Chances for top schools with bad freshman year

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hello everyone,

I was wondering if my less than stellar freshman year would drastically impact my application to top schools including Ivy Leagues and Stanford/MIT. Here are my grades up to junior year, which I am in now.

Freshman Year:

Religion 1: A
English 1 H: A
Geometry H: B
Bio H: A
Cult Geo/ Model UN: A
Spanish 1: A
Intro to Programming: C

2nd Semester:

Religion 1: A
English 1 H: A
Geometry H: B+
Bio H: A
Cult Geo/ Model UN: A
Spanish 1: A
Concert Choir: A

(Changed Intro to Programming to Concert Choir.)

Sophomore Year:

Religion 2: A
English 2 H: A
Precal H: A
Chem H: A
World History/ Model UN: A
Spanish 2 H: A
Modern Art H: A

Second Semester:

Religion 2: A
English 2 H: A
Precal H: A
Chem H: A
World History/ Model UN: A
Spanish 2 H: A
Modern Art H: A

Junior Year:
IBPhilosophy HL 1: A
IB English HL 1: A
Math HL1/ AP Calc BC: A
IB Physics HL 1/ AP Physics 1: A
US History/ Model UN H: A
IB Business Management HL 1: A
Spanish 3H: A

Second Semester Projected Grades:
IBPhilosophy HL 1: A
IB English HL 1: A
Math HL1/ AP Calc BC: A
IB Physics HL 1/ AP Physics 1: A
US History/ Model UN H: A
IB Business Management HL 1: A
Spanish 3H: A

I am dropping IB Business HL 1 for Econ SL next year because I had too many HL’s.

Unweighted GPA: 3.88
Weighted GPA: 4.65

Expected GPA by December 2019:
Unweighted: 3.91
Weighted: 4.75

ACT:
33: 35 M, 35 R, 33 S, 28 Writing

I had a concussion and barely studied so now that I am better I expect I will get a 35.
Also I am a full IB Diploma Candidate.

Extracurriculars:

Did research at UCSD for a heart disease I had when I was little. I was not listed as an author, but I am expected to be acknowledged on a paper.

Launchx Club president: We have a company formed, and we are presenting it at regional demo day.

Model UN: I have done it since freshman year, and have gone to 14 conferences and have gotten awards at 10 of them. I attended a collegiate conference at UC Berkeley where I got an award as well. I just recently got invited by my school to attend an international conference in London where my resolution passed in a General Assembly of around 600 people.

Math and Science Club President (Sophomore Year): We attempted to start a science Olympiad Team, but ended up just doing random science lessons, and stopped doing it this year because people were too busy to participate.

I play club volleyball on a nationally ranked team. I also play on varsity for high school.

Project: My friend and I do lots of random science projects, and we are currently in the process of constructing a demo nuclear fusion reactor, and we should have a fully working fusion reactor by Summer.

This summer I plan to either do research again or attend a summer program if I get accepted. I applied to BU Rise, SSP, UCSB RMP, and PROMYS

Also, the reason I did so bad in intro to programming was partly my fault, but there were also a lot of things outside of my control. We do all of the work on computers at my school, and my computer was not syncing properly for the first like 3 and a half months, and I tried to get it fixed multiple times, but it kept reoccurring. Because of this, many of my programming assignments were not syncing correctly, and the assignments accounted for 50% of our grade. After I realized it, and went to talk to him he said if I showed proof I could turn them in for partial credit. I ended up showing him they were done on time, but it still was not enough to help my grade. Also, the teacher was an absolutely terrible teacher, and more than half of the class dropped the class in between first and second semester. During the final, we were taking the test online and my web browser crashed with all of my test data, and he gave me no extra time to finish it. I ended up getting a terrible grade on the final, but it didn’t matter because my grade was a C before the final, and stayed a C after the final. My counselor said he would explain this in the counselor letter of rec. As for my geometry grade, I was not used to having so much homework as my middle school attempted this, “no homework policy,” and I ended up always being overwhelmed with homework and doing it when it was due at the end of the chapter. Because of that, I ended up getting a B. I could have gotten an A if my work ethic was right, but Freshman year was just rough. By the time I got into Sophomore year, I was used to the big school aspect and everything came easy.

Additionally, I am hoping my passion for science can shine through with my extracurriculars. What do you guys think?

2

I forgot my ethnicity. I am Latino.

3

Schools disregard freshman year. You should be fine

4

I liked the part about the fusion reactor.

Is it under a blanket on the old ping pong table in the garage? Or hidden behind the dog house out back?

5

That’s pretty funny. It’s currently at my friend’s house, but it is just in separate parts right now. We may move it to our mentor’s house as he has a complete lab set up in his garage. We were really nervous about health hazards when we started this project, but we made safety our number 1 priority so I assume things will run smoothly. After all, it only uses 40 thousand volts

6

“Schools disregard freshman year”?? LOL

7

“we should have a fully working fusion reactor by Summer.” Why worry about “Ivy League and Stanford/MIT” when you’ll be getting Nobel for that first ever fully working fusion reactor?

8

Around 300 amateur scientists have created a fusion reactor. The youngest was around 14 I believe. Our mentor has a working one in his laboratory. The problem is creating energy efficient fusion, not creating the actual reactor. Anyways, I am going to delete that because it seems that is drawing attention away from the actual focus. Go to fusor.net to see all of the amateur fusors.