Im wanting to know how this looks to college (im trying to get into a film school and im broke AF)
(And no, this isnt how i write in essays)
Sophomore i took AP World and passed with a high B average but my gpa was roughly 3.0 for the whole year
This year, Junior year, im taking five AP classes:
AP art history
AP Chemistry
APUSH
AP Lang
AP Psychology
I am currently not doing to well but a lot of that has to do with errors in EdLine or whatever.
I have a veeeeerrrry low grade in AP Chemistry but its not for a lack of trying; its a hard class.
I have a good grade in AP Lang because i can write essays reeeeally well.
The others arent too great right now but i iknow how to fix them and bring them up
I am also on the Debate team and am co captaining the varsity team at my school (we have two debate teams). We’ve won a bunch of awards and this is only my second year on the squad. We go all over the nation competing. Needless to say, we’re good.
I calculated what i think my GPA will be (using an online gpa calculator) after raising my grades the MINIMUM i want to raise them. And the result is a 3.75 to 4.00 GPA. My questions are:
How good will this look to potential colleges?
Scholarships?
No, i refuse to drop out of any classes. I know theyre EXTREMELY rigorous and exhausting. And im working part time at Sonic.
No one’s impressed by a C in an AP class, so if you risk this with AP Chem, switch.
Other than that, it shows you’re dedicated and this is maximum course rigor so kudos to you for this, along with Debate (time consumming) and holding a job (a valued EC since it means you can be entrusted with adult responsibility).
The one problem I see is that you don’t have a foreign language and most selective colleges will want to see three years if not four. Have you reached that level already or taken an AP class in a foreign language?
Next, it depends on what you mean by “film school”. As you know, NYU and USC are the gold standard. Is that what you’re thinking about? Because, if so, you need to start working on videos. Whatever strikes your fancy. If you hope to write for film or TV, work on that and see if anyone can help you make a stop motion playmobil film with your scenario, or whatever… This will be essential for the big name film schools.
I took spanish 1 and 2 8th grade and freshmen year. And as for the C in AP Chem, the way our AP’s are graded, thats essentially a B. Which is good. But the simple fact that i took AP Chem, which is one of the hardest AP courses, should mean something. And id like to get into directing and acting. My top picks are NFI and some school in dallas.
Yes, but colleges don’t care about the way your APs are graded. For them, a C is a C. And YOU cannot write anything about it. If your guidance counselor writes something about it, fine, but few do. However you’re absolutely right, they’ll like that you challenged yourself with a “core” AP science class.
However, stopping at Spanish 2 is a problem. It doesn’t make you competitive for any school that have strong film related programs.
Film is very peculiar, in that you don’t need a specific degree, but if you do get one, you need to choose one with heft in the industry - USC, Chapman, NYU, Fordham-Lincoln center, to a certain extent LMU-LA and UNC-W (especially if you’re interested in TV, either in itself or since they have the largest studios after NYC.)
If you’d rather work on writing, Kenyon or Eckerd are good in addition to the colleges above.
The NFI program is best done AFTER a college degree - even an AA. It shouldn’t be done right after high school. It’s an expensive vocational program that is NOT a degree, but a certificate or diploma that’s not even accredited (ie., the skills it teaches may be good, but you won’t get any further recognition in terms of jobs than with a HS diploma where you’ve taken units in video production, etc.) Because they’re not accredited by an education agency, you won’t be able to get federal loans so your loans will have to be shouldered by your parents - will they shoulder $20,000 in loans for you?