Does anyone here regret trying to be "cool"?

College Search & Selection
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<p>I'm actually a pretty smart person. Straight a's my whole life, presidents awards, state reading awards, won some competitions and essay contests. That was before high school. Freshmen and sophomore year I bombed most of my classes. Got d's as final grades in algebra two and chemistry. Got a d as a semester grade in Spanish three. Finished with a c because I got a b second quarter. Had one f as quarter grade, then a d second quarter in chemistry. I'm retaking those courses so my gpa will be re-averaged, but colleges will still see my horrible grades. I have multiple b's and three c's on my transcript out of seventeen courses. The thing is, these classes weren't actually that hard for me. When I got to high school, I was going to a new school where I knew no one. I wanted to be cool for once and instead of studying and doing homework when I got home, I would skype friends and go out. I have very very few minimal extracurriculars. I play no sports because I quit all of them during the first two weeks of high school. Now, even if I get straight a's the rest of high school and volunteer like crazy, I still won't be able to get into the colleges I had my heart set on before high school. If only I had more self-confidence, better time-management skills, and focused more on my future instead of the present, I might have been able to achieve the future I had once dreamed about. It's too late now, but I still need to try and do my best everyday. </p>

<p>Has anyone else done or been through something like this? I know I'm ranting, but sometimes I really feel like I'm the stupidest person in the world to let my dreams go to try and fit in. If you're currently doing this or might do it, please don't. It will be something you'll regret for a very long time.</p>

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<p>Yeah I’m sorry about the situation you’re in :frowning: It’s never too late to change your ways though, hard work will eventually amount to something, even if it isn’t the admission to your dream college.</p>

<p>Fortunately, I went into high school with the mindset " If I just bust my *** for 4 years, I’ll be on my way ". If you think about it, it’s only 4 years, and you can still have fun in the summer. Unfortunately, many kids mature late and don’t realize this until it’s too late…</p>

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<p>No, I honestly think you’re the only person who has ever sacrificed their grades to that degree to try and pose as “cool”. </p>

<p>Maybe you’re not as bright a student as you think and am only making up excuses to as why as your GPA is so low? Middle school and high school is a big transition and, depending on school district, the grading standards can vary greatly.</p>

<p>TBH, D’s and F’s are exaggeratedly bad. I know some “cool” kids don’t get the highest grades, but they don’t have to be on the border of dropping out of high school either. Furthermore, maintaining a B or C isn’t even that hard; even if you submit half-ass work! There really is no excuse for receiving D’s or F’s.</p>

<p>I’m going to take a “see it or believe it” approach to your problem. If you’re telling the truth that you were just being lazy, then you should go out there and get straight A’s for the rest of your high school career. This isn’t to work to try to get into your “dream school”. You’ll need straight A’s to get into any college at this point.</p>

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<p>curiousanddazed: I guess I had a similar story but to a lesser degree. In elementary school I was definitely one of the smart kids (math team, gate, etc). By the time I got to high school, I got SIGNIFICANTLY lazier. I would attribute some of this to wanting to be cool. I remember taking my first non-honors class (by accident) and realizing that all the kids in it were the cool kids. After I realized how much cooler these kids were, I stayed in the non-honors class and didn’t tell my parents. I did better than D’s and F’s at first, though by my senior year I was a “habitual truant” (on the verge of suspension/expulsion) and had gotten an ‘F’ in a class as well as a couple of C’s. My SAT scores were pretty good but definitely not at the level I felt I was capable of achieving (1900). </p>

<p>Come college admission time, I continued my pattern of laziness and didn’t actually look into any schools I wanted to attend. However, when I realized that the best school I had gotten into was UC Riverside, I panicked. It was senior year that I reflected on my high school life and realized that I had been seriously underperforming. I went to UCR with the intent of transferring, and I maintained a 3.96 at UCR and retook the SAT’s and got a 2260. I was accepted as a transfer into Berkeley, UCLA, USC (half full ride at SC), Davis (full ride), and waitlisted at Brown. I definitely think it’s possible to turn things around, but it has to come from self-motivation and a clear goal. I’ve since been doing very well</p>

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<p>Why do people always bring up their ‘smartness’ in kindergarten/elementary/middle school as some sort of proof of their innate intelligence? Guys, please. Children develop differently; some of them perform better in school at a certain age, but that doesn’t mean they will always have the potential to do so.</p>

<p>Anyway, I’m sorry for your troubles, OP. I went down a similar path, choosing not to study for school because it wasn’t as interesting as the stuff I could be reading about instead, which resulted in a B/B+ average for me. I had some Cs and a couple of Ds in high school, and even some Fs. Luckily for me, that didn’t stop me from getting into an amazing school.</p>

<p>I know things probably look pretty bleak right now, but don’t despair. Life isn’t over.</p>

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<p>you aren’t the only person who has done that, don’t worry. have you read The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth? It talks about the difference between people who are cool and people who are not and what that really means. It basically says what you’re saying, that it’s not worth it to try to be cool and you should just be yourself instead.</p>

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<p>I went on Facebook and looked up all the “cool kids” from when I was in high school. The Student Body president is now a used car salesman. The head cheerleader is a waitress at Denny’s. The prom queen lives in a trailer in her parent’s back yard. No kidding!</p>

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<p>If the work is so hard, why did you get D’s and F’s? I’ve put in a regretfully low amount of work at my pretty good high school and I’ve gotten rather good grades. And I’ve never gotten any state reading awards or the like.</p>

<p>Sure, there’s a lot of popular kids in my school who don’t get good grades, but one of them actually got the highest ACT score in the grade, one that’s even higher than mine. (By one point, but my point still stands) He also has almost two grades higher than me in Physics AP, a very demanding class. And several other people in my grade also don’t put in that much work but have amazing grades too.</p>

<p>Two of my heavy-partying friends got accepted into Duke and Emory. Despite their partying, they managed to keep a job, play in a very prestigious orchestra, and coach a debate team. I could go on and on about “popular” kids still getting good grades.</p>

<p>imo, if you couldn’t get B’s and C’s with your amount of effort, you probably wouldn’t have made it to the college you wanted to anyways.</p>

<p>I don’t even know what this has to do with being cool. It’s just that you’re not putting in effort.</p>

<p>Pretty much as I can tell, there’s no link between being “cool” or not cool and being smart. Yeah, lots of the cool kids have subpar grades for me, but they will be going to UT as long with some of the kids in the top 10. And lots of the “geeky” unpopular kids really aren’t that smart. Yeah, some will be making a bunch of money in computing, but that’s not because of any academic intelligence they have.</p>

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<p>lol, that’s not true at all. Since you seem to be so fixated on scores and grades, riddle me this: I scored a 2350 on the SAT and 800s on the subject tests, yet failed chemistry in tenth grade, never got an A in math, and barely passed physics. How come? Because I simply didn’t study enough in school.</p>

<p>Performance in high school depends on effort, not ‘talent’ or ‘intelligence’ or natural ability or anything like that. (Not that I think the SAT measures any of these things.) It doesn’t matter how smart you (think you) are if you never do your homework. At least not at schools like mine, where homework is tough and you get severely penalized for missing it. I assume that’s also the case at the OP’s school. The fact that you know people who get amazing grades with little effort says more about the rigor of the school than about their abilities.*</p>

<p>Also, lol @ “[an] ACT score […] that’s even higher than mine” You make it sound like it’s an anomaly or something.</p>

<p>*btw, I knew a kid who insisted on coming off as totally uncaring about school, presumably because being known as the resident anarchist hippie pothead was some sort of badge of honor in his eyes, but secretly worked his butt off. He just made his friends believe he never studied. True story.</p>

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<p>The people in this thread acting like hard asses probably never had the option to go out with friends.</p>

<p>Seriously, if you think an intelligent person can’t fail classes just because all you’ve done your entire life is study, then you need to stop being so closed minded.</p>

<p>In most classes, if you don’t turn in work, you fail.</p>

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<p>Uh, great for you.</p>

<p>Unless you got to some great magnet school or had a really hard teacher (wouldn’t you probably be kicked out - idk) I don’t see why you would fail chemistry. I never studied for chemistry either. </p>

<p>And if you were smart, you would know that correlation between the SAT and grades are not 100%. So yeah, you are a possible anomaly. No sorry, I can’t calculate the chi square value of that. </p>

<p>The guy who got Calculus of the year (for a class I got kicked out of) probably didn’t score as high on the math ACT as I did. But whose actually better at math?</p>

<p>And you refer to high school in past tense, why are you still here? @_@</p>

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<p>Are you saying my school is unrigorous? lol, compare to what? Harvard-Westlake, Einstein? Thomas Jefferson? Just because we proles don’t go there doesn’t mean we can’t get a semi-decent education.</p>

<p>My school is definitely in the top 10% of competitiveness in public schools, so it’s even more preposterous to assume that the OP’s school is any more competitive than mine. Yet despite doing no work, I am still in the top 10%. (I know this wouldn’t be the case if my GPA was unweighted though) So no, not doing work is still not an excuse.</p>

<p>So yeah, unless the OP is going to the aforementioned Harvard-Westlake or TJ or the like, there really is no excuse for getting D’s and F’s besides sleeping in school. </p>

<p>And you can go CRY MOAR about your school’s so-called “rigor” too.</p>

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<p>Woah, I didn’t know that thousands of people across the US score higher than me on a test taken by millions of people. womg</p>

<p>Just be glad I can talk and walk at the same time.</p>

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<p>Hahaha, you’re funny.</p>

<p>Not.</p>

<p>While I might not go out, like I said, I pretty much never study nor do work. I mean, I guess I do projects and some busywork, but most of that can be completed in one study hall period.</p>

<p>Even among my friends who do things with their freetime and never do their homework while having no chance of ever getting into the OP’s dream schools, they still don’t get Ds and Cs.</p>

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<p>Wow, you do get quite defensive…</p>

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<p>Yeah I guess I do. lol</p>

<p>I see you go to Reed. Well, I guess I know that there’s still one college who will accept me even though I barely did anything in high school.</p>

<p>But for the OP, there’s still no luck.</p>

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<p>Community college is there for kids like you. Get straight A’s there and apply as a transfer. You will be fine.</p>

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<p>Wow, for someone who’s expressing real regret for his choices and trying to find a solution, there sure are a lot of asinine responses: “well I (or someone I know) didn’t work either and didn’t fail as bad as you! You suck! And you’re probably not as smart as you think you are.” Really guys? I mean, I’ve long known that high school students on this site are pretty vicious, but this is like Revenge of the Nerds.</p>

<p>To the OP: ricegal is right. Community college would be a great option. There are other schools that you might be able to get into, but they’re probably not your ‘dream schools.’ So go to community college, get stronger grades, and transfer happy. Just don’t ever think that it’s too late or too hard to pick up the pieces. Everyone makes mistakes, and sometimes the consequences suck, but you can always recover from them.</p>

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Meh, I think that’s just the reality of the OP’s situation and so more than one person is coming to the same conclusion. </p>

<p>Am I a mean spirited person? Maybe, but it’s also the reality of the situation.</p>

<p>No one should ever get a D or F in high school, EVER. High school teachers are so nice and will give you a million chances if you talk to them. Some will try their hardest to pass you even if you don’t talk to them.</p>

<p>Ditched class and missed an exam? That’s fine, we’ll have a makeup exam! Missed the makeup exam? Another makeup exam! Need extra credit? Definitely! Need extra credit even if you’re not failing and just getting a B? A lot of teacher’s will be willing to offer this as well! It’s just a matter of communication. </p>

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That’s assuming the OP bumps his grades up to B’s (and some C’s). I am not kidding when I say no college would accept him at this moment in time. Even the worst state schools reject students, contrary to popular belief.</p>

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<p>lol people here are just pointing out the truth</p>

<p>It’s too bad you feel insecure or something over this. And I guess you haven’t seen something I posted in this thread - I know several people who are twice as popular as the OP probably will ever be, and they all had great grades and ECs. It’s not a matter of how nerdy or not someone is, it’s just a case of not being able to do the way minimum effort. And like something else I said before, even the not-so-smart popular people don’t get D’s and F’s. By this point, the OP has to be seriously doing drugs all the time or something.</p>

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<p>"No one should ever get a D or F in high school, EVER. High school teachers are so nice and will give you a million chances if you talk to them. Some will try their hardest to pass you even if you don’t talk to them.</p>

<p>Ditched class and missed an exam? That’s fine, we’ll have a makeup exam! Missed the makeup exam? Another makeup exam! Need extra credit? Definitely! Need extra credit even if you’re not failing and just getting a B? A lot of teacher’s will be willing to offer this as well! It’s just a matter of communication."</p>

<p>I don’t know what kind of high school you went/go to, but at mine the things you just listed above rarely happen, even if the teacher likes you. I had a teacher that made multiple students cry and suffer from anxiety attacks. Really nice huh? Extra credit? That’s not allowed let alone offered at my high school. Getting a D or an F is possible in ART class, lets not even touch on the academic classes. There really is no need to kick a person when they are down, ESPECIALLY if you do not know what type of high school the OP is going to. The community college suggestion was the only helpful piece of advice on here, most of the other posts were put-downs and I doubt put-downs are what someone needs when they have realized the mistakes they’ve made and want to turn it around. </p>

<p>Had to get that off my chest. Anyway…</p>

<p>To curiousanddazed: I’m sorry that you did that, but it’s good that you realized it and regret it. Better now then never? Like the previous suggestion, community college is a great route to take, make sure to try hard from here on out! It’s worth still worth it! You want to build up a good work ethic. Also, I don’t know if you are still struggling with a desire to be cool, but I just want to add something. I’m probably around your age (I’m a junior so I feel I can kind of relate?) and being cool and smart aren’t disjoint things. And think about it…would you rather be a stereotype (typical “cool” kid that doesn’t care or a typical “nerd” that can’t “fit in” socially) or an exception to the rule? To me the latter is more appealing…you can take a bunch of APs and work hard and STILL be a kick-ass person and have fun. Plus I know AP classes stimulate close friendships due to suffering! Haha :slight_smile: I wish you luck!</p>

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<p>Oh, right, because someone who doesn’t care enough to show up for his exams is going to put in the effort to coordinate several rounds of make-up exams.</p>

<p>And yes, of course there are no vindictive or merely principled high school teachers who would choose to exercise their right to fail someone who deserves to be failed, rather than be a dancing clown for any snotty teenager.</p>

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<p>So because there are popular kids with good grades, it’s impossible that the OP got bad grades as a result of trying to be popular. Try again.</p>

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<p>OP, my response to you. Take stock of your experiences, and hopefully you’ll realize that you’ve learned and grown socially even if not academically or on a resume. This will contribute to your overall success more than the studyhard strivers in this thread are capable to admit. Do what you have to do – go to community college if you must – and catch up. In so doing, you’ll really be ahead, because when you finally take a look around, at the mouth breathers whose bowl cuts you’ll look down upon, the satisfaction will dawn that while credentials can be improved, the pecking order is shaped and forged in one’s adolescence, and is thenceforth cast.</p>

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<p>There are some 4,200 colleges in the US. Look up the GPA distributions of some of them on College Board; you’ll find that there are schools that would accept him. That’s because the vast majority of colleges are looking for people who can pay, which will keep the college afloat.</p>

<p>But like I said, they’re probably not the OP’s ‘dream schools.’</p>

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<p>That doesn’t excuse rudeness or judgment (as everyone here is doing). The OP didn’t ask for that.</p>

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<p>I don’t feel insecure at all; I got straight As in high school and am finishing my undergrad at Stanford, soon to start my PhD at MIT. But I’m also a decent person who isn’t going to put someone else down for no reason or make a snap judgment and follow it with an “lol it’s the truth.”</p>

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<p>Are you even listening to yourself? How do you know how popular the OP is? How do you even compare popularity? </p>

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<p>Please realize that you don’t know his situation, so you really can’t say.</p>

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<p>By this point, you should probably just stop posting.</p>