Grades Dilemma

<p>Would ending my junior year we three B's end my chances at getting into top colleges
-Even though its top public school in state and my career GPA would still be around 4.2 (3.7 UW) and i have awesome EC</p>

<p>It will not end your chances, no.</p>

<p>But like with all “Will X end my chances at top schools” questions, there’s a catch. The schools have a large enough and good enough applicant pool that they can easily pick people who don’t have X in your place. So if you show in your application that you specifically are unique and deserve a spot, you won’t be screwed with 3 Bs. If you don’t have much on your application besides grades and test scores, it might be more of a problem (but having only grades and test scores to show for yourself is a problem anyway).</p>

<p>awesome thats encouraging because my grades over high school have been been good i just ran into some difficult classes and teachers the the wrong time. And i have a whole bunch of extra stuff so hopefully that will be what carries me</p>

<p>I can’t really say since the only info you gave is a GPA which means nothing without having the context of your school. What is your rank? Do you have test scores? Have you taken the hardest APs? Will your recs be good? What is that awesome EC?</p>

<p>Well im in the top 10% of my class even with those B’s in the top public school in my state. I take extra elective classes (ap bio) to bolster my course-load and make it as difficult as the school allows. Im captain of a sports team, editor in chief of the newspaper, founder of my own club which helps student deal with concerns within the school, i run a local farmers market in the summer and have all the other good stuff you need (national honors society, community service, and i started my own lawn business)</p>

<p>What’s your definition of a top school? I’m guessing the schools with below 10% acceptance rates are out of the question, just based on what you’ve provided, but other top schools certainly aren’t, especially if you have good SATs and clear, thoughtful essays.</p>

<p>colgate, bucknell, cornell, notre dame, and bc??? a random list but still some of my favorites</p>

<p>anyone??? ahhh college stresses me out</p>

<p>What are your SAT/ACT/PSAT scores?</p>

<p>spayette, it might be helpful for you to go to the website collegedata dot com . At this website, you can check the self-reported stats, by college, of students who were admitted, and denied admission by year. Put in 2013 for last year’s admisstions results. This gives you a range within which you can compare yourself.</p>

<p>Top 20 Unis by and large have very high standards. The Top 20 have slots for (guessing a little here) 25,000 freshmen. There are about 3 million high school graduates this year. Assuming only 10% are even interested in Top 20, that still leaves 300,000 students with a desire to get into the 25,000 spots at a Top 20 college.</p>

<p>Can you see where my math is tatking us? Even those in the top 10% at their school face steep odds of admittance to a Top 20 school.</p>

<p>Top 20 is for Top 1-2%, generally speaking, of all high school grads… generally 3.9 or so unweighted, and 2150+ on the SAT, give or take 200 or so SAT points, and take .2 on the unweighted GPA. And of course well documented, enthusiastic ECs that show leadership and initiative.</p>