<p>work ethic is BS, our valedictorian who’s going to Princeton doesn’t do any homework and does all his projects last minute</p>
<p>Thank you for sharing your story with us, btotheg! It is truly inspiring!
I have a similar experience right now, though I’m still a sophomore. I got 5.5 GPA last year out of 6.0 (I’m not an American, our grading system is slightly different), which is not that bad at all, but I’m dreaming about top colleges and they would be a reach with such scores. Right now I’m hoping to get 5.75 or even 5.8 in the end of this school year, so that I could get 6.0 both junior and senior year, but I’m afraid that’s going to be veeery difficult. I spoke to a friend of mine and he’s going to change my FB password, but there are other factors that are not that easy to exclude from my daily routine. My procrastination is awful, I can just stare at one point for hours, instead of finishing that damn homework. But this definitely inspired me a lot, I hope I would be able to come here on CC and start the same thread a year and a half from now, as I will be hopefully already accepted to my dream school. Congratulations on your acceptances and keep up the good work. You should be really proud of yourself. :)</p>
<p>Sadly, it doesn’t always work out that way if you are in some way perceived as ‘priviledged’ in any way no matter how upward the trend may be in your grades and accomplishments over four years. Today’s universities and colleges value diversity over quality and the best grades, test scores and extracurricular activities are trumped every time by ethnic and economic (read: disadvantaged) students. Acceptances today are more a reflection of luck and circumstance than merit. (Not to diminish anyone’s accomplishment, but you are kidding yourself if you think a certain amount of luck weren’t involved that had to do with what family you were born into, ethnic background, etc.) If schools can be ‘need blind’ in the admissions process ought they not also be ‘race’ and ‘gender’ blind to the fullest extent possible?</p>
<p>everyone says that freshman year in high school doesn’t “count” but when it affects self esteem and school attitude and makes a smart girl lose her motivation…it is scary! for the girl and for the parents. starting with mono and grades sliding and more challenging high school work and time management, the year went down hill. oh, did i mention facebook and the distraction? Freshman year is almost over. It’s nice to know that there is hope to make a comeback…your stories are inspiring and give hope to the weary! still scared though.</p>
<p>The thing I really like about this is how it can apply to almost everybody in any situation.</p>
<p>It’s not just applicable to high schools, but also applicable to colleges of various difficulty. All you have to do is swap around the numbers, and it could be a very plausible success story for anyone.</p>
<p>This article makes a very important point, and that is: some things, you can get thru by just being smart, but being smart, by itself, is often not enough. If you went into an easy high school, you can probably pull off a 4.0 and other “stellar” accomplishments with little to no effort. However, when this gets you admitted to a top college where all the other people who got admitted either have excellent work ethic (which, to be completely honest, might not even be enough by itself to get you admitted to a top college) or are also very smart, the work ethic part will come in and play a deciding factor.</p>
<p>I just want to say to everyone who says that this story (or any similar one) is invalid and uninspiring because the person started out with adequate grades, that’s not true. You have all heard of people or know people who do better than you in school without hardly trying while you work your butt off. Well, these are those people. They still can get by, but they have a lot of unrealized potential nonetheless. No they may not get Fs and almost flunk out of school, but they are hurt by their lack of work ethic just as much as anyone. It’s about missed opportunity. I know because I am one of those people. I got a 4.0 unweighted GPA last year as a sophomore and I hated myself for blowing the whole year by slacking off and doing so much worse than I know I could have. I know that I have the ability in me to succeed in difficult courses and even stand out as well. I knew better than anyone how much time I wasted last year and how much better I could have done. I am very fortunate, as some of us are, to still do quite well compared to many people while doing awfully compared to my potential. I think the OP is in the same boat. A low point being higher than some of your expectations does not make this person’s resurgence any less incredible.</p>
<p>@Celeritas - Don’t worry brother, I’m far from being a ■■■■■. You can email me at <a href=“mailto:yu@college.harvard.edu”>yu@college.harvard.edu</a> and I’ll be sure to respond.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>LOL :D!!!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>From my experience, that’s never 100% true. He may have the ability to do everything the last minute, but you can bet that he also puts a lot of effort into his work when he’s on his own, even though it may not appear so on the surface.</p>
<p>i think i just dont understand</p>
<p>but how is your FINAL gpa 3.88/4</p>
<p>but junior and senior yr u got ABOVE 4</p>
<p>how does this workout exactly</p>
<p>His calcuations are a little questionable. He mixes semester and year long GPAs together (unless he expected to keep that 4.5 for second semester of senior year as well, in which case the calculation is a somewhat fair approximation, but still not entirely accurate). To answer your question though belenresto, by final GPA he means the cumulative GPA earned over all four years of high school, which take into account the under-four GPAs from freshman and sophomore year as well as the above-four GPAs from junior and senior year - when you average all four years, you yield a number under four.</p>
<p>As to how he got GPAs above 4, he is likely on a weighted system - where As in Honors or AP classes may be given higher weight than As in regular classes - e.g. a 5.00 for an A in an Honors class as opposed to a 4.00 in a regular class. My school for example operates on a 5.0 scale, and As in Honors or AP classes are given 6.1 points of credit (a prime example of asinine face-value grade inflation - when asked why we utilize a 5.0 scale, our district responded that that was the way we had always done it - I have a 5.70213 and that number means nothing because no one else uses this scale).</p>
<p>freshman: 3.2something
sophomore: 3.4
junior: 4.4something
senior: 4.5
(WEIGHTED)</p>
<p>Calculation: 3.2 + 3.4 + 4.4 + 4.5 = 15.516</p>
<p>15.516 / 4 = 3.879000 = 3.88</p>
<p>That’s how our school calculates GPA.</p>
<p>And once again, I’m just really happy that this helped inspire some of you. It’s really great that you all can learn from my mistake. And it’s great, because this doesn’t just have to do with school. It’s a life lesson as well. Basically meaning, if you fail, or better said, don’t achieve your goal(s), you should keep trying, and do anything you can do achieve it, and go beyond what you thought was possible.</p>
<p>What is it unweighted?</p>
<p>Thanks for the great story - i will bookmark this thread!
It gives me so much motivation.</p>
<p>I’ve been to classes at community college already, but that was too easy for me. Maybe next year I’ll take some classes at a college. But still I don’t really have the feeling I reach my full potential with that and I feel I can do a lot more. I’m doing 11 AP’s this year (History, Economics, Management & Organisation, English, Dutch, Mathematics A, Mathematics B, Philosophy, Biology, Sociology and Social Sciences) and that will continue till my senior year. But I’ve got 5’s on all of them without studying more than 4 hours per week total. </p>
<p>I hope the college classes next year are going to challenge me, because there’s no challenge at school at the moment. :(</p>
<p>Hey, if anyone needs a fairly inspiring story, I have one! Basically, my motivation went down as high school went by and my social life increased. So my gpa (going from freshman to senior year) was: 3.8, 3.3, 3.0, then a 3.7 for my senior year. I got into Colgate, Carnegie Mellon, Holy Cross, and Cornell with a total 3.38 unweighted gpa.</p>
<p>Lylest, I’m really not sure. I remember freshman year unweighted being maybe .5-.75 less than weighted since I was only in one honors. Pretty much the same for sophomore year. But I know that it changed drastically junior/sr year because I took many honors/aps</p>
<p>Jeroentk, you’re really posting pretty off topic in this thread. It’s about being motivated and inspired to do better. In your case, you’re already doing above and beyond. It’s just my opinion, but it seems like you’re trying to brag about being to smart for school.</p>
<p>If you think you’re just dominating your schools curriculum, transfer to a private boarding school. My brother did that (attended Exeter) because my parents were mad that our school couldn’t accomodate his academic needs. So they sent him to a school with extremely difficult academics to challenge him. It worked.</p>
<p>I don’t mean to be a party pooper, but I don’t really find this as inspirational as everyone else does. 3.0 isn’t a terrible place to start. It’s not the best obviously…it’s no 4.0, but it’s not 2.5. Maybe in comparison to higher grades a 3.0 is terrible. But I just believe that on it’s on it’s a decent enough GPA. I’d much rather hear a story where someone did have something like a two point something (not like 2.99999 lol) who ended up with a 3.8. But then again this is CC and a 2000 is a horrible SAT score, so…</p>
<p>I completely understand what your saying Determind15. But I’m talking about a personal let down. I know a 3.0 is above average, and I should’ve been content with a 3.2 freshman year, but when my goal was a 3.75+, it was just a big let down, personally, not statistically.</p>
<p>Brilliant story btotheg, and kudos!</p>
<p>Dutch guy – Got library ?</p>