I just transferred from a public school that I had attended from kindergarten to tenth grade. I have taken a few classes at USM as a part of their gifted studies so, I was able to earn enough credits to graduate early. That being said, I am technically in my senior year right now taking classes through a Christian homeschool. The classes aren’t the greatest to any standard but, I did not want to waste another year at my former school. My former school offered 3 AP classes, after some discussion I was allowed to take AP Bio and APUSH during my sophomore year which wasn’t usually allowed. After taking said classes, I decided that I was going nowhere at my former school (The school is known to be the worst in the county due to gang activity and poor test scores which means that there are few opportunities.) and tried to enter K12 homeschooling but realized that I couldn’t afford the tuition. So, here I am taking regular classes, Now my problem is that during my first two years of highschool I had some major family issues that caused a great deal of stress and I cracked under the pressure which caused my grades to slip leaving me with a 3.281 unweighted GPA and a 3.58 weighted GPA. Those grades do not accurately reflect me as a student and I’m trying everything I can to ensure that I get into the college I want, but I have found that being new to homeschooling I am faced with the same lack of opportunities that I faced at my previous school. I have taken up volunteering at several places in my community bringing in about 10 hours a week, but I notice a lack of any honors and clubs (due to lack of opportunities at both of my schools) to include on my application. This has me worried because as of right now, I have a low GPA (4.0 for the semester though) and no honors or clubs except for the few I had as a freshman and sophomore but those do not show any leadership because, I was an underclassmen and certain positions required you to be an upperclassmen. All of that being said, I am maintaining A’s in all 6 of my classes and am on path to graduate this January (1 year and a few months early) and I am volunteering a lot as well to try to prove that I am better than my mistakes academically. So, now that you know my situation my questions are as follows: What should I do to make me more desirable to colleges? I have a passion for culture and learning, but I don’t know how to prove that through action especially with the failures I have made in concerns to my grades. Please help me.
Post this in the homeschool forum and you might get some better answers. Homeschooled kids seem to do well in admissions though, so don’t worry too much.
Thank you!