Horrible stats

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

First of all, before you mentioned that my stats are not good enough for ivy league schools, I am only looking at state schools with a good education. I am very worried about my stats because my parents seemed really concerned about whether I will be accepted to any colleges or not.

Schools I am considering in-State: Texas A&M (I heard of admission changes), University of Houston, UT Dallas, Baylor, Texas Tech, HBU, Southern Methodist, Texas State, TCU, Trinity University

Schools I am considering out-of-State: UC Irving/UCSB (my cousins went there and they are not the top students), UCSD, Tulane (def reach but my dad went there), Boston University (my dad went there too), NYU (def reach but I love NYC), UCLA (def reach)

You can also suggest good schools that fit these stats.

Here are my stats:

Rank within Top 20% at a decently large suburban school (People claim that my school is competitive but idk if that is true)
Played Piano with Music Lessons and Festivals since 3rd grade
1230 SAT Sophomore (My mom forced me to take SAT prep at our school and I plan to retake again this year)
Between Freshman/Sophomore and Sophomore/Junior summer, I also volunteered at an organization that helped poor kids in the community for 3 weeks, 4 days each, 4 hours per day
I plan to volunteer at my mom’s hospital this summer

Please note that in our school, they called honors “Pre-AP” and weigh it a 6.0 like AP classes. AP classes come later.

Freshman Year
5 honors (PAP) classes and 2 regular electives (just Art/PE)
All A’s (PAP Biology, PAP Geometry, PAP World Geo, PAP English, both electives) but one very high B (PAP Spanish)
Joined Model UN but like dropped out because I felt shy and not belonged

Sophomore Year
5 Honors (PAP) classes, 1 AP classes, SAT Prep (5.0)
4 on my WHAP test
Joined Stuco as a member but dropped out (I ran for representative but have lost unfortunately)
Joined Interact, but only attended meeting till the first-semester ends
I was part of the SAT Ambassador Program since the teacher of SAT prep liked me, but I quit that program at the beginning of the junior year. I wasn’t that involved compared to my other group members
4 A’s and 3 B’s first semester, 3 A’s and 4 B’s second semester
I have an A in PAP Algebra 2, PAP Chemistry (B second semester), WHAP, and SAT.
I have a B in PAP English, PAP Computer Science, PAP Spanish 3
Honorable Mention medal from National Spanish Exam

Junior Year (now)
6 AP classes, 1 PAP classes
I have an A in AP Stats, APES, AP Capstone, PAP Precal, APUSH (I am worried my final dropped it to a B)
I have a very low B in AP Lang (hardest teacher at the school we love to complain about) and AP Physics (subject people hated)
Joined Stuco again (The sponsor really encouraged me to join and give it another try)
Ran for Junior class president (I am pretty unpopular at school since people loved spreading bad stuff about me, though I ran because I want to make the school better and my teacher really encouraged me to do it)

Btw, I hope my AP Lang teacher really improved my writing skills because she has that reputation of teaching us to write better, but my grade isn’t improving. I will also ask my aunt to read my future college essay as she was really strong at writing.

Also, I am Asian so this would put me at a significant disadvantage which makes me angry considering that I am a really slow learner.

2

What’s your unweighted GPA?

3

About 3.5 Underweighted

4

UC GPA’s? Only AP/IB courses for OOS students count for the extra weighting in the 10-11th a-g courses. pre-AP’s are not weighted.

https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

Are your parents willing to pay $65K/year for you to attend a UC?

Retaking SAT? 1230 will not be competitive for the UC’s listed. Intended major?

5

Reading through your post, I get the impression that you have roughly an equal number of A’s and B’s in a rather difficult set of classes.

The average for all students in the US is approximately a bunch of B’s in somewhat less rigorous classes.

Also, your 1230 SAT score is a bit higher than average, but it is significantly higher than the average would be if every high school junior or senior in the US took the SAT. Also, you took the SAT as a sophomore.

To me this means that you are qualified to do well at a pretty good school. To me your list looks good, but we are not from Texas (I live way to the north and east of you).

I think that you are taking too many AP classes. I think that you should cut back at least for next year. Also, you might want to consider dropping back to a regular CP or honors class for second semester this year (which presumably starts very close to now) for whichever is either your one most difficult AP class or the one that you like the least (or dislike the most).

Over the summer you are likely to want to do some SAT preparation. In the fall you will be taking the SAT again and applying to schools. You are likely to need to do some significant research to decide which schools to apply to. You will have essays to write, and you will need to make sure that references and grade transcripts are sent in on time (and get someone to write your references). You are likely to want to visit some schools. You probably will be getting multiple acceptances and then will need to figure out where to attend. All of this takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. It is also emotionally stressful. I think that this adds up to at least the equivalent of taking an extra AP class. For this reason I think that you should lighten up just a little bit.

Another issue is that you are not going for an Ivy League university (nor MIT nor Caltech nor Stanford). Therefore you do not need to take the sort of course load that an Ivy League school expects. You can take the sort of course load that Texas A&M expects. Texas A&M is a very good university, but they realize that students are human beings, and you do not need to be completely perfect to go there.

Finally, you should find out what your budget is. Given the very high quality of your in-state universities, I just do not see how Boston University, NYU, or any of the Universities of California would be worth the cost unless your parents are very wealthy, in which case I don’t see why they would be worth the travel. Texas is an up-and-coming part of the US with great in-state public schools.

6

Really, you just need your budget first.