<p>Ok so here's the deal, I know this sounds extremely naive, but I sincerely had no idea that grades were a factor for admissions to college for my first two years. I actually did learn a lot in this time, I enjoyed learning but didn't go that little extra distance to get an A because I didnt think it mattered, I read a lot, mostly of the classics, and learned a lot from that as well.</p>
<p>My father had always told me that what you got on the SAT was the only thing that matter, and, foolishly, I listened, I never actually looked at any of the admissions websites until the summer of my rising junior year,and oh boy was that a surprise.</p>
<p>I have always taken advanced courses in every core subject except math, and my junior year I took AP or AICE courses in every core subject except math. There's a strong upward trend from my sophomore to junior year,from 2.8 to 3.55, it would've been better but AICE courses are truly, truly, horrible, and have a knack for testing you on things that arent in the book or lectures, these are where my Bs came from but they are also weighted by my school, and so they still show up as A's on my weighted.</p>
<p>Not sure of my weighted right now hmmmm, it might be around 3.8
I took 1 AP my freshman year, 2 my sophomore, 3 AP and 2 AICE my junior, and next year I will be taking a total of 5 APs, this amounts to (I think) every AP in my school excepting both Calculus', Statistics, Latin, Chemistry, and Physics, I made A's in all my AP's last year.</p>
<p>I am also in a summer program at Stanford right now, I'm taking 12 credits, 4 classes, one in History, Physiology, Psychology, and Writing, I made an A on all my midterms and papers so I expect to finish with a 4.0 GPA in college. I will also go to any lengths necessary to ensure that I send a 4.0 senior GPA transcript off to any colleges I apply to.</p>
<p>I was thinking of addressing the fact that my first 2 years of high school don't reflect my actual work ethic, but rather that my last two years, coupled with my work here at Stanford, is a more actual reflection of my intelligence and work ethic, but I don't know how much they can overlook this, especially considering how many people apply with 4.0s :c</p>
<p>Well anyways
ECs:
Dressage : ridden for 10+ years, unfortunately this takes up most of my after school time
Piano: Also 10+ years, main interest is classical music
German: Self taught after our school discontinued it, I visit Germany every summer</p>
<p>Yeah that probably doesn't sound like a lot either, like I said, I didn't know of the importance of all this other stuff, so I just did what makes me happy for all these years.</p>
<p>I just want to know what caliber, and how forgiving they will be, how should I address my problem in the extenuating circumstances section?</p>
<p>Here is a list I had already made up before, reaches up top, then matches, then safeties at bottom</p>
<p>Every Ivy League, yup, know Im screwed on that one, but my dad will make me anyways, and I do have a truly excellent essay written for Princeton already
Johns Hopkins
Northwestern
Stanford
NYU
Oberlin
Lehigh
Drexel
Marist
Syracruse</p>
I already wrote essays for several of them last year during the dead weeks (the weeks after taking the AP classes and before ending school). I was also thinking of trying to do a first year transfer into one of these schools, I don’t know how feasible this is, I know Stanford has an extremely low transfer admittance rate.</p>