Frustrated.

Applying to College
1

<p>I am a junior, taking IB courses. IB courses are offered at a central location, where students from all 3 high schools can apply to join. It has been hell.</p>

<p>In short, my high school sucked. I had HARDCORE grade inflation. I got nothing less than 93, in all PreAP courses. I went to IB this year and everything dropped. I got a C semester average. I failed two six weeks. I have never even gotten a C before! I got Bs in the rest of my classes. </p>

<p>This is a really, really good school, but over 20 people have dropped out (we started out with 50 kids in the program). It's getting to be a little scary. My semester average.. I don't even want to know. It is probably barely above an 85. It makes me furious, because kids that stay at the normal high school to take AP courses are getting 100s because the way the AP program is implemented is a joke. No one effing learns anything. People that are 50th in our class are getting 95s in APUSH.</p>

<p>The bright side is that my grades picked up. Except in English. I got a 95 in history, 98 in biology, and 100 in psychology on their respective finals, compared to the first six weeks when I got like.. straight Bs.</p>

<p>What can I do? Should I drop out of the program and just do AP and get higher averages?</p>

<p>Oh and here's another frustration. Even though I have the highest SAT score in the class, and have skipped a grade, I am still 14th in my class. I don't get it. I've always wanted to be val, and frankly the competition is so crazy that it's still possible I can do it, but I try and try and try and it doesn't work out. My main thing is writing; I absolutely cannot write inclass. Every essay(our internal assessments) I get are never below a 96, but inclass I am lucky if I can get Bs. Teachers thought I cheated on outside of class essays, infact. (I don't.) I read my inclass essays and I sound like some utter retard. -_- I don't know what to do. I've read so many books. I like learning.</p>

<p>Sorry for the wall of text. Hopefully this is readable.</p>

2

<p>umm...take the hardest courses if you want to go to the best colleges and succeed there. I know some students at Harvard, Dartmouth that got in because of grade inflation and they are seriously suffering.</p>

3

<p>This challenge of yours that you are thinking of avoiding will no doubt bite you in college. I mean, it's obvious you're not being prepared mentally and academically of college courses from these AP classes...unless these classes have really good teachers.</p>

4

<p>Yeah.. I always know that it would be more sensible, but there's also a stance that I should worry more about college admission, and then once I am actually going to college decide how I am going to survive within it. Because at this rate, who knows if I even get accepted anywhere I want to go.</p>

5

<p>As for writing, the only solution IMO is to devote yourself to write one impromptu essays daily on any subjects or topics that you are interested in. You should also sign up on newspapers online to read their editorials; these articles are opinionated and well written without being verbose and zealous of unfamiliar vocabulary words.</p>

<p>If you really want to challenge yourself, read one of these editorials and write your OWN opinion, even if you have no interest in it for in most cases, you will never have the choice of the topic of your essay in school. The challenge from this is that you learn and improve your skills in supporting a thesis which is really the bulk of most essays you will be writing. Depth is the key :)</p>

<p>For me, the problem now is trying to answer the prompt, I usually go off-topic or write a passage that as no relevance to the question; only improves the entire essay which goes to hell if you miss the mark.</p>