<p>Well, the GPA should tell you my situation. It's been horrible really. 9th and 10th grade was part of the worst time of my life emotionally, and my grades greatly, greatly suffered because of it. And to make matters worse, I failed English 9. Looking back, it was probably the dumbest thing I could have done, and I think it might have ended my shot at getting in to any college that I was interested in. Also, the only EC's that I have are playing basketball and having a job, so that won't make up for it. I'm planning on taking the SAT in March, so one of my first questions is, what should I aim for score-wise? I was thinking anywhere in the 1800-2000 range would give me at least SOME hope. My second question would be, what should I do academically the remainder of this year and next? Am I basically being forced to get a 95-100% average, or would going for the low 90's still be enough? And my last question is, what are my chances of getting into any of the following schools on my list? I'd really appreciate your help, thanks. Here is the list of the schools that I am looking at:</p>
<p>Towson
Monmouth
Marshall
Oklahoma State-Stillwater
Central Florida
U of Oregon
Clemson
Hofstra
U of Kansas
U of Louisville</p>
<p>EDIT: I have another question I forgot to add. Would taking an honors class my senior year affect the college's decision? I was considering taking Problems of Democracy/Economics Honors because Social Studies is my strongpoint, but I wasn't sure if it was too late to factor in to the decision.</p>
<p>No, I'm not a convict, and if I were you I'd get rid of the stereotype that all people with low GPA's are "convicts". If you read my post, you'd see why my grades sucked. Thanks for insulting me though.</p>
<p>According to my counselors here in Louisville, we need a 2.5 (63%) to get into U of L instate (incidentally, that average would be failing if it was in a class, so the counselors here basically tell kids you can fail and still go to college), but I guess it would be harder out of state. </p>
<p>I don't know why you're taking the SAT SOOOO early for colleges. Why not take it in the fall like most seniors and study over the summer so you can get good scroes?</p>
<p>When you finally apply to college, regardless of what your GPA and your scores wind up being, you'll explain to the Admission Committees what was going on freshman and sophomore years. Mitigating circumstances and all that. If you've done well during junior and senior years, they will understand.</p>
<p>Also, it may be the case that you should consider taking a post-grad year somewhere, to nail down the fact that you can do good academic work. Many kids need an extra year to settle down, and many kids have gone on to a very good school after a post-grad year.</p>
<p>Well, I'm taking them once in my Junior year, and another time my Senior year. I'm not sure when I'll take them later on though, probably in September or October. I'm taking SAT prep classes now, so it's not like I'll be going in completely unprepared and clueless.</p>
<p>yeah, since i totally meant to insult you. since i'm from oklahoma, i know quite a bit about osu. i was just trying to tell you that if you get a good enough ACT score, you're (to avoid any misunderstanding, i mean "you" in the general since, not YOU) in at osu unless you have serious demerits on your record. and actually, if YOU would read your post, you would see that you don't really explain why your grades sucked, you simply say "the GPA should tell you my situation" and then talk about failing classes. stop being so sensitive. i'll think twice before i try to help you again ;)</p>
<p>You might consider starting out at a community college if your ultimate goal is to transfer to a selective university. With good grades after a few semesters, you could end up at a university ranked higher than the ones you mentioned in your post. Good luck.</p>
<p>Don't know about your financial situation and how good a test taker you are, but there are schools that you can apply to based only upon your test scores. The University of California is one of these. Get about a 2100 on the SAT I and scores in the 700 range on the two SAT IIs and you can at least get into one of their lower ranked-campuses (Santa Cruz, Riverside, or Merced). </p>
<p>There are many other schools like this across the country--most of which don't require such high test scores. Check the US News and World Report college 2007 magazine to get a list (available at most bookstores).</p>
<p>Here's the links for the Univ of California. The first give the requirements about the total points you need, the second tells you how many points you get for each test score result:</p>
<p>P.S. I agree that Community college is the other great choice. Many of these are designed to be feeder schools into the states' flagship universities.</p>
<p>There has to be schools out there that would accept me if I worked my ass off this year and next, and got a good SAT score. There's no way I'll be caught dead at community college.</p>