<p>I messed up my junior year pretty badly gradewise. I might have a 3.5 this year unweighted, and a 3.76 unweighted overall in the hardest courseload possible at my school. I moved between my freshman and sophomore year from a horrible southern high school to a top 5 school in Ohio , and a lot of things just didn't work out my junior year with too much focus on ECs, some psychological issues that i might get checked out for in the summer (school ends with two weeks and I don't want to screw up any last chances to raise my grades with medicine and whatever), and the death of my grandfather. </p>
<p>I mean, none of these things really count as "excuses" and situations that I don't hold myself accountable for, but I know that the fact I let some things get to me ruin my otherwise strong resume, including good SATs and top 10% rank, will really hurt me as junior year is viewed as the most important year. </p>
<p>Is there anything I can do to become more competitive in the process? If I had kept my grades up, my counselor and members of this trusty website had told me that I had really good chances at all my schools with my resume, and that even for the crapshoot schools, I seemed to stick out a little bit (though how much of that was just baseless flattery, I don't know). But, I did not and now I do not know where I stand. </p>
<p>Schools I am (was?) looking at:
Columbia
Cornell
Georgetown
Upenn
Dartmouth
Brown
OSU (in state)
UMich
Amherst
Duke
Berkeley
UCLA
JHU
NYU</p>
<p>I want to major in economics and pursue an MBA, JD, or both in international law and/or business.</p>
<p>Chasing-, yeah, I understand that it’s really stressful to be dealing with a tough junior year, especially b/c it’s the year that count’s the most. </p>
<p>What I would do is make sure you’re taking equally as challenging classes your senior year, and show college admissions that you can handle the rigor. I’m a senior now, and from what I’ve seen, the valedictorian/salutatorian doesn’t necessarily get into the best colleges. A kid who basically took senior classes as a junior was accepted to Yale (in addition to all his ECs in politics and music), and yet he wasn’t in the top 5%. </p>
<p>and about ECs…you’ll be practically done with high school around november, december. Try to keep your ECs in moderation so you’ll bring your grades up in the first semester. If you’re an officer, I would rely on underclassmen to do some of the work in the beginning of the year.</p>
<p>If you’re thinking about international law or business, I think NYU, Columbia and Georgetown are good choices. I hope everything works out for you, and I’m sorry about your loss.</p>
<p>Well this is what happens when you move schools. Just try your best in the summer and next year. Write awesome essays. Continue with ec’s and good grades. Explain your situation to colleges, so they understand your accomplishments in light of your environment.</p>
<p>Thanks. I have 5 APs next year and spanish 4 and obviously I will try my best to get good grades in those, but I have to juggle the fall play, presidency of MUN, vice presidency of speech and debate, historian of mock trial, and perhaps a job along with college apps next year. I’m probably just going to end up overwhelming myself again, but on my own account this time. </p>
<p>I’m applying to Columbia early decision, I think.</p>
<p>I would probably venture that you might get deferred with Columbia if you do ED. Rock out your first semester grades for senior years (aim at straight A’s or something), and I think colleges will be really forgiving of your slight dip.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry about the past, you can’t change. Just focus that your senior grades should be top-notch, write good essays, get some nice recs, and I think you will have a shot at the schools that you were looking at.</p>
<p>Write a brilliant essy, apologize intelligently and appropiately. Get your grades up soon. My son did do horribly in junioryear, then had a suspension in senior year. His essays were horrible, well the essay was good, the parts where apologies were in order were horrid. He did get into a school that would have been in his top five before the screwed up that bad. If you have a good counselor she or he wil send a letter saying that you are a good candidate and that sometimes things like that happen. Make sure you get all the teachers that you thought you let down write letter of recommendations if they will. And there is a place for you out there. And you can always transfer</p>
<p>Wait, how does one apologize? I’m sure I’ll have good essays – I’ve had ideas for a while. Everything is in good shape except for the GPA. I still can’t believe I let this happen, but I guess I just have to keep moving forward.</p>
<p>I wrote a letter addressed to the Adcom Committee talking about less-than-ideal circumstances that I was in. I made sure I did not sound whiny or anything.</p>
<p>My Adcom from UChicago said that he liked the letter and it added perspective to my application. Don’t apologize, because that makes it sound like you were lazy and intentionally slipped. If you have a legitmate reason why you slipped, just present the facts the way there are and say that’s why I slipped and that it was a one time situation. If you have your first quarter grades by the time you apply and if they are good, I would say to send those in too with your letter. That would probably help you with Columbia ED. Your RD schools will request to see your 1st semester grades anyway.</p>
<p>I’ll have my first quarter grades, I’m pretty sure. Did you send them the letter in the mail separate from your application? If not, did you do it before or after your application was sent? </p>
<p>Also, would explaining the circumstances in interviews help out?</p>
<p>Um, I actually emailed the letter to each of admissions counselor to add onto my file. I did that after I submitted my entire application (common app & supplement)</p>
<p>UChicago has a little thing on their website where you can just update your application at any part of the admission’s cycle with new information, so I just put that there.</p>
<p>It is a tricky situation. You don’t really want to whine or “apologize” but you want to explain in a creative way. Not in interviews. This is not an easy situation, but there are many colleges that will understand and try to help. specially if your dean and your teachers will say that you are a good student. Just try to write the best essay you cam come up with and if it touches your “lapses” and how yu learned from them even better. But do not be trite.</p>
<p>Haha the essays I’ve planned have nothing to do with any serious hardships or anything at all. And I don’t think my situation really warrants an email. It was basically me not psychologically being able to handle various hardships, some that other students may have been able to get through on their own. I just had all of them pile up at once. In fact, my Bs in spanish and AP chem are both caused by messing up one test in those classes. One test is what kept me from getting those As. Of course, my school doesn’t really give a damn and doesn’t do B+ or A- or anything. and the Bs in spanish 2 and AP Bio were because those were the two classes I needed prerequisites from freshman year, and since I changed schools, the entire curriculum line up was screwed up. I’m just unlucky when it comes to these things, and I think the only thing I can really do without going over the top is getting my counselor to mention these things in her letter. Perhaps just touch on it in an interview if it comes up, but only if it comes up.</p>
<p>What do you think you might get on the SAT, SAT IIs, and/or ACT? Those numbers will have a lot to do with your application results. </p>
<p>I wish I could tell you that colleges, especially highly selective ones like you’re applying to, will be lenient and understanding, but I don’t think they care. Here’s why I think that.
I am a two-time cancer survivor who got it in 8th grade and again in freshman year of high school. By sophomore year, the cancer wasn’t as serious a problem, but a cancer friend of mine who was my age died of his leukemia and when I learned about it, I fell apart. Had to spend a few months in a mental hospital for depression. The grades from my first two years ranged from okay to bad, depending on my chemo and radiation treatments and the depression. The last two years of high school I have had nearly a 4.0 and brought up my gpa to a respectable 3.59, graduating yesterday with magna cum laude from high school. I got a 30 on the ACT which falls in the mid-range of scores for accepted students at every school I applied to. Highly active in ECs and community service with cancer organizations. All my apps were submitted way before their deadlines, but I couldn’t apply ED to anywhere because a sister will be in grad school this fall and we couldn’t enter a binding agreement because of money questions. </p>
<p>All this wasn’t enough for the most highly selective schools I applied to, including some on your list. Maybe you’ll have better results than mine. Maybe you’ll score way higher than I did and that will get you in. You can raise your gpa this year and that will help. But be prepared for some disappointment and be sure to apply to some schools where you think you’ll have a far better chance of getting admitted.</p>
<p>I’ll get a 2250+ on SATs, the two SAT 2’s i’ve taken are 750 & 740, and I’m taking 3 more two weekends from now so we’ll see about that. I got a 5 on AP bio but a B in the class, and I’ll probably get a 5 on chemistry, but a B in the class. </p>
<p>I’m really sorry for your struggles; those are so much worse than mine. I feel pathetic that I let my issues get in my own way.</p>
<p>I am looking at some mid-range schools right now. I don’t want to give up, but there’s always the need to be rational in situations like this.</p>
<p>It sounds like you have a better chance than I did with scores like yours. I read a book called A is for Admission, written by a former Dartmouth admissions officer named Michele Hernandez. In it, she talks about a way that the Ivies use to rate their applicants from 1-9. According to her, SATs and SAT IIs count for 2/3 of the scoring factors they use; the other one is gpa. The resulting score is called your Academic Index, or AI. There are threads about AI here on CC. </p>
<p>With your scores, if you write great essays and have good recommendation letters, you will probably get looked at closely by those great schools because your AI will be above average. </p>
<p>GOOD LUCK TO YOU!!!</p>
<p>yeah I did my AI – it’s 8/9. The thing is - my GPA is still in the okay range solely because of my freshman year. All the B’s happened in the two crucial years, so even though my AI is still fairly high, I got the B’s in unfortunate years.</p>
<p>WOW…you have a super AI!! 
That right there will help a ton!</p>
<p>Can your counselor explain the dip in grades in his letter? That way it doesn’t come from you and won’t sound like you’re whining or trying to cover up anything. Might that help?</p>
<p>I’d sure ask him to do that.</p>
<p>Yeah, I think I’ll talk to her about it. There was a lot of stuff that just didn’t work out this year and things were so much more intense than they had to be. Like, there was this scandal at my school with someone mass facebook messaging our MUN club and slandering my name and calling me etc etc names (he was running for VP, I was running and won presidency) but like little things like that that just happened over and over again this year… at some point a group of kids wanted to toilet paper my house because I was too competitive with one of them…all that became way too much to handle, though I guess I made that decision to become so involved in my clubs and whatever. Like, severe bullying? It sounds so meek, but I’m pretty sure that was what triggered depression and then my grandpa died and I don’t know. All these things, if they were isolated, weren’t that big of a deal. It’s just that they all piled up together in this crucial time and I wasn’t as strong as I should have been.</p>
<p>Chasing,</p>
<p>I still think it might warrant something. The high school pettiness not so much but your grandfather dying can be mentioned in a letter. The high school drama is a subject, if discussed, needs to end with something you learned about the whole situation. Obvisously in life, we will all meet people who both mean and coniving to us, but we have to be strong enough to not let that break us down. If you talked about how that situation made you realize something about the world that you didn’t know, and that it ultimately made you a stronger person, it would be good to put in a letter. If you wish, I can PM you my letter I sent to colleges to give you an idea how you might be able to go about talking about difficulties you might have in life.</p>
<p>Overall, I still think you have a good chance at many of those colleges. A lot of it is just dependent on how you spin it. College admissions is like a marketing game. You have to know how shine and show all your positive qualities, down play your negatives…but still have a humility to show that you are aware of your imperfections. The highly selective schools will nitpick on many subjective elements such as your essays, rec, among others. That can help make or break your acceptance.</p>
<p>Good luck with the admissions process and your senior year…and don’t worry, things end up the way they should. I am enrolling at a school that a year ago would not even fathom applying, let alone attending. Be open to new possibilities during this process…</p>
<p>^ I agree with rockerguy about not mentioning the bullying as a reason for the dip in grades. Losing a grandfather, though, is certainly something that impacted your grades and won’t come across as whiny or wimpy. Of course, being bullied doesn’t happen only to whiners and wimps, but you don’t want to come across like that.</p>
<p>I predict you will be very happy with how things work out for you. :)</p>