Hello,
First off I apologize for using “I” so much and for my lack of proper grammar.
I am currently a senior at one of the best public schools in Texas. Essentially everyone in my school is really smart and it is much harder to be at the top percentile than at regular high schools in Texas. Anyways, as the heading says I am in a bit of a pickle. I really didn’t care about school in freshman year and so I took really easy classes and basically blew off doing homework and studying. I have no excuses, I had the opportunity to work hard but I chose not to. My classes were all pre-ap except english and latin(which is wayyyy hard) but anyways I ended up at a 85 GPA(My school refuses to use the 4.0 scale) and I was close to the bottom of my class around 180/200. This was a big wakeup call to me and so I took my sophomore year a little more seriously but still I didn’t care that much. My GPA went up to a 89 and my rank went to 130/200 which was a lot but I still wasn’t even at the top half. I took mostly pre-ap and english regs. Then came my junior year and this is when I started to take things really seriously. I took 5 AP classes including English, Physics, APUSH, Computer Science A, and Calculus(i learned pre-cal over the summer by myself) and I did really well in all of them except english. My grades were all above 95 except for english and Spanish(i switched b/c latin was killing me). My school curves AP classes by 8 pts and pre-ap classes by 5 pts and so by the end my GPA went up to a 92.4 which was a bit of a disappointment but I did really well in all of my AP classes and my GPA for just that year was around a 101 and I’m pretty sure that I got 5s on all my AP tests excluding english and APUSH. At the end of junior year my tank was 89/200 and my GPA was settled at a 92. I know that I can’t make much of a difference since only one semester of senior year counts so i am slowly losing hope of getting any higher in my class. I took the SAT as well in junior year and got a 1840(540 CR/740 M/ 560 W) but I have bucked down and am currently binge studying during the summer and have so far brought my score up to a 2160 but I’ve only been studying for 2 weeks so far and I think I can bring it up to the high 2200s or low 2300s by the end of the summer(ACT:32, SATII: Physics[800] Math2[800], Bio[770]). In my senior year i am taking AP Bio, AP chem, AP Gov and Eco, AP calc BC, AP english 4, Computer science CS3 and SRD where you get to help with medical research. If my freshman and sophomore years were not holding me down so much I would most likely be in the top 5 or 10 percentile. I don’t really have any ECs, i played piano outside of school in freshman and sophomore year and won a few awards but I was no good at it so I stopped and I do HOSA and BPA but nothing with leadership. I have 700 volunteer hours from helping disabled children and I do a lot of stuff with computers and robots but they are mostly just a hobby. I really want to apply to Stanford, Carnegie mellon, UC Berkeley, and Columbia but I highly doubt that I can get in considering that I am from asian decent, lack of ECs, and my terrible grades. The only hope I have is that I have drastically improved myself as a person throughout high school. I’m really sorry that my background was so long but my overall question is should I apply to any of my dream schools?
Basically you should instead apologize for no paragraph breaks, quick edit and insert some before the window of opportunity closes or no one will read this wall of text. If you can take out extraneous verbiage that would be good too.
nm to late. To address your title, a weak freshmen year isn’t a major problem all the time. Some colleges won’t use freshman year to compute gpa (Stanford, Berkeley.) Others will discount it if you have a strong showing the next two years. fyi Berkeley and other UCs are mandated by law against using race as a factor of admissions in any way, not for affirmative action, not to restrict any groups. I guess you don’t go to HS in CA, I don’t know since I can read that, just saw the end just now.
The OP is from TX and would be paying $50K+/year at UCB. Also the thread title is disingenuous. The OP has an 1840 SAT so far. The 2200 is a projection based on willpower. I assume the other scores mentioned (ACT, SAT II) are also future hopes. Frankly I don’t see the OP getting in to any of his dream schools.
IDK about the real SAT test but so far on practice tests from the blue book I’ve been getting close to 2200 on average and it’s still the beginning of summer. The ACT and SATII are actual scores. During junior year instead of studying for the SAT I studied for the SAT subjects and ACT due to the fact that they aligned with my classes. Thank you for all of your feedback!
Why are you pushing for the SAT, when your ACT is already better (converts to a 2160/2200)?
IMO, Stanford and Columbia are non-starters; UCB & CM very big reaches. But your SAT subject tests are very strong and taking AP Bio, Chem & Calc BC is all the rigor anybody could ask for. If you can pull of a good 1st quarter, an ED application to a school that fits you well could do well for you. You will want to help your GC by writing her/him a note outlining the key pieces about you- not least your academic turnaround.
Think hard about what you want from your college and at what works for you as a student and a person. You need a bunch more schools, including some that are very realistic both for admissions and for affordability.