i’m an asian female and currently a sophomore, and my parents make in total around 250k a year. my school is pretty competitive oof ouch
freshman year (rip my math grades): 3.9 GPA
– everything was a 4.0 except for english (3.7 OOF), honors math (3.5 OUCH), and global (3.9 aHHhh)
– my other classes were honors french, regents bio, gym, intro to business, drawing 1, and visual dynamics
a 3.9 is like a 94, 3.7 is like a 93-94, and a 3.5 is a 90
currently:
– everything is a 4.0 except for honors math (4.0 first quarter, 3.9 for 2nd and 3rd quarters) and global (3.3 first quarter (I KNOW ITS BAD, it’s like an 88), 4.0 for the 2nd and 3rd quarters)
– my other classes include regents chemistry a, french honors, english, health, drawing 2, and orchestra
i’m taking ap physics 1 and ap calculus bc next year (i also requested ap chemistry and hopefully it’ll fit into my schedule)
it’s far fetched, but my dream schools are probably mit or caltech and i’m hoping to pursue astrophysics.
i know i’ve improved in math and global, but i’m still so paranoid about my grades, especially with that 3.9 for freshman year. are there any suggestions on how to do better?
(nothing can be weighted bc i havent taken aps lol)
hey! i too am a high school sophomore and asian female lol. your freshman grades are fine! just remember to take the most rigorous STEM courses offered at your school and do WELL in them.
also, it’s really hard to see how well u are doing and if u need to improve without u telling us your extracurriculars. that would be really helpful, especially since sometimes they’re more important than grades in college admissions.
i’d be happy to give feedback when u post it 
@needtosucceed27 oof okay … my extracurriculars arent that spectacular lmao
i have piano which i’ve been doing for 9 years now and uhh i’ve won competitions and stuff and performed at carnegie (5 comps, ive only recently been doing comps)
uhhhhhhh theres chinese lmao which i learn outside of school each sunday?
and i help build sets for school plays and musicals and stuff but uh
i literally have no other extracurriculars wow hm
what kind of competitions? were they like on a regional/state/national/international level? i quit piano when i was like 10 lol so idk how prestigious performing at carnegie is (but that sounds really great!!)
you REALLY need more STEM extracurriculars. if u don’t have any then that’s going to hurt u a lot in college admissions.
idk if this helps but a girl from my school got into MIT and Caltech. she went to STEM programs during the summer, did an internship where she did computer database stuff, tutored old ppl on how to use technology, was vp of math team, competed in math-related events in FBLA, vp of cs club, started a one-day event that introduced middle school girls to various facets of STEM. she went to korea to teach kids english one summer and worked at kumon for a while. she was also on robotics team and competed in computer science competitions. she took all the ap stem courses like ap macroeconomics, cs a, stats, etc.
literally ALL her extracurriculars were STEM-related and helped others.
i’m sorta doing the same things as her, except i’m more all over the place instead of just stem; if u wanna check out my extracurriculars/stats/course rigor, look at
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/2067783-chance-me-for-uiuc-georgia-tech-jhu-cmu-etc-soph.html#latest
For the classes that you find hard, go talk to the teacher or ask friends in the class for help. There are tons of websites. If you need help in math, Khan Academy has great videos to help. Tell us your cumulative GPA, but as long as you have a 3.9, you will not have a significantly worse chance. A 3.9 and 4.0 do differ, but depending on the school, it can be a big difference or a small one.
@needtosucceed27 holy heck okay this is makin me REALLY anxious LMAO
for the piano thing i went to 5 international competitions and won 4 golds and 1 silver (oof), but that doesnt really help my interests lmao
do you have any tips on where to start? i didn’t know i wanted to do STEM until the beginning-middle of this year, so i’m a little late to the game D:
i applied for yale’s summer program for astrophysics (yspa) this year and i hope to get in but if i dont, which is likely due to my lack of STEM ec’s, i’m gonna do brown’s summer college program for astrophysics (not selective, but i just want to learn)
i’m actually planning on setting up an astronomy club at school which meets 1-2 times a week to study/prepare for the astronomy olympiad and other competitions but thats p much it
@sputniik seems like youre really good at piano!! extracurriculars are pretty important especially with your international competitions cause they show you’re able to put a lot of dedication into one area. for stem, i’d say do local science fairs and try to get some big awards, science olympiad, science bowl, etc. next year if you take ap chemistry you can try out for the regional USNCO too. i think if you’re good at competitive math try amc or arml. that’s all i have tbh
also not to be That person but i wouldn’t do drawing since you already have really strong presence in the arts with piano and extending yourself into a lot of different areas makes you a lil worse in each of them. i don’t know how good you are at art though so if you’re really good than disregard this comment haha
@coronaa oof i can’t quit drawing lmao i’m already on the ap track and i really enjoy it so it’s nbd! if anything i shouldn’t have done orchestra (only did it to appease the teacher ack), so i’m not doing THAT next year lol