That's a good start. It will prepare you for:
GC screwed me over
teacher rec screwed me over
college admissions screwed me over</p>
<p>and the opportunities never end! It becomes,
boss screwed me over
wife screwed me over
kids screwed me over (put me in this dang nursing home!) :D</p>
<p>It sounds trite, but you will get a lot farther by being positive and taking responsibility for what you do and what happens to you instead of blaming others. :)</p>
<p>It isn't that big of a deal. I only said it thinking "If these kids have tons of awards that are going to look good on their apps., and I have accomplished the same without any awards, then something is wrong here."</p>
<p>uhhh... CALC AB in 11th and BC in 12th, over here. But, yeah, basically the explanations probably weren't too important because my teacher smoked a lot of crack. Like a rock between every two classes.</p>
<p>My school offers AB Calc as their highest class, and only to seniors. I managed to take it as a sophomore, and now I am taking the equilvalent of BC calc at college (calc/analytical geometry II). My school is screwed up, they have like 2 APs</p>
<p>My school is screwed up. we have 3800 kids, school is built for like 2000, our scores are too high for funding, our scores are too low for funding. my class is 850 large and we only have 1 college counselor to share, all 850 of us and those 1000 or so juniors. </p>
<p>My biggest complaint is that it doesn't seem to matter how good my grades have become or how hard i've started to work as a junior and senior (my GPA would probably be in the top 5% or something) but it seems that how badly i screwed up as a freshman and sophomore (brought my weighted 4.6 or so junior and senior GPA down to like 3.8) matters more.</p>
<p>It kind of does. Some schools allow students to get + or - grades; his school screwed him over (sort of) by calling it a B and not a B+. Still, he knew about it so should have done the extra work to get it to an A.</p>
<p>"lol am I the only loser who put that stuff on my app?"</p>
<p>Participation - especially over a number of years - in SO, AcaDec, Envirothon - whatever, is all good. Regional medals show active participation and knowledge, state medals are really nothing to be sneezed at, and if your team manages to get to nationals, it can really be quite competitive. </p>
<p>Regional SO medals are not the major hook that will absolutely get you in at a top school, but there are very few of those hooks to go around. Team competitions also indicate your ability to work with others.</p>
<p>For one track, my D's school offered Pre-Calc/CalcA in 11th grade, Calc B/C in 12th.
A slower option was to take a year-long Pre-Calc in 11th and then Calc A/B in 12th.
Mileage varies...all over the place.</p>
<p>The Calc B/C teacher rocked. All but about 3-4 kids got 5's on the Calc B/C AP test and everyone got at least a 3. The stupid thing is that the administration got on her case because there were too many 5's, not enough 3's...so their conclusion was that her class was too intimidating for "normal" kids to challenge themselves. What happened was that normal kids challenged themselves in her class and succeeded. But in response, this year she's cut out the pre-AP test after school review sessions. There will be more 3's and fewer 5's. Sucks. But the administration will be happy because the stats will look normal.</p>