I have a really weird academic record...

Hi guys, I know that there are a lot of these types of posts but I’d like you chance me because I don’t know of anyone with my resume. I had a B average in my freshman year, sadly I knew nothing about the college craze (I had never even heard of most of the Ivys lol) Had like a 92/93 average in sophomore year. I took a dual enrollment class in over that summer. Now I’m in junior year, I have an 89/90 average on the year (all the hardest classes but still) and I have one or two C’s this year. I got a 1550 on my SAT. I have almost no community service, no leadership positions, and not many EC’s in general, but I’m hoping to get into PROMYS this summer. I don’t know what to think about where I am on the academic spectrum. Thoughts?

If you’re shooting for ivies, 2 Cs and no ECs might kill you. Your SAT is good, but what is your Cumulative UW GPA? 85-88ish?

I transferred schools after freshman year. I have a 3.55 at my current school obviously that would be more like a 3.45 with freshman year.
I guess my question is, best case scenario (get into promys, finish with good grades, maybe get a leadership position senior year) could I be viable at a top school?
Also slightly off topic, how good does promys look on your resume?

Unfortunately, it is very unlikely that you will get into an Ivy League school. Your GPA is much too low, and even a perfect SAT score wouldn’t make up for that. The fact that you have nothing else to make up for this means that it’s unlikely that you would appeal to an Ivy or an elite school in general – most applicants already have perfect scores and GPA’s, so these colleges ask, “What else?”

That said, you still have a great chance of getting into good schools. My recommendation is to work really hard to improve your grades with the little time that is left and spend your spring break and summer wisely. One problem, however, is that if you do a lot of community service or extracurriculars now, it would be pretty obvious that you are only doing them to add to your application. Pick things that you truly enjoy and can genuinely write about in essays. In addition, I would not stop looking for summer programs just because you applied to PROMYS because, well, that is not a guarenteed opportunity, and if you don’t get into that program, what else are you going to do if you didn’t apply to other ones?

I wish you the best of luck! Also, my recommendation is to apply to schools with 40-50% acceptance rates, where there are still great colleges and ones that you are more likely to have a chance at.