<p>It’s a good story, but I don’t think a 3.0 GPA is bad. People with a GPA of a 3.0 can get into colleges.</p>
<p>G.O.A.T thread. Really inspirational. I am boorkmarking this. OP, if you had worked as hard as you did junior and senior year on your freshman and sophmore year you would have probably been valedictorian or something. Good job.</p>
<p>Great story. It shows that a lot of hard work can go a really long way. I love the Aristotle quote btw.</p>
<p>I have a similar story. I started off with 2.8 UW freshmen year and raised it to a 3.55 UW my senior year. I got a 4.0/3.88 my senior semesters. With this much improvement, i’m ready for anything in college</p>
<p>To whoever asked what school; planning on attending UMichigan Kinesiology (PREMED!!!)</p>
<p>How I Improved My Work Ethic</p>
<p>First. I got rid of anything distracting. Yes, this means TV, Computer (I’ll go into detail on this in a minute), phone, xbox, ANYTHING!!!</p>
<p>Then, I mentally prepared myself to work hard. And not a little mental speech saying, “You got it buddy, do your best,” kinda speech, but a deep, meaningful speech that really opened my eyes and made me realize that I was controlling my future. I realized that I wasn’t going to be handed anything, regardless of how much money my parents make, I would need to work to get into the college I wanted. </p>
<p>So with that said, I began my trek to become a solid student. I began doing homework immediately after arriving home. A glass of water, granola bar, and some gum, and I headed upstairs to my quiet room to get as much work done as I could. If I got it done fast, I started on homework from the next day, which meant that I would crack open textbooks and teach myself future lessons. </p>
<p>Sounds nerdy, right? Wrong. I was completely finished with homework by 530. I get home at 330. 2 hours of solid work and future work when possible, and I was free. But then of course, there is studying. I would study in breaks. 30 minutes at a time, 10 minute break. Rewriting notes, etc. I did it until I felt I knew it, not until I was dead tired. </p>
<p>The best thing about this, I was not dreading anything anymore! </p>
<p>I get a test coming up in a few days for Algebra II Honors? No big deal. I have the homework done for the next day, so why not start studying a little early, rewriting notes to help remember formulas. This stuff seems like it’d be difficult, but when your mind is not cluttered, and you have all this free time since you have your work finished already, you can just take your time and do it. No pulling all nighters, no cramming 20 minutes before the test, just peace and relaxation.</p>
<p>You NEED to follow through, and the hardest part about following through long-term is social issues. You need to set priorities. Is high school about having fun? Yes; but not entirely. Is high school about learning? Yes; but not entirely. It’s a mixture of learning, social life, and preparation for college and the real world. With an even based mixture of these, with maybe a little extra weight on that learning/prep part, you’ll be in perfect shape.</p>
<p>And on another note, having the awesome grade trend makes for a great college essay, which I’m positive helped get me into the schools I got into. Writing about how you mentally matured as a student, and as a person entirely, and explaining how you redirected your work ethic to allow yourself to be the best you can be makes you seem like an ideal applicant in the eyes of an adcom. </p>
<p>And I’d really like to thank everyone that appreciated the story. I was hoping that it’d inspire some, or a lot of you, actually, to believe in yourselves and realize that with a little bit of hard work, you can do way more than you believed. </p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>TV in the bedroom of a high school kid can be a disaster for productivity.</p>
<p>Ironically a computer in the bedroom can also be very counterproductive for a kid who likes to surf social websites and message boards.</p>
<p>lol wow Darklingsun. bitter much?</p>
<p>taking the initiative to get their dad to change their fb password is what matters! great story OP - and refreshingly inspirational.</p>
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<p>This is exactly what I wanted to say; I didn’t have the guts to say it.</p>
<p>Considering that my family is extremely strict on trust. Lying is not acceptable, no matter the circumstance. We also respect each others privacy. My father realizes that I gave him the opportunity to make my new facebook password so I could not be able to access without his permission. It’d be utterly disrespectful, as he would say, for him to take advantage of having my password and looking through my private life information. And like I said, we are strict on trust. Violating my privacy by looking through my personal conversations betweens friends would cause me to lose all of my trust, well, most of my trust in him; therefore, he would never even think about doing that.</p>
<p>Very inspirational.
I have tried the “taking the distractions away” and it seriously has helped, but it looks like I need to apply that again because I have been allowing myself some slack in order to sign onto these distractions again.</p>
<p>I feel that way a lot… about having not enough time to socialize because there’s so much work, but I do believe that the majority of my problem is that I spend that “time” on unnecessary things.</p>
<p>I want to try again.</p>
<p>Thank you for sharing!!!
And congrats to you as well as a good luck to everyone!</p>
<p>Congratulations. Honestly though, I laughed a bit at you thinking a 3.206 in high school was bad. You should check out the transfer forums some time. Not to lesson your accomplishments or anything, but that is where people REALLY turn it around. I’m talking GPA’s hovering around 1.0 in high school and people pulling off a 4.0 in community college, then getting into top institutions like USC, UCLA, Cal, and even some Ivy schools. Truly amazing stuff.</p>
<p>But the reason they get the high GPAs in commcolls is because they develop their work ethic after they “failed”. Clearly, not many people dream of attending a commcoll, so when they end up having to go there, what do they do? Work their *ss off to get the hell out of there!</p>
<p>And a 3.206 was only bad considering I was in 1 honor, and all regulars. If it were unweighted with mostly honors and a few regs, I would’ve been content, but it was just disappointing to me. But statistically, it is a decent GPA, personally, horrible.</p>
<p>My story is probably the most unlikely of all. I went to high school at an exclusive New England prep school where I could go for free because my father was the head of the Math Department. I did terrible my freshman year and think my GPA was about 2.0. But things went even worse my sophomore year and my GPA dipped under 2.0. I had absolutely no work ethic, never bothered to study and simply did not care what happened to me. I hit rock bottom junior year when I had two Fs, a D and one C. At the end of the year the guidance counselor called me in to his office and informed me that I had a 1.4 GPA and out of 64 students in the class I was ranked number 64. He also told me I could study the material in the two classes I failed and take a test at the end of summer vacation in the subjects and if I had passing scores would get credit for the classes.</p>
<p>I started the summer with no intention of trying to study for the tests. Then one night I had a frighteningly realistic dream that I was 50 years old and the janitor in the elementary school. In the dream I lamented I had never been anywhere, never done anything and had wasted my life. I woke up in a cold sweat and at 3:00 AM started studying. I studied all summer long despite having a job and passed the make-up exams. I was now utterly determined to turn my life around and go to college and become something. I studied hours every day and for my first semester of my Senior year had a 3.5 GPA. I applied to a number of colleges in the fall and got all rejection letters. On my rejection form letter from the University of Dayton somebody had even hand written “extremely poor high school record”. But my first semester grades and good scores on the SATs convinced the University of Hartford to take a chance on me and they granted me an interview in March and sent me an acceptance letter in April. </p>
<p>I was on the Dean’s List every semester of college and was accepted at Hahnemann University School of Medicine in Philadelphia (now Drexel University School of Medicine) and am now finally in my fifties and practicing medicine in California.</p>
<p>That one instant of sheer terror turned me from being the world’s biggest slacker to a doctor.</p>
<p>I came into this thread thinking it would be about a kid who was getting straight F’s or lived under some extraordinary circumstances and ended up succeeding.</p>
<p>Only on CC do people think a B average is being a slacker or unintelligent. This story is hardly inspiring.</p>
<p>This one kid in my school (my IB classmate) got this:</p>
<p>Junior year first semester: 2.5 weighted </p>
<p>After this he was threatened to exit the program.</p>
<p>Junior year second semester: 3.8 weighted</p>
<p>Senior year first semester: 4.71 GPA</p>
<p>Senior year second semester: 4.85 GPA.</p>
<p>His is better than yours. Usually when people f-k up their junior year they give up. This kid did not, and is now going to a top school. Your story of screwing up freshman and maybe sophmore year and then going upper trend after that is very common on CC. Failing first semester of junior year and still being able to come back up like that is more impressive.</p>
<p>I agree with the above poster. Your story is hardly inspiring.</p>
<p>It’s not about the final grade. It’s about achieving the greatest things you can by putting in lots of hard work and dedication. It was more about turning your work ethic around, and learning to create a new one in order to succeed. And Yakyu Spirits, 99% of the time, I get annoyed with people in the What Are My Chances? forum complaining about Bs. But I am more focusing towards improving your work and habits. The GPA and grade trend played a part in it, but was not as much what I was attempting to get across.</p>
<p>Alright, Beretta. Explain to me: 1) Why would I care what your friend got? 2) Why would comparing two different grade trends make the least bit of difference? 3) Do you think I truly care about your opinion on my story? </p>
<p>“His is better than yours.” Grow up, buddy. Life is not a competition. Your friend would be disappointed in you for trying to show him off to a group of students who are really not interested in the slightest in his stats. And a 2.5 is NOT failing. A 2.5 is a C average. As far as I’m concerned, going from average to great is not that impressive. But where did I ever say that my jump from above average to great was absolutely amazing. </p>
<p>Also, refer to the title. I believe it’s called, “If I can do this, anyone can.” Not, “Here is my amazing GPA trend, let’s try and shut people down if theirs isn’t as good.”</p>
<p>And as far as I’ve seen, it’s not too common for students to jump from a 3.2 to a max GPA of 4.5. Eh, but that’s just me.</p>
<p>btotheg I think it’s a good story and it’s inspiring me to work harder. I have a 3.2 weighted GPA with AP classes (took 6 of them) but couldn’t get into the ones I wanted because I didn’t work hard enough.</p>
<p>I am gonna do my HW when I get home, and get rid of the computer. >.< </p>
<p>Thanks for your inspiring story! It’s nice to see that you have turned around for the better ^^</p>
<p>Thanks, Rafaela. I’m glad you are going to begin the transition from being distracted to fully focused. It’s fairly easy to do it for a few days, but it is a great challenge to try and pull it off for months/years. Good luck!</p>
<p>Alright, <<<btotheg>>>. Explain to me: 1) Why would <i> care what you got when someone else pulled off something even more impressive? 2) Why wouldn’t comparing two different grade trends make the least bit of difference? 3) Do you think I truly care about your opinion on my classmate’s story?</i></btotheg></p><i>
<p>Grow up, buddy. Life IS a competition. If it’s not a competition, why are you attacking me? Oh, right, you told me to grow up, which implies that you tried to beat me in the competition by claiming that you’re more mature than me. Why did you go aggressive? 2.5 IS failing, because it was 2.5 WEIGHTED. His unweighted is even worse. As far as I’m concerned, going from below average to way above average is very impressive.</p>
<p>Oh, where did you say it was amazing, you ask? The fact that you post this bullcrap story of yours in PUBLIC and thanking everyone for complimenting you is enough to prove that it was exactly what you intended to do.</p>
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