<p>im a sophomore in high school, and i have a pretty bad gpa (3.7 at most UW), 4.4 at most Weighted. im going to be taking around 10 AP's throughout my high school career
i want to major in cs. I also got a 35 on my ACT this year. I'm part of my school's science olympiad team, which traditionally going to nationals and places very well.
Additionally,
im going to eventually be on state board for a student run organization in my state ; ill be my yearbook photo editor; and ill be on board for my schools compsci club (hopefully president)
Lastly, im also going to be doing multiple internships related to cs; this summer ill be a research intern at mit. I'm wondering if any amount of extracurriculars can offset my horrible gpa?</p>
<p>Oh hey, you sound a lot like me. I had a horrible GPA. MIT happened to be one of the few schools that <em>didn’t</em> care.</p>
<p>You’re going to need to be spectacular outside of your classes. Do things really out of the box. Take advantage of the opportunities you have, and then make some more out of thin air.</p>
<p>what does MIT think of taking college classes / is taking college classes in general a good idea?
I’m planning to take college classes in cs.</p>
<p>Taking college classes that go beyond the high school curriculum in subjects you are interested in is a good idea.</p>
<p>What’s wrong with the world now that we think a 4.4 w GPA is horrible?? I have a 4.43 w and I’m very proud of it. Also, I got into MIT, and I’m pretty sure that GPA is just about standard for admitted students – it definitely won’t ruin your application.</p>
<p>Edit: And I have like a ~3.7 uw. I generally just go with my weighted GPA when I tell people, though, because at my school it really makes a big difference…a 3.7 weighted is like all Cs in AP classes, whereas I’m getting all A+ through A-. My GPA is also brought down by gym, art, music, etc. which are all on a lower scale (4.00 instead of 5.33) than my academic classes.</p>
<p>More importantly, though, every school has a different way of calculating GPA (case in point - my school’s idiotic over-weighting system where non-APs drag you down). So it’s really not that important to schools like MIT so long as you took the hardest classes available to you and did well in them.</p>