<p>I'm 17 years old, half Mexican-American and about to graduate from junior year. I go to school in a pretty competitive high school in San Jose, California and had always dreamed of going to UCLA or USC since I had straight A's in middle school, but after looking at my transcript and really looking back at all the stupid mistakes I made in high school, I just don't think that is a realistic possibility anymore.</p>
<p>Freshman year I joined three sports and speech and debate for extracurriculars, but ultimately ended up falling behind and slacking on schoolwork, I got half B's and half A's my freshman year.</p>
<p>Sophmore year I did a little better, I took Accelerated English and History and Honors Chem while staying with my sports but dropping speech and debate, and I graduated first semester with all A's except for spanish (screwed up final got a B+) and Alg/2 trig where I struggled the whole year to get a B-. But second semester sophmore year math got harder and I got my first and only C+ and I bombed my spanish 3/4 final and got a B- in the class. I had 5 other A's though, but that semester really hurt my GPA because of the other two grades.</p>
<p>Then junior year started and I signed up for AP english, AP US History, precalc, spanish 5/6, multimedia, journalism and zoology. I wanted AP enviornmental science too but got placed in zoology which is a joke science by mistake and they wouldn't let me transfer in to APES. I failed the first APUSH exam which started me at a D- for the beginning of the year, and had to work all year to get it up to a B-. I got an A- in APeng until the last essay pushed me back to a B+ and I had gone more than 24 hours w/out sleep the night of the spanish final and tried to slip in a notecard to the final but got accused of cheating and my final got a zero. They said the cheating file would go away before I apply to colleges if I never do it again (which I haven't) but it still put me at a B-. I had to drop team sports this year to spend more time on school, but that left a void I tried to fill with lots of little activities and fun stuff that ultimately led to nothing but wasted time and energy I should've devoted to school. My first semester Junior year report card:
Zoology: A-
Multimedia: A
Precalc: A-
APush: B-
Spanish:B-
Apeng: B+
Journo: A+</p>
<p>Now I'm almost about to finish junior year and still have 3 B's in those same three things that I want to get back up to A's. I'm taking the SAT in May for the first time after taking a prep class to prepare and then the ACT and SAT subject tests in June and I plan to take all three a second time August senior year. My cumulative unweighted GPA for grades 10-12 is 3.65, I do not know what it is with weighting atm, but hoping it is closer to 3.7 or 3.8 at least</p>
<p>So just looking back I'm realizing all of the stupid mistakes I've made: over-estimating some things and under-estimating others. Not taking hard enough classes, not taking enough classes, slacking off in some areas, pushing myself too hard in others, being way too scattered and inconsistent with extracurriculars and grades, and I'm just now realizing that my dreams of getting into UCLA probably won't happen, and I only have myself to blame at the end of the day by generally not taking high school as seriously as I should have, especially this year. I'm trying as hard as I can to get straight A's this semester to make up for it all, but even that seems like an impossibility since I have 5 weeks to turn 3 B's into A's, on top of study of AP and SAT tests. I'm just feeling kinda hopeless and pathetic right now. I feel like I could have done so much better in everything if I just applied myself more and was more consistent with certain other things. Although I probably won't get into UCLA anymore, I still want to hopefully get into the UC system (Santa Cruz, Davis, and San Diego are my alternates, but idk if I can even get into those) and then maybe transfer.</p>
<p>I'm bringing this issue up to my school guidance counsuler and I'm working my butt off these last few weeks trying to make something happen, and plan to really push myself senior year first semester as well, but I just feel that I won't be able to make up for all my past mistakes.</p>
<p>Thank you for those who read this and just know any advice/help that you can give would be appriciated.</p>
<p>Thank You :)</p>