<p>I pretty much dived in my sophomore year
i went from a straight A student to a guy who failed a class and got a C in 2 classes (failed the extra class i took and got a C in 2 AP classes)</p>
<p>and OMG, my AP exam scores SUCK (2 , 1 , 3, 2 ,3)
...i was going through some stuff 0.o</p>
<p>so please please please tell me what i can do to make up for this epic fail of a year and get back to competitive MIT standings!...(one thing i planned to do was take an incredible tough course load junior year)</p>
<p>thank you so much, this forum thread is pretty much my last tie to not crying myself to oblivion
pathetic no?</p>
<p>Take the SAT and up your grades as much as you can, don’t report your AP grades, don’t make excuses on your application as to why you didn’t get good grades (it sounds like whining) and do your best in junior year to make up for your C’s - and in senior year - and apply. Not much you can do beyond that.
Retake the AP’s if you can - I’m not sure on the AP guidelines since I’d never heard of them before I started visiting CC.</p>
<p>It may be hard, but you have to show quite an improvement in your grades over the next year, as well as have a great application. If there is a significant reason why that happened (family problems etc.), you can provide an explanation.</p>
<p>You might want to think twice about going to MIT anyway. As an alum, it was really difficult and if you don’t respond well to stress (the stuff that you were going through?) then you will not enjoy MIT. It is very stressful.
If you still want to go, the key will be to show what you learned about yourself and your ability to deal with “stuff” so that the admissions officer will feel like you have developed the skills to handle situations that might occur at MIT and deal with them without falling back into a failing situation. You will definitely need to write a really good essay that shows that next time you will respond in a way that avoids the “epic fail” - good luck!</p>
<p>Yes, you should not make excuses about your grades. What happened, happened. Besides, they get to know your grades only after January, right? That means you have still plenty of time to improve.
And they keep telling that marks are not everything, although if everything else is equal between two candidates, they’d obviously prefer the one with better grades. Good Luck !</p>