My advice is that you contact your school guidance counselor immediately. I guess that would be on Monday. Go to meet with your guidance counselor on Monday. Even if it means that you have to skip a class or have to arrange a meeting after school. Print out the letter you started this post with. Give the guidance counselor the letter. Then you and the guidance counselor should talk about what you want. You obviously have great credentials. There is no reason for someone like you to be talking about feeling like you don’’ have a terrific future. You need to get advice from an appropriate source and this is not the best source for you. Go talk with your guidance counselor even if you never have even met him or her before.
OP where did you apply?
@happymomof1
Thanks, I’ll definitely take a look at the book. You were right about some things though - I’m the first in my entire family to be going to a university outside of Asia. Nobody really understands the application/transfer/etc. programs here, so I was left to figure things out on my own in less than 4 months. (To be honest, I’m still confused and lost - there’s a lot of things I still do not know about and it scares me).
gp - It sounds like you have some terrific accomplishments. Hang in there. Things will get better.
@gp12919 Texas people, how does a first generation girl with a 1410 CR+M get shut out of mechanical engineering at UT? In my state we’d be sending her flowers begging her to attend.
Gearmom, the OP has options commensurate with her academic record. She does not get a mulligan for the HS ranking. She is not the first student who made a difficult transition.
Although understandable, she is misinformed about the Texas school. She thinks Arlington is an unsafe place! A gap year will not yield a better situation and the promises of a full ride is highly doubtful.
UTA is a very good place to prepare for the next steps in STEM. She will also have her work cut out to do as well as she thinks she can. The engineering school at UT is no picnic and is very competitive.
@xiggi Maybe not a full ride but she could get quite a bit. Depends on her GPA but at Alabama she with a 1410 would get her full tuition and $2500 extra for engineering plus I bet she’d get into honors.
Texas schools are very good though. And I wouldn’t worry about having no social life. Engineering students don’t have a social life. You can have one of those after graduation.
I’m confused about why you’ve decided against asking advice from people who are there to advise you-why don’t you go and talk with the counselor? Wouldn’t it be better than remaining lost?
gearmom, if you’re not in the top 7 or 8%, depending on graduation year, you are not guaranteed admission to UT. And new personnel in admissions have signaled a big shift, to “fit to major.” If you say you want to be in engineering, you better have ECs that reflect that interest. I don’t know enough about OP (and sorry for thinking you were a guy, OP) to know what her deficits might have been, but rank is a big one. The deal is that the CAP and PACE programs are alternate ways to eventually get on the 40 Acres full time. It’s a viable option for OP and shouldn’t be discarded.
I want to pound my head against a rock.
OP, consider the fact that you believe that 99.99% of the world’s population are utter failures and a waste of space and pat yourself on the back for at least being in a better spot than they are.
OMG.
OP you’re 17 yrs old, so you’re thinking of this as a win-lose situation and assuming you lost. Those of us on this board in our 30s (40s, 50s, 60s) realize there is more than one way to get where you want to be. Cut yourself some slack – you’ve been in country for barely 1 yr and are navigating a process that no one in your family has done (U.S. admissions).
You say you want the following:
“What do I want in life? A fresh start. A university degree. An above minimum-wage corporate job. To move away as far as I can from this country and never look back. I don’t care about making money at this point, all I care about is to be able to have something I can live for.”
You can and WILL have those things. Just because you didn’t get into a university right now does not mean that you are going to be stuck in minimum wage retail; that’s not the place for someone with a 1410 and IB curriculum.
I don’t know Texas, but as the PPs above are saying – go to Arlington and transfer directly into UT and you’ll be exactly at the place you want to be – engineering in a university. Frankly think of your year at Arlington as another year for you to adjust to the U.S., make friends, just learn to navigate the process – before you are thrown into a big university. If your goals are future employment – trust me employers aren’t going to hold it against you or even care why you went to Arlington. But say 5 yrs from now – someone cares; you tell them you had just moved to the country one yr prior and were navigating college admissions on your own and Arlington was the best option for you at the time and once you got there you did really well and were able to transfer to UT. Believe me – 99% of Americans will think of that as an accomplishment that you persevered – not a hindrance that will make you unhireable.
If you really can’t bear the idea of Arlington at all, then I think a gap yr may be your only option; you could take some classes here and there at your community college and pick up a job in retail or something and devote your energies to applying to engineering programs next fall. As a girl with a 1410 wanting engineering – I think there would be some scholarship money out there, and maybe even a full or almost full ride at Alabama.
@aj725 NO classes if she takes a gap year. She’d be a transfer and could not get merit scholarships.
@Youdon’tsay That’s harsh. I never had engineering ECs in high school. Hard to know what you want at 14. But OP has language skills from the looks of it. Japanese and Mandarin? Some school would be over the moon. If you gap year OP, come back for application strategies.
Many scholarships are restricted to first time freshmen. The 40 percent ranking in the Texas HS cannot be erased. Had the student ranked in the top 25 percent, she would have been admitted by Texas AM through her SAT.
The CAP is an opportunity to start on a good basis. The DFW area is hardly a bad place for students. It is a step above Waco, for instance.
She probably would have fewer options after taking a gap year. She really is not in a bad place. She simply does not understand what millions of kids go through in the US. Understandable but not correct.
@xiiggi Yes she would have to leave Texas for scholarships. They won’t care about ranking only GPA other places. And they might calculate it differently based on her IB. If she doesn’t take college classes she can take a gap year and still be a freshman. Depends on whether or not she wants to leave Texas. The CAP sounds very good but if we had known her earlier I think there would have been suggestions for a broader application pool especially in light of her Texas ranking.
@xiggi
- If I had the option, I would've taken the AP program in Indonesia. Yet the only school that currently offers the AP program in Indonesia is Jakarta International School (where the tuition is not favorable to my parent's financial standing at that time). Had it not been for my scholarship, I wouldn't have been able to take the IB program as well. I had to work with what I had, and obtained the best possible option I could've had in that situation.
- While I am considered a resident of Texas, I still had to apply as an international applicant (due to the 'three consecutive year' rule). Though I was offered the CAP program, so it's a moot point.
- & 4. I haven't been to Arlington yet, but from what I've heard it is largely a commuter school located in a semi-dangerous area. We'll see if my views change once I visit the school next week.
- It's a 4.0 or bust.
I know what I want and my capabilities. The problem is that the system works against me in every single possible way and that my options are limited. If I had known I was moving in my senior year, I would’ve taken the easiest SL classes offered in my school since it didn’t really matter whether or not I took challenging courses (since rank seems to be very important in Texas). I’ve always thought that taking challenging courses would help me in life, but that’s a mistake I’ve learned from.
I got into Texas Tech, Baylor, and UH. All three offered me scholarships. The only reason I accepted the CAP offer was because I knew that I’d try to transfer out of those three schools anyways. At least CAP gave me a guaranteed admission to UT liberal arts/undeclared (with a 3.2 GPA), in which then I could try to transfer internally. But I’m hoping I can work for a 4.0 in UTA and get in directly to my major (slim chance, but it’s better than nothing).
I understand not everyone is offered the CAP program and I should be very happy with this opportunity, but I feel ashamed that I have to work hard for another year just to get into the university of my choice. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not ashamed nor do I mind working hard in itself. It’s just that when kids in my country do not pass their entrance exams to their university of choice they take a ‘gap year’ (they basically study hard for another year and retake the entrance exams). It is seen as a failure and often times those kids are looked down upon. The CAP program is essentially the same thing to them (and to me). It basically says ‘I did not study hard enough in HS, therefore I am studying hard now’ (in a nutshell).
So I am ashamed because the kid who sits next to me in Physics rattles on about all the music festivals/concerts he’s going to go to Austin while I have to admittedly swallow my failure and continue to work hard to get into university because I didn’t work hard enough in HS. Yes, I am bitter. Yes, I am being intentionally hard on myself (I’m highly self-critical and very competitive). Yes, I am whining and complaining.
But again. It’s not so clear-cut easy-peasy-lemon-squeasy. Even if I did get a 4.0 - I’m still not guaranteed admission into my major. Each year, the admissions/transfer process gets more and more competitive. Perhaps this year a 3.8 is enough to get into the major I want, but maybe next year a 4.0 isn’t even enough. I will try to take the most difficult classes directed towards my major and give everything I’ve got to achieve a 4.0 (or near it) - there’s absolutely no doubt about that. The doubt is when enough is never enough. Is my 4.0 going to be enough? What other things do I need to do to get into UT Austin? How am I going to show the admissions people that I’m different from the rest of the CAP/transfer students trying to get in? What am I doing that’s not good enough? Am I ever going to be good enough?
I’m sorry if I sound mopey or whiny. I am simply just terrified. For all my life, I’ve been told that if I work hard I can achieve anything. I believed that within an inch of my being, and it became my life motto. I turned 17 last month and I still don’t have everything figured out. Sometimes I begin to feel positive about the CAP program, but then I chastise myself because I feel that I shouldn’t be happy for it. I don’t want to end up living a mediocre life. I won’t allow myself to live like that.
@gearmom
I applied to about 9 Texas schools (parents won’t let me go out of state) and got accepted to every single one except A&M and UT Austin (note: I didn’t apply to Rice).
@sylvan8798
I don’t think 99.9% is the correct number. Half the people I talk to either has a higher SAT or a higher GPA than me. The rest of the world is smarter than you think nowadays.
OP, you should not concern yourself with the other kids. The student who messes up in Physics is probably going to Austin because of his rank. Neither should you be concerned about how people judge you. You can see from replies here that people realize you might have had a raw deal by being uprooted. Again, focus on the positives. You will be spending two semesters in Arlington. If you do well, the CAP will be available plus other transfer options. You will not waste your time!
Do not beat yourself to a pulp. Things will be clearer in 12 months. How old will you be when strolling down 6th Street? You will then understand that there is more than the final destination. The journey was worth the troubles as well. You ARE in the UT system.
My kid transferred into an international school when she was a junior. I spent numerous hours in negotiating with D2’s GC to normalize her old transcript to her new school’s grading system. We had an opposite problem. Her old school offered honors, but not IB. Her new school didn’t want to give her more credit for honors even though her honors English sophomore year was more advanced than her IB English (she had already read most of those books in class).
When D2 was applying to colleges, her GC had suggested for D2 to also submit her old school’s transcript and also to have one of her long time teacher to write a recommendation letter. At the end, we didn’t think it was necessary because D2 ended up doing very well at her new school and got credit for all her honors courses.
I don’t know what OP’s transcript looked like from her new school, did the school map her old curriculum to new curriculm(IB English to 10th grade English)? If that’s the case then adcoms may not have seen all of those IB courses. If I was advising OP in the beginning of college process, I would have OP submit both high school’s transcripts to show all of those IB courses, and had the GC write a letter to highlight her transition. On the other hand, I don’t know if the UT system would care about any of it. As mentioned by xiggi, OP is not in a bad situation.