I’m in my second year of high school, and already my grades are dropping the first quarter. This has led to me thinking, should I really be taking all honors? Will the difficulty of my courses matter that much to colleges? Would taking a mix of normal difficulty/honors/college courses work best? How did you do in college admissions with your schedule?
Here is my schedule:
English 2 Honors
German 4 Honors
Band
Wellness
AP Statistics
Pre-Calculus Honors
US History 1 Honors
Chemistry Honors
In my US History Honors and Pre-Calc Honors course, I have very low B’s (81 and 80), and my other honor courses I have fairly low A’s (from 95 to 90). I feel that if I were to drop into the normal courses, I would do much better/get higher grades. That, and I feel that I would have less stress with the amount of coursework. I’m therefore debating on dropping a few honor courses next year, but I would like to know how much it would affect my chances of making it into a good school.
Last year, I took all honors and had an unweighted GPA of 3.6. I’m expecting even lower this year.
I’m looking into UCLA and Berkeley, but I am an out of state student.
Berkeley and UCLA both consider class rigor “very important.” Meaning the people who get in can handle honors classes (and APs or dual enrollment or whatever other difficult classes are available).
Do your parents have a quarter million dollars in a college fund for you? Because this is how much it’ll cost you to attend a UC (and no, there’s no financial aid for OOS students, and you can borrow $5,500 freshman which hardly makes a dent).
In any case, you should take the most challenging class where you can take a B.
AP Stats could go and you could take a study hall or fun class instead - AP Stats is more of a complement but is not a "core "class, and since you need more time to assimilate the process and concepts in core classes, it’d be the prime target of the schedule change.
Since your’re in German 4H, next year you won’t have German Honors so you should be good on that account, unless you take German AP. It’d relieve you if you end up taking AP Calculus AB or Honors Calculus, and AP US History or US History Honors 2.
Thank you all for replying. I will probably continue with the high rigor classes as I managed to pull all my grades up to an A. (Pre-calc and history are still low A’s, the rest are mid to high A’s due to doing very well on all the unit tests.)
However, I was wondering, should I really go for Berkeley as an OOS? I’m from NJ and Princeton University is something I see every summer. Would applying for some Ivy Leagues be better? Considering the tuition in California is very expensive for OOS.
Also, if my grades are around this level until the rest of the year, I’ll be able to take AP German and AP US History. How many APs are recommended? I’m only taking AP Stats since a major in statistics is quite interesting, however not my favorite.
Note: I’m not quite sure what to do, being thrown into all of this college stuff. Sorry for being such an amateur. ;-;
Have your parents told you what the college budget will be?
Also, Rutgers is a perfectly good school for many subjects, and you may get a full ride if you are one of the top entering students (including having A grades in hard courses, among other things).
My parents told me that they would prefer a school budget under 150k, but 200k would be doable. So basically around 50k, I would have to generate by myself.
The one thing they did tell me is that if I went to a ‘bad’ school (they mentioned Rutgers) they would not help pay for tuition at all. I will probably apply there and hope for at least some financial help.
Is being a sophomore still to young to be wondering about majors etc.? My guidance counselors won’t see me about this stuff until spring, so right now I’m on my own. (BTW 3/4 are out on maternity leave, so they’re pretty busy looking for replacements.)
Also, would early action help for the UCs?
What schools do your parents consider acceptable? If they are all unaffordable or unrealistic for admission, then you need to aim for full ride merit scholarships so that you do not need their money to go to college.
Yes, don’t worry about majors. And if you have no idea senior year, it’s FINE to apply undecided. (Most freshmen change their minds anyway).
If you have an idea you’d like to study STEM, or history, or journalism, or economics, or something in the arts and humanities, we can provide pointers, but unless you’re looking for something relatively rare like Turf Science or Interior Design, most colleges have 40+ majors for you to choose from so it shouldn’t be you #1 criterion.
UCs don’t have early action and wouldn’t be within budget.
Would your parents like TCNJ better? (It’s more academic)
Can you buy The Princeton Review’s Best Colleges this year (it’s a bit shorter and easier to read for now), planning to buy Fiske GUide and INsider’s Guide to the colleges next year? And start reading
Will your parents take you on college tours?
You can visit lots of them just by sticking to NYS, NJ, CT, RI, and PA or MD
Include a Catholic, midsize university (like Villanova or Fordham); a midsize public (like TCNJ or Geneseo); a large public (like Penn State or UMD-CP); a private research university (like Brown or Yale); several elite LACs, some liberal and non Greek like Vassar and Smith, and some preppier like Williams and Colgate (… this is relative, of course, we’re not talking BYU :p); some safeties like St Lawrence, Goucher, or Muhlenberg; some specialty college (Dickinson for international anything, RPI for tech…) Since you’re a sophomore, pick three that sound the most different and exciting to you, take notes in a notebook; and go from there.
I don’t think the UCs are worth it for OOS, great value though if you live in CA. Getting A’s in rigorous classes is of course best of all. Sophomore year is pretty early to be worrying about colleges. If you want you can look at some nearby campuses and see what you think of big vs small, urban vs rural. Since you are taking Pre-Calc this year you might want to take the Math 2 SAT subject test in the spring. Possibly also US History unless you would take APUSH next year.
If your parents do not want to pay (enough) for any school that you can get admitted to, then you may want to look for full rides in these lists. Of course, you need to achieve high enough grades and test scores to qualify.
If you are taking AP classes and getting 4’s and 5’s you might actually be reducing classes that you will need to take in college. I know of a young lady who graduated in three years instead of four based on her AP classes and by taking a class or two over a summer. It saved her parents a year of tuition! Colleges usually won’t give you credit for these courses in your major but it will often count them as an elective. If your high school has Naviance, I suggest you spend some time looking at all the different options it gives you for looking at schools and what the history of your high school is in relation to these schools. Best of luck to you
I recommend that you still apply to Rutgers. They just opened the new Honors College this year and you may be able to get in depending on your scores. Many of the students there got into better schools (similar to the ones you are looking at) but did not want to pay the crazy tuition. I know multiple students there who were valedictorians and have 2400 SAT scores with nearly 50 AP credits. Rutgers also offers amazing financial aid for their top students and has some great opportunities too. Just something to keep in mind.
more than anything it sounds like you need to take some college tours and see for yourself what schools have to offer ,what YOU like and where you would like to spend at least 4 years before making any decisions on what’s a good school or “bad” school based on your parents comments. The fact that they mention Rutgers as a “bad” school is proof positive of a lack of knowledge. Depending on course of study Rutgers can be a fantastic opportunity. TCNJ even better . But these are calls you should make after obtaining some first hand knowledge with real world visits and real world research. My advice is don’t get caught up in the name game, when you peel back layers you’ll find
who really has successful and appropriately priced programs. Facts are many well known instituions have a hard time justifying tuition prices vs real world results.
Okay, I think I’ll take a step back from the UCs and look around the NJ/Pennsylvania/NY colleges. My mother does work at TCNJ and I’m very used to the campus. But I would like a change of view. I’m honestly completely inexperienced in the colleges and I suppose I have been playing the name game. All my family friends have been going to the Ivies or other top colleges and they’re all I know.
Thank you all for your advice, I think I’ll begin by asking about tours in the spring. I haven’t been to Rutgers before, but I’ve heard that they have a huge campus. Does anyone know how to get a full ride to Rutgers? I know someone who was offered a full ride there, but they placed 2nd out of around 600 students.(Which I doubt I’ll be able to replicate.)
Also, this is slightly off topic, but what is the average amount of AP courses students take? If I continue with grades over 90%, I’d be eligible for 5 AP courses. Would taking that many in a single year be too much?
“The one thing they did tell me is that if I went to a ‘bad’ school (they mentioned Rutgers) they would not help pay for tuition at all.”
This is an example of emotional blackmail. It’s not unreasonable for parents to want a say in where their kids go to school since it’s their money and they know their kid, and the world in which that kid has to function - adult experience has its value. But threatening not to pay for college is a nasty way to go about asserting control. (And if you got rejected everywhere else and Rutgers was your safety, they wouldn’t refuse to pay - so it’s an empty threat too.)
It would be nice if they treated you more like a partner in this process by explaining what their concerns are about Rutgers, and what they are hoping you are going to get from your education that you would be unable to get there. It would also help if they were to take the time to educate themselves about how competitive the college admissions process is these days for ‘brand name’ schools and come up with some acceptable alternatives -there are many. And every year, excellent students end up at schools your folk might think are ‘bad’ because they didn’t realize how competitive the process has become, or they couldn’t afford the price tag once they got admitted. Those student do just as well as the ones who attended the brand name places.
Check out Frank Bruni’s book, Where You Go Is Not Who You Will Be. It might help to educate them. Great Christmas or Hannukah present.
Rutgers is ranked #72 nationally and outside of NJ is considered anything from a flagship to an Ivy League school. At worst, complaints seem to center upon the lack of individual attention. The new Honors college as well as honors programs in various schools such as engineering are attracting really high achievers, it is not the Rutgers of the blue collar set of the 80s. For example, to get into the honors college requires a 2200 SAT, full rides are very competitive 140 of them at 2250 SATs. And despite stone3’s protests, TCNJ is a regional university, so is not ranked nationally and is different but no better than Rutgers (and who outside of NJ know what it is). I can personally vouch that your Rutgers education will never be inadequate even if you attend a prestigious university for your graduate studies in a hard major. You won’t have luxuries, but the dorms are decent, the profs are good, the students are serious, etc.
Your $50K per year bogie won’t buy you much in terms of private schools, excluding a few schools with high merit aid, and won’t get you into the public Ivies - such as UMich, UVa, UCLA, UCB, even Penn State OOS (and you may end up Penn State Shroudsburg for 2 years) etc. There are a few states that have low tuition for OOS students, but they aren’t always as prestigious as Rutgers. There are the big merit aid schools, but Bama is ranked below Rutgers (but you would be far away from home and free of parent’s checkbook if you can nab a full ride).
From a financial standpoint, graduating $50K in debt with your parents cleaned out ($200K) may or may not make sense, and that is not the price of Ivy Leagues that are now topping $65K.
Seems like your parents and you have to do some real research on your personal options, being an NJ resident with fairly well to do parents who can’t afford Princeton … etc. Some insight into what you want to study and other factors that determine a good school (maybe Rutgers is the foil as the anti-good school, maybe your parents are just out of the loop) would really help narrow the field.
IVY league ??? seriously??? Sorry, but the FACTS tend to disagree with you. And like it or not TCNJ is held in higher regard for undergraduates in Business to STEM, Teaching etc, Just facts . Rutgers (while its a fine school) is in fact the only of the orginal university in the US to not have attained IVY league status.
I don’t know anyone who thinks Rutgers is close to an ivy school either, but it definitely has a lot to offer. Not everyone can or should go to an ivy, and just because you CAN spend 200k on school doesn’t mean you necessarily should.
Parents who are putting pressure like that on their kids need to have a reality check in the form of an info session at a good quality LAC or flagship.
