<p>I know its a bit early to discuss this, but I am a grade 10 student from Canada, and I am planning to try for Architecture at Cornell.
My grades are fairly decent, my highest mark being world history. I go to a very competitive (top 10 in Toronto ) high school and in a specialized Visual arts program.
So far, I am not having the best time. I finished my volunteer hours, I won some small art awards. I finished all three courses of advanced music history as well as 2 years of harmony and currently in ARCT piano. I am the president of Debate council in my school. I am on the cross country team, top five for girls. I am on the arts and culture council and youth council exec for performing arts at my community. Moreover, I am looking into SATs and getting ready to prepare for a math subject test as well.
However, I am really not proud of my grades. I am getting As in everything, except a 75 in math, and that was because I bombed a quadratics test on the week of my music history 5 exam and my grandmother passed away. I know there really isn't a excuse to a bad grade but I am really distressed. My teacher told me the US look at all four years of your marks, can someone please give me some advice to how I can work towards making up for my average marks? Thank you so much!!</p>
<p>Don’t worry about that one mark as it really won’t affect you ^^. I would make sure you communicate what happened with your teacher. It shows that you care and most teachers would be understanding for such a scenario. If you do well on your exam then that would prove that you really do know the subject, and they could drop that test mark. Additionally, universities in the US are far more holistic in their admissions process than universities in Canada, so it really comes down to who you are as a person. They’re not going to care about one mark. There are many people on this forum that have been accepted to top universities with bad test scores/c’s in things with good records elsewhere.</p>
<p>As for doing better in math, try focusing on concepts instead of specific ideas and formulas. I personally find that most of my peers memorize specific solutions and formulas, instead of thinking of how math works. People have a lot of trouble with grade 11 Ontario math because there are more concepts. In contrast, math is getting better for me. Look at the grade 10 math curriculum and you will find that everything is based on like 3 concepts. Pythagorean theoreom → line length, circle radius, trig; Quadratics -->how to manipulate them (equations and expressions); SohCahToh–>straight up using them then applying them</p>
<p>I would say your’re on the right track for your extra-curriculars. President is impressive considering that you’re only in grade 10!!! I would work on getting more awards though as many people going to ivy league universities are nationally/internationally recognized for something. I think you should just keep what you have (debate+arts+piano) and work at it. </p>
<p>By the way, are you going for debate regionals with osdu?</p>
<p>haha we have many similarities. i’m from toronto too! and i’m working on my ARCT. i’ll be in cornell arch next year.</p>
<p>basically, it all boils down to your portfolio, just keep working on it. paint, sketch, do some whacky creative projects. look for architecture internships during your grade 11 year. try out for scholastic art awards, it’s a prestigious national art award. </p>
<p>honestly, don’t be TOO worried about your grades or SATs for that matter (my SATs were terrible). while they are important, your portfolio is weighted far more heavily.</p>
<p>p.s are you in claude by in any chance?</p>