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Then no one told me that honors classes were so important until it was too late to sign up for them. Now it's apparently "Too late" and I can't make up for the stupid mistakes I made. I would have aced every class if it was honors, it doesn't matter if its honors or not. It's just not fair that I can't make up for it somehow. My entire life has been decided by some choices I made as a 13 year old. How the hell am I supposed to know this **** when I'm only 13 years old!!!! This is just too unfair.
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Sorry if I don't join your pity party. I don't know who told you life is supposed to be fair, or why you believe it. It's not. There are people who suffer devastating accidents, crippling illness. There are kids who have to worry about being shot if they go outside in their neighborhood. Kids who have parents who are abusive, who are drug addicts, who abandon them. The world is not a fair place.</p>
<p>And what's your beef? That when you were 13 you weren't told that you needed to take honors courses to be a strong candidate for the best colleges? It seems to me you have hardly tasted unfairness...</p>
<p>Well, too bad. You shouldn't take honors classes for the sake of getting into a good school. I didn't. I went into honors classes because I wanted classes to challenge me and to mingle with smarter people.</p>
<p>"Well, too bad. You shouldn't take honors classes for the sake of getting into a good school. I didn't. I went into honors classes because I wanted classes to challenge me and to mingle with smarter people."</p>
<p>Same here as well. When I first started HS, I thought all that mattered was just having a high GPA. Now that I know you need to take harder classes, I only take AP classes that are in line with my interests and not just taking classes for the sake of looking good.</p>
<p>@Mikemac</p>
<p>That was pretty cold, I dont see how its the OP fault that he/she didnt know that you would be at an advantage by taking higher level courses. If I didnt frequent these forums, I would be pretty clueless about the admissions process as one of my parents didnt go to college and my other parent graduated a couple years ago so I was at an disadvantage when it came to college.</p>
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That was pretty cold, I dont see how its the OP fault that he/she didnt know that you would be at an advantage by taking higher level courses. If I didnt frequent these forums, I would be pretty clueless about the admissions process as one of my parents didnt go to college and my other parent graduated a couple years ago so I was at an disadvantage when it came to college.
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I had 3 reactions to the OPs original note and follow-on comments</p>
<ul>
<li><p>There are 3000 schools in the US so nothing in your story is a drop dead problem ... the schools are sort of in a continium ... if the OPs choices prevent getting into a certain level of school they s/he is a good candidate for the schools nearly as "good" ... and I'm hesitating to use the term "good" as defined by rankings or test scores. In this case any "mistakes" are far from live alternating.</p></li>
<li><p>Colleges are aware of the challenges of first generation students and students who go to schools who typical do not send students to top schools ... while we often here complaints about wholistic admissions on CC these considerations are one of better attributes of wholistic admissions. Colleges do not look at the raw count of honors and AP course but atr how tough a student took compared to what was offered ... fair enough.</p></li>
<li><p>The complaint that it isn't fair that the student didn't know that colleges want applicants to take the toughest courses falls somewhat on deaf ears with me. Colleges are not looking for kids who took hard courses because it helped them to get into college ... they are looking for students who took hard courses becasue they were compelled to take them; that any other choice was not really a choice. I took every college prep level math course my HS offered ... I know that is a little weird ... that had nothing to do with college but everything to do with what I thought would be the most fun thing to take with my extra courses (math and CS). Those choices probably helped me get into Engineering schools but when I made them it had nothing to do with impressing colleges ... it had everything to do with what I found intellectually interesting.</p></li>
<li><p>Similar comment on ECs. Colleges are not looking for ECs kids did to impress colleges ... but kids who pursue passions with their ECs. My high school ECs were mainly sports ... however I played a sport every season starting in 5th grade and continued until I was 28 and my knees totally died ... I didn't play sports in HS trying to look good for schools I just LOVE playing sports.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>You'll end up somewhere that fits you. People who don't kill themselves just to get into "a good college," or whatever you want to call it, have just as good of a chance to end up happy in higher college or university or whatever else they decide to do.</p>
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Sorry if I don't join your pity party. I don't know who told you life is supposed to be fair, or why you believe it. It's not. There are people who suffer devastating accidents, crippling illness. There are kids who have to worry about being shot if they go outside in their neighborhood. Kids who have parents who are abusive, who are drug addicts, who abandon them. The world is not a fair place.</p>
<p>And what's your beef? That when you were 13 you weren't told that you needed to take honors courses to be a strong candidate for the best colleges? It seems to me you have hardly tasted unfairness...
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I'm with this. Life isn't fair, yours doesn't even sound that of a big deal. I also am like you, didn't know anything about college, let alone the importance of school/academics due to many different problems, but not all of us can be born into a rich family that has everything. I'm a sophomore now that's accidentally stumbled on this website a couple months ago, and I'm lost because I've never studied, cared about my academics, did anything school-related, EC, anything in my life before. I try to study but I don't have any habits, etc. I'm far behind in terms of my academically superior peers who were fortunate enough to have been given a great education and fostered their talent/intelligence since a young age; now at 15 I have absolutely nothing. I'm too late, hoping I can go to some college at least though lol.</p>
<p>I guess I've turned this into an incoherent rambling myself, but my underlying point is that life is unfair and hopefully you do better from now on. I hate to use the cliched examples and sound like a cheesy snob, but there are people in this world that never get a single chance at life in the first place.</p>
<p>step one: quit whining because its clear youre still not mature enough to make a college decision
step two: get A's inthe classes youre in right now and sign up for a harder courseload next year. I took ony one AP junior year and a bunch senior year, and now im at a top 25 school from an avg public high school
step 3: Do well on SATs
step 4: Readjust your expectaions, try and evaluate what youre looking for in a school and then look at schools that fit what youre looking fo along with your grades.</p>
<p>Its seriously so much less important to go to an Ivy league school or top 10 school than you think right now, and you will understad that at some point so just chill out for now cause youll regret freaking out about it in a few years</p>
<p>I actually signed up for APs because i wanted to be challenged, not because it would "look good". I founded clubs not because it would look good for my application, but because i wanted to meet others who share my interests. There were so many things that i could have done to make my self the number one candidate in my school for the Ivy league, but i don't regret not doing them because there was a reason those things weren't done. It is not the fault of the school that you didn't enroll in honors courses, it was your own fault for not being more assertive. If i had pursued activities for the sole purpose of looking good on an application, i would only be lying to my self. Sure, it'll make me "stand out", but it would also make me a generic person- and I'm anything but generic. There's no reason to feel down about not taking honors classes, because it doesn't change who you are. Taking honors classes doesn't ensure success, and neither does going to an ivy league school guarantee you a job in the fortune 500 or wherever you want to be . It's the people who are driven and confident in their abilities that excel in life-and if you're one of those people, only you will decide your own future.</p>
<p>it IS pretty unfair. i was lucky, i started hearing about it from my older brother since a young age so i knew that i was supposed to prepare. i feel sorry for others who don't have that experience though.</p>