There aren’t many type of student like me, or in my area anyways. I have a cumulative GPA of 3.43 but the breakdown goes as the following: freshman year-2.6, sophomore year-3.1, junior year 4.4, and I’m guessing senior year’s first semester GPA is probably going to be around 4.5ish. I went from actual dirt bottom to farily high up in class rankings. I have a 1340 SAT and 730 on chem subject test (I self prepped after taking HONORS CHEM which taught me absolutely NOTHING close compared to the stuff on subject test). I took Math 2 and bio but the score was actually embarrassing so no way in hell am I submitting those scores. What are my chances of getting admitted to T-50s? mad stressing ab college because there is a very high chance of me not getting admitted to one.
That looks like a weighted GPA. What is your unweighted GPA? Unless you are in a state that has an in state school in the T50, it is likely going to be difficult. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t still go to college and have a great life.
Honestly, T50 is such an arbitrary cut off. There are many perfectly good schools you can get admitted to with your stats. Also, some schools don’t use freshman grades in your gpa calculation.
Where are you instate for?
I’m still considered international, I’ve lived here pretty much my whole life but under a VISA. I’m in Virginia tho
idk my school doesn’t do unweighted GPA
International is going to be a disadvantage for admissions. Is your family full pay? Is there any path to a green card in the near future?
complicated situation but unfortunately no… not anytime soon
That’s a pity. And finances? Do you need aid? I ask because most schools have need-aware admissions for internationals, so full pay can help.
My guess is that top 50 may be tough. However, there are a lot of very good universities that are likely to admit you given your strong up trend and very good grades for your junior and senior years, along with okay grades for your sophomore year. It is relatively common for students to mature and get their act together after their freshman year of high school, and sometimes significantly later.
Your budget is going to matter quite a bit.
Are there universities in your home country that would be a possibility? Would you want to consider other countries? As one example, universities in Canada would not care about your freshman year of high school at all.
You should be able to compute your unweighted GPA yourself. Just figure a 4 for any A, a 3 for any B, a 2 for any C, and so on. Then compute the average for each year. Admissions will look at your actual grades, but for the purposes of those of us here on CC just having some sense of your unweighted GPA would be helpful because weighted GPA is computed very differently at different high schools.
In terms of being on a visa, I am assuming that you mean a parent is on some form of temporary work visa. If you have a permanent resident visa, that is essentially the same as being a US citizen for the purposes of university admissions.
Well, it sounds like you’re considered a VA resident for purposes of admissions and tuition, as long as you’re graduating from a VA high school and your parent has paid VA taxes for at least two years.
Virginia has a top-notch public university system. You may not be competitive for the very top programs, but there are a lot of very good options.
California publics do not count freshman grades (except for Cal Poly SLO), so you might want to run this calculator and see what your weighted-capped GPA for 10th and 11th grade only looks like https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/ There may be some possibilities there… but the OOS COA at UC’s is very expensive (65K+) and the CSU’s you could get into, while very good schools, are not necessarily better schools than the VA public U’s that you can also get into. At any rate, if you want to do the UC or CSU application, it’s due at the end of November.
Canadian U’s also don’t count freshman grades.
If you can full pay for a private university, then you may want to target schools that typically have high numbers of international students, and may be hurting for full-pay internationals under current conditions. This is a useful list - look in both the National Universities category and the Liberal Arts Colleges one. https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/most-international
If you can’t pay the full 70K+/year for these schools, then your best options will likely be in-state… but luckily you’re in a state with many great options.
Can you calculate it yourself by adding up grade points (A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, F=0) for each semester of academic courses (excluding stuff like health and PE) and dividing by the number of grades?
Weighted GPA is meaningless outside of your high school, since others do not know the weighting method. Some may assume that your unweighted is a full point lower (e.g. 2.43 instead of 3.43), since some high schools have very heavy weighting.
Don’t lose hope yet. It’ll take some work, but you can find colleges that want a B+ with an upward trend.
Problem is, we don’t have enough info here to tell much about your chances or suggest schools. What’s your guidance counselor say?
I think “Top 50” has become an expression. I hope no one literally cuts off the list at #50. But to be more focused, you’ve got to mean something like top 30-50+. The top 20 are fiercely competitive.
I have a son in similar position. Have you thought about UK schools? They really only care about last 2 years of High School. St. Andrew’s is really special.
got into a T-50 (UMD) how ab ur son