<p>So, I'm going to be a Junior this September at a public high school.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>I'm a Jewish, middle class male living in the NJ/NY/PA tristate area and am thinking of getting into one of the top colleges. Parents are immigrants and I speak both Russian and English, if that matters.</p></li>
<li><p>During the Freshman year, I failed my Art History class due to my laziness and had to take a summer course to make up the credits. Some of my other grades were also lousy due to (again) laziness.</p></li>
<li><p>I've did mostly A's in my sophomore year, and have scheduled 3 AP classes and 2 Honors classes in my Junior year.</p></li>
<li><p>However, thanks to the aforementioned mistakes Freshman year, my GPA is now 3.00, though I have managed to get the A's in my Sophomore year without much effort, so shifting into an active study schedule will probably mean similar grades in Junior year.</p></li>
<li><p>I have not engaged in any extracurricular activities or clubs, nor done any volunteer work, unfortunately</p></li>
<li><p>Thinking of writing a political book over the summer and seeing if I can get it published in the hopes of having a "hook" to put in my application. Is this a worthwhile endeavor?</p></li>
<li><p>I got a 2040 on the PSAT's without bothering to study for it</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In short, I have the feeling that I've screwed myself over with my lazy performance in Freshman year, engaging in no extracurricular activities/clubs, not studying for the SAT's for the last couple of years, and having little knowledge of the college process. I'm hoping to get into a top school and avoid the specter of mediocrity. Would any of you fellows be kind enough to give me some advice to chart a course ahead and where I could obtain more information? I'm afraid I have little to no knowledge of the college admissions process, much less the "great achievement" mills like FBLA and Olympiad.</p>
<p>I don’t want to say you have no shot at top schools (assuming by top you mean HYPS and the like), but that’s a fairly low GPA and you’ve got to keep in mind that Ivies reject kids with a perfect 4.0 UW GPA. So you have to ask yourself, why should they bother to admit you, especially since you admit that your low grades were due to laziness, and not extenuating circumstances? Just food for thought. So have some reaches you want to apply to, but also have solid matches and safeties. </p>
<p>Going to a non-Ivy or a school that’s not considered to be prestigious doesn’t have to do with being mediocre. It really doesn’t matter where you go to, contrary to popular belief.</p>
<p>Get off the high horse and pull your act together. You’re not out of the running for top schools, but you’re not exactly a great candidate. </p>
<p>Re: the book idea: you know enough to write a <em>political</em> book? After two years of high school, you’re not academically qualified to write anything that’s not fiction. (If you meant a political thriller or something like that, then go for it if you like to write.)</p>
<p>Study for the SAT (think 2300+), find something you’re passionate about, and get all A’s your junior and senior years. Best of luck.</p>
<p>Start looking at schools ranked 35-75. Request information from each of them (both national universities and LACs). Find a handful you’re excited about and show your interest.
Get all A’s junior year and work hard over the summer (reading more than your summer reading, preparing for the PSAT).</p>
<p>“I’m hoping to get into a top school and avoid the specter of mediocrity”</p>
<p>Mediocrity is up to you regardless of the name of your school, and you can improve yourself even if you start at a community college. You can’t undo two years of not being invested in your education and suddenly compete with top students who have been diligently working hard the whole time, and has involvement in EC’s that reflect a sincere interest. </p>
<p>The best part of your post is that you admitted that you have been lazy, and one good thing about our education system is that there are other chances to not be mediocre, but you’re going to have to give up on the idea that any name of a college will bring you to that. If you are willing to be the student you wish you were, then you can start now by working hard in school. It’s part of growing up, and even adults can change the course of their lives. It will take doing what MYOS suggested and working hard at school and aiming for different tier colleges, and I would add considering what is affordable to your family. </p>
<p>Well, yes, you are probably going to be behind those who have similar profiles and do not have the issues you have mentioned. The top schools have to cull so many close to perfect candidates, so that they look for reasons to cut, not for reasons to take a student except for those “hooks” as we call them that put some into special pools. So for the very top school, unfortunately, you are likely cut with that freshman record. Some schools will not consider the freshman year (Stanford), but those that do, you are likely out of the picture. Too many kids who have shown 4 years of excellence, maybe even perfection. Without a “hook” reason for your issues, you’ve just made it easy for a college to just eliminate you.</p>
<p>As for your book, all well and good to publish it, but be aware that this is becoming more and more common with the online publishing options. It’s not good enough just to get a book out. The acclaim for the book,venues, content are what could be hooks, not the book itself.</p>
<p>Last year a Jewish, former SSR resident, valedictorian with 2300 SATs and who was very active in ECs, was a state level musician, was shut out of HPY. If someone like you were accepted, you could see the inherent unfairness right there. This guy had four years of straight As, and it still was no guarantee for entry at those top schools. Did very well at a number of other college choices, but that is the competition right there.</p>
<p>The competition is fierce because the very top colleges can choose from an application pool that is diverse and accomplished. They can pick from the best- in every possible category of personal attributes and circumstances- and they do. There simply is not enough spaces for all the highly qualified students who apply. </p>
<p>The fallacy is in thinking that not getting in is the end of the world. There are plenty of “late bloomers” like you, who later applied themselves and succeeded from a variety of colleges. The most important factor in this is “apply yourself”</p>
<p>Thanks for all the advice. I’m just really concerned that even if I get great grades Junior and Senior year, colleges only look at your first three years and my GPA will still take a definite hit from Freshman year. Similarly, my suspension will probably screw me over in a really big way. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>As for the book, I so know enough to write one and have been writing for the past couple of years, but I’m wondering if I should really put most of my extracurricular effort into this one basket. Would it be better to go for some Conservative red meat rubbish that’ll haqve a better chance of getting some publicity or should I write some Liberal screed that’ll reflect my views more accurately, but have a more difficult time getting any decent sales?</p></li>
<li><p>What would be some other options for getting a major “hook” if I’m interested in law, business, and political science? One of my career options would be a lawyer, but that field is extremely competitive and prestige from the college you went to plays a big part in you being hired, much like most other white collar jobs.</p></li>
<li><p>I apologize for my compulsion to get into a “top” school, but doing so makes it so much easier to get a decent job later in life, particularly in the fields I’m interested in. Being a “late bloomer” in college matters little unless you are a savant, and I’m afraid my only skills are in literature and history, not science or mathematics, so doing scientific research in a lab somewhere for a “hook” is out of the question.</p></li>
</ul>
I think you’re getting ahead of yourself here. The odds of your getting something published* are very small, let alone getting sales of any kind, decent or not.
you could self publish of course and then sales will matter, but the odds of random people buying a “political” book by someone unknown and under the age of 25 are rather small. Your odds would be better if you could write a teen romance, unless you’re well-known on Cspan, FoxNews, MSNBC, or your local channel…</p>
<p>There’s research in all fields, including history and literature. Look at the faculty profiles at the nearest 4-year college. Can you imagine working for one of them? If so, contact them, explain your passion for history/literature, and offer to learn by doing thanks to helping them in whatever capacity they may find you useful to them.</p>
<p>Getting into a “top” school does not help get a decent job later. Your grades and internships do.
(Unless your goal is to work in IBanking, the arts/art history, film/TV, or pure math.)
For Law School, it’s true you need to get into a Top 14/top 20 law school to increase your odds of finding a job, but the college you come from does not matter much. </p>
<p>Right now, consider any national university or LAC in the top 25 and any regional university in the top 5 is out of reach. Even if you get a book published, these schools merely become reaches.</p>
<p>Look for low reaches, matches, and safeties (national Us/LACs ranked 35-75, regional universities ranked 5-6 to 25…), study this summer to increase your scores and develop good reading habits. Then, if something has changed for the better in the Spring of Junior Year, come back to post so that the CC community can provide more precise advice. Or update this thread every other month in order to provide us with a clearer picture.</p>
<p>I agree with MYOS, and also encourage you to take the focus off the idea of “hook”. I think the emphasis here on CC on “hooks” is because if there are hundreds of applicants with perfect scores and GPA’s hoping to be selected for one spot, then they want a way to stand out- with an individual accomplishment, or talent, or background. </p>
<p>Colleges look at the entire application, and the most important part is the academics. Past that, they look at other aspects of the applicant because they reveal something besides academics. Does this applicant have a specific interest, talent, background- that makes them who they are, and would he/she be a good fit for the college? Still, the main qualifier is academics. If you had top grades and scores all four years, then maybe, writing a book would be interesting- but only if it was something that you were sincerely interested in, not as a means to get a “hook”. I’m not an admissions officer, but I would bet they can see through this. </p>
<p>Your main focus right now is improving your academics, and to then apply to your best match colleges. Yes, you made some mistakes, but many people have made mistakes and recovered from them and you can too. A top school is probably not in your immediate reach, but being a good student in high school and college is. You don’t know the future- it could include a top grad school, or perhaps at that point in time, that won’t matter as much to you. It might include a job you like. Whatever it is, a determiner of that is going to be your hard work- and you can start now. </p>
<p>There are schools that don’t look at Freshman grades. Search around on college confidential to find them. I can’t remember them. Some that might ignore freshman grades from my recollection are Princeton, Michigan and Carnegie-Mellon. You should double check though. My memory may be faulty. </p>
<p>Canadian schools like McGill and Toronto will not care about your extracurricular activities and to the best of my knowledge will not look at your freshman grades.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You can still go to a top school and be mediocre once you get there. If you don’t want to settle for mediocrity, you need to stop being mediocre. That should be a higher priority than worrying about which school you go to. </p>
<p>Almost one month into school and the four AP classes(Psych, Euro History, American History I, and Lit) are easy enough, but I’m struggling to find any real hook for top schools. All those mistakes from freshman and sophomore year will screw me over when it comes to scholarships and I’m going to have a hell of a time trying to explain away both a poor Freshman/ mediocre Sophomore year performance and an out-of-school suspension. At this point, it seems I’ll struggle to convince even Rutgers to accept me, much less any prestigious law or business school, even if I keep up my performance in the four AP classes. It’d be so easy to give up right now, but I’m going to hope against hope there’s some way I can distinguish myself from the rest of the student body. Anybody got any ideas as to what I should do for the foreseeable future?</p>
<p>Yeah, I do (and obviously I’m a mom, so keep in mind that this is a little “tough love”)</p>
<ol>
<li>Stop thinking self defeating thoughts and telling yourself the reasons you won’t be successful.</li>
<li>Instead of focusing on creating a “hook,” follow your interest in writing. That, and your obvious intellect, ARE your hooks.</li>
<li>Scrap the idea of a book right now. Start a political blog. DO NOT SELL OUT (your reference to “red meat conservative” angle or whatever that was). Write in your own voice; it is engaging.</li>
<li>Promote your blog on social media. </li>
<li>Do not allow your grades to slip. And study for the SAT…you’ll nail it.</li>
<li>People love an underdog story…and last time I checked, adcoms were still people. “Sell” your story. You’ll get into a school that’s perfect for you, I promise.</li>
<li>Let us know where you end up…oh wait, you won’t need to…because we’ll probably see you on Bill Maher or John Oliver…;)</li>
</ol>
Stop catastrophizing. It’s not that bad. You have no reason to give up. You don’t need to get into a “top” college. You need to get into a good enough college where you can excel and take it to the next level at graduate school. Just keep getting As and you can get into Rutgers. All A’s this year and your GPA is approximately 3.3. If your schools gives A+s then you can have the GPA up to 3.4. That and an excellent SAT can get you into a respectable liberal arts college and most public schools. </p>
<p>I think you need to realize that you need to be realistic. Just because you are not going to go to HYPS, which are out of the question, you need to pull your sh*t together and realize what you have ahead of you. If you do not get this idea of “top” & “prestigious” colleges out of your head, you’re going to spiral into insanity and be very disappointed when it comes to application time.</p>
<p>I want to emphasize that NOT EVERYONE IS A HYPS etc, TYPE STUDENT. that does not mean you are any less than the students attending those schools. There are so many schools that don’t have the Ivy name and are just as difficult and selective. Stop worrying about the name and worry about how you would fit in and how competitive you will be when it comes to you being there.</p>