I messed up my sophomore year (high school)

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi there,
I am currently going into my Junior year in High School. My school is rather prestigious, it’s ranked 7th in Minnesota, I believe. My dream is to join the medical field as a surgeon. However, High School is not working well. In my freshman year i got an average GPA of 3.438. I knew I could do better so I walked into sophomore year thinking it will be easy. That is definitely not what happened. In the beginning of the school year, there were 2 students that were killed accidentally and then 1 girl committed suicide. I didn’t particularly know them but, it affected me and my school with great sadness. I was involved in a lot of drama with my friends in the beginning of the year and in the middle as well. I left that friend group and made knew friends towards the end of the year. That really distracted me from my work and studies. I do not have ADHD or ADD but i do have a hard to paying attention. Rather, I listen but it flows right through my ears. I day dream A LOT. Anyways, I walked out of sophomore year with a 3.218 average GPA. I really want to get into a great school, like Boston University or somewhere in England like King’s College.

So basically my questions are,

  1. Could it be possible to raise my average GPA up to a 3.7? or maybe even 3.5? ( I’m doing a lot more studying and getting a lot more tutors)
  2. If I have a 33 on the ACT would that help?
  3. If I get a 2000 on the SAT would that help too? (these tests go well with me)
  4. I’m doing a lot of AP and IB classes next year and if I do well on those, will that help me?
  5. Do colleges care about just how well you do every year or will they recognize the progress being made?
  6. If I do well in college, could i possibly make it into med school in Oxford, England?
  7. If my GPA is low but my ACT and SAT scores are super high— would Ivy Leagues or Universities in Europe?

These questions are really dumb, but if someone could answer them, I’d really appreciate it. Thank you.

2
  1. Yes it is possible if you are taking all the APs/IBs you say you are 2/3. A 33 or 2000 are great scores and if you get them that is definitely a great accomplishment
  2. Yes
  3. Colleges do recognize progress, but most colleges mainly focus on the end of sophomore year and all of junior year. Some colleges do look all the way back to see if you progressed but know that again, they mainly look at junior year and end of sophomore year
  4. I don't want to crush any dreams but to be completely honest ivy leagues and universities like oxford and St. Andrews and Cambridge get tens of thousands of applications and have a small acceptance rate. With the overwhelming amount of applicants, they will look at GPA and standardize testing first and if you don't pass that it is doubtful they will look at the rest of your application. They reject thousands of people that are perfectly qualified but they have to look at ECs and other works to choose students that really stand out in more than grades.i say this in the nicest way possible. But then again, I have heard stories of people getting because they had an amazing essay/app. And not to come off offensive in any way, but it seems you went through a traumatic sophomore year and writing about it would make a really inspiring essay that would make you stand out from overcoming challenging times in your life

I hope this helped

3

I’m going to be honest with my responses, but they might not be the best advice.

  1. I don't see why not, but you would have to do really well this year and possibly the first semester of senior year if you're just doing regular decision. 2 and 3. 33 is great and remember that the SAT is out of 1600, not 2400.
  2. Yes, but just be careful to not stress yourself out. I did three my senior year (Calc BC, Bio, and Psych) and that almost pushed me to my breaking point because I was not getting the grades I wanted after the hours of studying. Know your limits and push yourself to do your best. If you can't handle the number of AP/IBs, then drop one or two to lighten the load and keep your GPA at a nice level.
  3. Progress is great, but from my perspective, colleges like to see that you've had good grades. Maybe the poster above is right in that schools look at the end of sophomore year through junior year, but I wouldn't put my money on it. Boston University and King's College may be out of the picture, but one of my friends who had a 3.6 GPA actually got admitted into King's College. However, he ultimately enrolled at Rutgers University New Brunswick because he had no way to pay for the $90k tuition. If you want to apply to these schools, be my guest, but you may not get in. Go for some safety schools (e.g. like a state school) and it NEVER hurts to go to community college. Get some college courses at the CC then go over to a 4-year university and then onto medical school.
  4. I wouldn't rule out the possibility. However, you have to put a lot of time and effort into making sure that you have both the GPA and the MCAT score to qualify. Pre-med programs can be extremely difficult, and people sometimes change their career direction because of this. It's nice to dream about going to Oxford's medical school, but sometimes, you have to be realistic. After your first year of college, I recommend you analyze your grades and see what you can do about medical school and also shadow people at the hospital. Things change during college. This year, I was considering declaring a minor in Small Business Management along with my major in Health Science/Physical Therapy, but I decided not to so that I could take other classes I was interested in. In general, for this question, I recommend you have some realistic goals in addition to your dreams.

Hope this helps and best of luck with senior year and applications!

4

Is your GPA weighted? Otherwise, it’s mathematically impossible to get to a 3.7 in one year. You only have one more year left that will be reflected on your transcript when you apply. To get to a 3.7, you need a 4.67 junior year.

What steps are you taking to get there? How will your study habits improve? This is important to fix NOW, if you plan on going to medical school.

5

“I messed up my sophomore year”
“My dream is to join the medical field as a surgeon.”

I am from New England, so I will use a New England analogy to discuss this.

Bill Belichick is of course the coach of the New England Patriots. He has been VERY successful with many championships and is VERY well regarded in New England. There are a few favorite sayings of his that applies to your situation.

He likes to say something along the lines of “just focus on the next game”, and “We are focusing on the next game” and “one week at a time”. If anyone asks about the super strong team that they are going to play in two weeks he refuses to talk about it. He also every week talks about how strong and how tough his next competitor is. In one case the Patriots were about to play either the weakest team in the American Football Conference or perhaps the weakest team in all of football. All he would talk about was how strong the team was, and how the opponent was much stronger than their record. He likes to say of opponents “they can beat you in many ways”.

In the same spirit, you need to think about next year in high school. To some extend each week that you are in high school you need to focus on that week. Right now, there is nothing that you can do about medical school. Once classes start in September what you CAN do is focus on next week. Do all of your homework and do it early. If possible, do your homework the day that it is assigned. Keep ahead of your reading. Pay attention in class. If you can, sit in the front row of all of your classes. If you always take care of this week, then the future will take care of itself.

Another thing that Bill Belichick likes to say is “Do your job”. Your job right now is to be a high school student.

You said “I walked into sophomore year thinking it will be easy”. I hope that you are over this. You need to take every class seriously. You need to take every assignment seriously. You need to take every teacher seriously.

Regarding medical school: That is a long way in the future. At this point your grades have probably already ruled out the Ivy League and equivalents for undergrad, and also might make Boston University and King’s College a stretch for undergrad. That doesn’t matter. If you start to do your job and get good grades from now on, you will get into a very good university. The university of Minnesota is strong enough that if you do very well there you will be able to get into a very good medical school down the road. However, you can’t do anything about medical school now.

You said “My school is rather prestigious”. Then you say that it is ranked 7th in Minnesota. Please, erase the word “prestigious” from your vocabulary. If it is ranked 7th in Minnesota then it is a good high school, but there are tens of thousands of good high schools in the US. Your high school is not prestigious. Your high school is a high school. If you do well there you will get into a good university. If you do badly there you will have trouble getting into a good university. No body cares about whether your high school or the university that you will go to, is “prestigious”. When you are a surgeon no one will care about whether you went to a “prestigious” medical school. They care about whether you can do your job.

So, one other thing that you can do NOW is to try to understand why you are having difficulty in high school. I can’t find any obvious problem from reading your original post, other than perhaps a lack of taking each class and each lesson and each homework assignment seriously. You need to gain the humility to understand that you have to earn your grades and you have to earn your opportunities, combined with the confidence that you can do it if you focus on what you need to do each day and each week.

6

There are lots of “great” colleges and universities that will welcome you- but they may not be the famous names you are talking about.

A big part of junior year (& summer & the autumn of your senior year) is figuring out what your realistic options are, and what characteristics are most important to you for your college. If you are seriously considering medical school, you can get there from virtually any accredited school. For some, being a big fish in a little pond actually works to their advantage: being a ‘star’ in your college makes it more likely that your med school rec will be stronger than if you are just an average student in a bigger name college. The first cuts for med school are pretty much on numbers (GPA & MCAT)- a fancy undergrad college name won’t help there.

As for the UK, although @JMS357 somewhat overstates the cost of Kings (closer to $50K/year than $90K), s/he is right that there is no financial aid. Also, not only is the med school system is entirely different, but they are very restricted in how many foreigners they can take. For a non-national to do medicine at Oxford (which you start as an undergraduate) you would need - in the words of an Oxford rep- to be ‘amongst the top few candidates in the world’. Oxford typically doesn’t even take as many as they are allowed to take.

Junior year is often the hardest year of high school, when the work gets more challenging and the teachers are expecting the students to have matured and become more self-disciplined. I second @DadTwoGirls advice to focus on where you are right now.

7

Thank you very much!

8

I can only speak to the GPA aspect of your questions, as I have no expirence with college admissions myself. I believe that it is definetely possible to raise your cumulative to a 3.5 (that is if you get stellar grades). As for a 3.7 or higher, I am not sure. With the proper amount of AP’s it seems plausible, although mathematically possible is the question. You should run the numbers through a calculator to see if it is possible. If it is, then it will come down to your determination, motivation, and desire for academic achievement that will determine your final GPA.
Best of luck.