Hi, im us citizen that lives in Canada and graduated from a Canadian high school. I graduated high school in the spring unsure of what I wanted to study for my undergrad I ended up taking a gap year. The main question that I haven’t been able to find an answer to is concerning grades. My grades are extremely mismatched(grade 9 and10 average mid-60s) this was caused by 2 severe undiagnosed learning disabilities. Upon receiving the diagnosis and corresponding support. My marks improved significantly grade 11 average across all university/mixed/college/ prep courses 93.5. Grade 12 was a small improvement with an average of 96.5 4 university prep level courses and one mixed level course. My question is will a college admissions counsel take into consideration my extenuating circumstances that affected my first 2 years of school or just reject me based on those 2 years?
Will be considered at many schools - that don’t look at a straight GPA but it will be dependent on the school as to whether it will carry enough weight to get in.
Do you have either citizenship or permanent residence in Canada? (The US and Canada both allow dual citizenship).
My understanding is that admissions to universities in Canada is based largely on your last two years. In your case this will help you a LOT. I think that you have a chance for admissions even at the “McGill, Toronto, UBC” level.
The very top universities in the US (Harvard, MIT, Stanford level) get a large number of applications who are very strong students and were strong students for all four years of high school. Two bad years will hurt your chances at the very top ranked universities in the US. I would be surprised if you can get accepted to a “top 10” university in the US for your bachelor’s degree.
Otherwise admissions in general will know that different students mature at different times. With your very strong uptrend, there is an implication that one way or another you got your act together and became a very strong student. My wild guess is that you will get accepted to at least “top 200” and quite possibly “top 100” universities in the US.
This strong uptrend is likely to also help you be well prepared to do well once you arrive at university and start classes.
Assuming that you have either citizenship or permanent residence in Canada, and therefore will pay domestic tuition, I do not see much point in attending a university in the US that is ranked somewhere in the “50 to 200” range unless you have some very strong and specific reason to do so. Canada has a lot of very good universities which are for most domestic students way less expensive compared to university in the US. Even if you do not have Canadian permanent residency, there are still quite a few universities up there which are very good and relatively reasonably priced.
Also, if you at some point in the future want to attend graduate school either in Canada or the US (or anywhere else as far as I know) they will not care about your high school grades. They will care about your grades in university. Also, top schools in the US will know how strong the university system is in general in Canada. I know or have known several people who did their bachelor’s in Canada and then either their master’s or PhD or both at top schools in the US.
I attended high school in Canada, and university in the US. At least where I went to high school, a 96.5 average even for one year would have been really, really good (better than the #1 student in the high school). I think that your uptrend is going to help you a lot and I expect that you will get accepted to some very good universities.