I am in shock and depressed about this year. I just couldn’t get it together and feel like I just ruined my life. Freshman year I did ok and finished with about 3.3 GPA. I knew sophomore year I was gonna have to do better and the complete opposite happened. I just did so bad and got so many C’s I’m so nervous about my GPA at the end of the year. It’s not that I struggle in class I just got into the worse habit of being lazy and procrastinating everything. I probably did a total of 4 home works the hole year. I’m just now starting to realize how deep of a hole im in and am wondering if I can still dig myself out. Is there still hope for Penn State or maybe even Rutgers since I live in NJ? I don’t want to go to cc or a college where everyone can get in and please don’t convince me otherwise. I know it’s a lot easier said than done but I’m gonna try my hardest to do good next year. Despite my terrible year my gc still agreed to put me in a rigorous course load next year. Any advice or suggestions?
You haven’t ruined your life. One bad year can be made up for by a strong junior and senior year. (But no need to dis CC - lots of smart kids go there for lots of reasons.)
You say you had a problem with time management and motivation, right? Have you considered finding someone who can help you with your study skills? There are tutors who specialize in that. What are the distractors in your life and can you remove them? What were you doing with your time when you were being lazy? Are your parents supportive and willing to help you create an environment that is conducive to studying? Is there a ‘study group’ you can join - other more diligent friends who’ll help keep you on task?
Assuming we are just talking bad work habits here and not learning disabilities or trauma in your personal life, then you can get back on track.
thank you for your advice and just to clarify I don’t look down on cc I have family that goes there. I just want to go to medical school even though I see that dream not happening as of now I feel like I have my best shot at a good 4 year uni to can get in.
I want to say that it’s great that you’re looking to turn things around and reassure you that you have not ruined your life, not even close to it. Take it from someone with personal experience of an awful sophomore year. Due to some extenuating circumstances, I had all Fs that fall semester, but turned it around and earned all As after that. I was accepted to a top ten LAC and various state colleges. Although my circumstances were not things I had control over, those grades were still there, glaring at me on my transcript. I felt just like you feel now, and if I could go back in time, I’d tell myself to stop focusing on what I couldn’t change and start focusing on what I could. So that’s what I’m telling you now. It isn’t too late to pull yourself up. You will have to devote a tremendous amount of time to school and will have to make school a priority. Something that helped me when tackling coursework was gathering all my work, listing the assignments, and then breaking them each into smaller tasks and setting time aside for starting them.
For example:
Study for Calc:
-Actively read chapter 7.3 and 7.4
-First half of problem set
-Second half of problem set
-Actively watch MIT video on Applications of Integration
-Actively watch Patrick JMT videos on Washer Method
-Actively watch Patrick JMT videos on Shell Method
-Interact Math Problems Objectives 1 and 2
-Interact Math Problems Objectives 3 and 4
This is a real example of one task I broke down earlier this school year. Being a procrastinator myself, what makes it even more difficult is being overwhelmed and not knowing where to start. Breaking it into tasks like this makes it a lot easier to approach since you have a clear idea of when you’re finished. This definitely helped me to stay on task and I recommend it strongly.
If you have any other questions I’d be happy to answer them. Good luck!
If you improve your grades junior year, and perform respectably on standardized tests, you have a shot at Rutgers, although probably not in Pharmacy or Engineering. My son had terrible grades, but a 2000+ on his SAT got him into the School of Arts & Sciences.
Wait, did I read lazy and procrastinator in your post. There you go, don’t do that any more. Rising trend helps.
thanks everyone for the help and support.
Do you know why you are being lazy and procrastinating? That can be a useful place to start.
If you lack organizational skills, and can’t figure out what to do first, talk with your guidance counselor and/or the school psychologist. They can get you some help with developing those sets of skills.
Im not really sure why. I just come home an I usually just rest and watch some Netflix. It seems so stupid but I always just push off my homework and studying until I don’t do it. It also doesn’t help that I have football training 4 out of the 5 days which gets me really tired.
“It seems so stupid but I always just push off my homework and studying”
-said every high schooler and college student ever
How much do you care about your grades and where you end up in college? Maybe that football schedule is just too much on top of your academics…? I’d understand if you didn’t want to give up your sport, but another year of Cs will definitely knock you out of the colleges you mentioned - any many others besides. Know too that classes ramp up in 11th grade - a lot of students who are used to getting by with their ‘old’ study habits, discover that expectations are higher in junior year, esp. in the advanced classes. Unless you are are candidate for an athletic scholarship, football is just another EC in the eyes of the admissions committee.
There is no way I will be giving up football, I played since a little kid and it means way to much to my family. I also care about my grades too so I can still give my self an opportunity to go too Penn State or Rutgers which is very important to me. I know I can do a lot better than what I have done so far. I just put minimal effort in school which is going to stop from here on out.
You have not demonstrated this yet…
My son had godawful grades, and still got into Rutgers from in-state, but his composite SAT was >2060, and he was at a fairly rigorous private school. I think Penn State is tougher, but you still ought to have a shot at some of the directional public colleges within PA (if you’re in-state), or at many small, private colleges (if your family can afford to pay). Most four-year colleges provide the curriculum necessary for med-school admissions, but you will have to earn the required GPA. Your life isn’t over. I don’t know if my elder son ever handed an assignment in on time during high school. He started out at an arts college, dropped out, took a few CC classes one semester, and is at Temple now. He earned just under a 3.5 this semester. Many parents and students on CC would be contemplating suicide if they ever had less than a 3.5, but it’s the best grades this kid has earned since fifth grade. Take each assignment, and each test, as it comes. Don’t give up if you don’t ace a test. I would also stick with football, if it’s your passion and your school doesn’t have academic eligibility requirements. Many parents will disagree, but I believe that we all need those lifelines that make life worth getting out of bed for in the morning. I’ve said that report cards are the equivalent of a paycheck for kids. You need to get a job done, one way or another, but it is not the whole sum of your worth. Some of us will find gratifying, fulfilling jobs, but for most of us, the jobs will just be how we pay for the stuff we really care about.
How much can your parents afford? What’s your EFC?
This will affect where you can go.
(Please answer these questions so that we can help you further wrt colleges).
A couple C’s sophomore year won’t block you from a 4 year college, a couple C’s sophomore year that morph into several C’s junior year will. So the main thing is going to be to change your habits. You can read The Power of Habit and/or any book by Cal Newport.
I would advise you to read this funny but very true post by a fellow procrastinator
http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastinate.html
and register for the newsletter. 
Note that Penn State only considers grades 9-11 so next year will be crucial (course rigor for 12th grade is also taken into account). If you apply DUS and summer session, sending in your application in September of senior year, provided you don’t get any C, you’d be okay.
Woogzmama, I agree with your point that for many students, school is just what you have to get through in order to move on with your life and things like football are what makes it worthwhile. But if the OP has aspirations of getting into particular schools, and is worried that he might not get in, then something has to change academically. If he’s happy with whatever he can get accepted to (and there’s nothing wrong with that) then his current work/life balance is fine as is. It’s a matter of trade-offs. Hopefully his SAT will be as good as your son’s and a downward trend academically won’t be held against him.
Thanks again for all your great advice/support. @MYOS1634 my parent EFC is different every year because my dads owns a business and some years he does go and other years not so much. I would like to say its about $12,000 but it could be more or less depending on the year. I also have very generous grandparents who can possibly help me out If my family was struggling financially.
***Right now based off the calculator there efc is $20,000
Most colleges and universities will expect families to pay more than the EFC, because they don’t have all that much money to hand out. You need to find out from your parents whether or not they can pay their EFC. If so, how much more than that can they pay? If not, how much can they really pay?
Each college and university has a Net Price Calculator right on its website. Many of them won’t be accurate for your family because your dad owns a business, but it is OK for you to contact the financial aid office and ask about the formula that they do use.
Use the Penn State, Pitt, and Temple “net price calculator”. (enter that, in quotes, the plus sign, and the name of the college, in your search engine).Enter your current numbers - you know it may not hold true for later on, but it’ll give you a ballpark of what each of these universities expect from you.
Penn State may well expect you to come up with 32K even though your parents can only afford 12-20K for instance…
Then do the same with the following colleges:
Susquehanna
Moravian
Muhlenberg
Lebanon Valley
Duquesne
West Chester University
SUNY Albany
SUNY Oneonta
Bring all these results to your parents and start talking. 