I am a student that is naturally curious and likes learning about the more advance topics. The thing that happened with me is that I always get too distracted by these studies. My grades have not necessarily suffered horribly but they are b’s, c’s , a’s . How would one get this across through college essays ? for example to a school like stanford , or caltech . I messed up by getting distracted with these studies but i studied what i love and found so intriguing .
List of topics i’ve studied since freshmen year:
Advanced web development
calculus
electrical engineering
Engineering physics and math
Instruments:
guitar
piano
saxophone
drumming
visual cymbals
What’s your overall GPA? Below 3.7 won’t usually sit well with stanford and cal, but it’s not impossible. Only 15% of admitted applicants had below that, but that’s more than zero.
Perhaps more importantly, if you truly enjoy studying at your own pace, even when that means pursuing interesting tangents…why in the world would you want to go to schools like Stanford or Cal Tech that are going to demand you enslave yourself to their limited (if rigorous) curriculum? Maybe you should instead be looking for a school that will fit better with the way you prefer to learn.
@ProfessorD Stanford and those other schools give their undergrads a lot of chances to do research . do you know any schools like that ?
Many schools - arguably the vast majority of 4-year universities, and certainly any Research-1 universities - offer research opportunities. Heck, your chances of netting a an undergraduate research internship are better at, say, a good state school, where you’ll stand out for your initiative, than at some bleakly hyper-competitive ivy where everyone is trying to out-grind one another.
But why would you want to hitch yourself to someone else’s research, given your self-professed inability to (or disinterest in) sticking to a strict program of instruction? Sounds like you’d be better off at a school that lets you compose your own curriculum. St. John’s? Portland State? Reed? Cooper-Union? Somewhere with an interdisciplinary or ‘University studies’ liberal-arts program.
If sounds like you want a school with a double focus like Harvey Mudd, or an open curriculum school like Amherst, Hamilton, URochester.
The Best place to do research as an undergraduate is a LAC, where professors are selected because they want to involve their students in research.
Some LACs, like Lawrence, have an R1 partnership.
What’s your GPA ?
With c’s you’re unlikely to get into any top 25college, and top 50 are reaches.
it’s not soo much that I couldn’t stay stick with a strict curriculum , but rather I wanted to learn things that I wanted to learn things that weren’t taught anywhere in my district and take a class that they would not let me take yet until senior year . i am in the top 3% of my classes and i am recognized by a lot of teachers for my hard work and drive to learn .
it’s just that my drive is to learn about subjects that my school just doesn’t teach.
A student who gets distracted from their coursework by other topics isn’t going to make it at Harvey Mudd. Yes, there are great opportunities for research. But if you can’t also meet the rigorous academic requirements, you will just flunk out. And it would be very tough to be admitted to start with as you describe your grades.
very true .goto easy college do own reaserach
What’s your unweighted and weighted GPA ?
If you are very self directed, colleges such as New College of Florida would be perfect for you.
@Davidhtx - one of the great things about college is that you have so much more choice in what you study! especially if you look at colleges with relative light ‘general education’ or ‘breadth’ requirements- the usual one trotted out is Brown, but others include Carnegie Mellon, Amherst, NYU-Gallatin, Hamilton, Vassar, UMass-Amherst, University of Rochester, Grinnell, Evergreen, Reed, Whitman and I’m sure other posters will chime in with more. Afaik, there are great opportunities for research at most of them (I don’t know about Evergreen).