA point is necessarily normal anyway…unnecessarily high.</p>
<p>Etuck - that’s the problem. 7.33 is absurd and it’s hard to translate into a gpa that would be meaningful and give any idea whether her gpa is good enough for any particular school.</p>
<p>I mean, you have a “chance”, and sure its better for summer,but unless this years freshman class is weak like some people predict due to the scandal ( I think it’ll be the opposite) - I wouldn’t think so. PSU just values GPA the most, and its gonna be tough to get in with a low one like that. There are lots of other great schools that will see the 27 ACT and look over the low GPA somewhat more than PSU probably would.</p>