Junior, mom says i can't get into a good college

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hi, my mom says I can't get into a good college and that the best I can get into is UT(exas). She says since I can't get into a good college, I should either spend all my time studying or stop studying and get a job.</p>

<p>~~~~~~~</p>

<p>male / asian / 15yrold
Rank: top 4% @ competitive(?) public high school
[2700 students, 600 my grade / magna cum laude usually either ivy/rice/ut with the occasional stanford/MIT]
GPA: havent checked in a while, but i take mostly AP classes and get As
(except for 2 Bs freshmen year and 1 B sophomore year—but i moved right before high school, so i didn't attend high school courses like half the school and thus have a lower GPA...)</p>

<p>PSAT: 218 in TX
SAT: 2110 first time (retaking soon)
APs so far: biology-5
SATIIs so far: biology-780</p>

<p>course schedule:</p>

<p>9 - english 1 / H geometry / PreAP world geo / japanese 1 / H ipc (integrated physics & chemistry) / H biology</p>

<p>10 - PreAP english 2 / H alg 2 / PreAP world hist / japanese 2 / H chemistry 1 / AP biology 2 / health & fitness (required) / yearbook (journalism/desktop publishing)</p>

<p>11 - AP english 3 / H precal / AP us history / H japanese 3 / AP chemistry 2 / H physics 1 / yearbook</p>

<p>12 (tentative) - AP english 4 / AP calc bc / AP govt / AP economics / H japanese 4 / AP physics 2c OR H chem 3 (organic chemistry, no AP) / yearbook</p>

<p>leadership/ec stuff:</p>

<p>1 yr as editor of section for yearbook
1 yr as editor-in-chief of the yearbook (with new noob advising teacher aka i basically do most of the "adviser's responsibilities" now)
^^[+next year= 2 yr as chief^^]
1 yr officer of Red Cross club (largest youth red cross club)
^^[+president next year]
volunteer hours: a lot, mostly through Red Cross</p>

<p>other stuff:
interact/rotary club
japanese NHS
NHS
science NHS
JETS (science olympiad/club)</p>

<p>~~~~~~~
colleges i'm interested in: rice, UT(exas), vanderbilt, UC(alifornia), cornell, columbia (dad's almamater)</p>

<p>I like to design & i'm a technology enthusiast aka I read engadget/digg etc... and wait 6 hours in line outside @ 100 degrees on opening day to get an iPhone. I make some money doing design work, but most of the time i have to reject clients b/c of study workload etc...</p>

<p>My mom says if i'm not studying until 2am like other kids i should either go to bed at 9 or study..</p>

<p>obviously like other asians, my mom frequently compares me to "her friends' kids who got into harvard, stanford, princeton, yale, rice etc... and only the 'bad boys/girls' go to UT"</p>

<p>my mom says i have no chance at getting into harvard/yale/columbia/any ivy.</p>

2

<p>no offense to your mom, but a 2110 is a pretty good score that can get you into a lot more colleges than just UTexas, especially since you say that you’re taking the sats again.</p>

<p>your mom is kind of right about the ivy part- it’s really difficult to get in, but they’re reaches for everyone and as long as you have great essays, recs, gpa, etc- you have a decent shot. and there are a toooooon of great schools out there that aren’t in the ivy league.</p>

<p>my overall point is- don’t listen to your mom about this because their generation has no idea what its like getting in to college now. i think it’s ridiculous that she’s telling you to get a job instead of focusing on school and getting in to a good college.</p>

<p>good luck!</p>

3

<p>Rice and Cornell should be in, just improve your SAT score a bit (you’re retaking, so you’re good). Columbia is chancey, and I’m not so sure about UC since they hate OOSes. You can definitely go somewhere higher than UT though.</p>

4

<p>Your mother seems to be exaggerating, since your stats aren’t bad. The Ivy League is unpredictable, though, so she’s right about it being hard to get into.</p>

5

<p>You can get into somewhere higher than UT. But UT really isn’t that bad; your parents are too caught up in the prestige factor. Picking a college should be about which school is best FOR YOU. Where will you be happy? It’s no use picking a school like Harvard if you will be miserable there, because then you will do terribly in your studies. And screw quitting studies, these days you need a degree to go anywhere in life, but I’m sure you knew that.</p>

<p>I got into Rice with a semi-low GPA and SAT’s that are a little lower than yours. Doing well enough on the essays can make up for a low SAT or GPA. </p>

<p>Definitely visit Rice if you can. I know that they like applicants that show a lot of interest. Your extracurriculars seem pretty good, so keep developing them. Doing research over the summer (internship, job as a lab technician at local college, etc) can also be a big plus. When senior year comes around, I encourage you to apply Early Action to some schools, and if you really like Rice apply Early Decision; it can increase your chances and save you a lot of time/worry.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

6

<p>

Haha. My mom used to pull that trick on me ;). She explained this to me later on when I revealed her ploy: either I would get motivated to study harder, or I would drop out and get a job, and after discovering the shame I had placed on the family name I would have earned enough money to go back to school and pay for it myself. Of course, none of this worked and she was fine with what I accomplished.</p>

<p>Bottom line is, she’s your mom. It’s her job to make sure you don’t slack off - after spending so much time and effort on you, it’s natural to expect you to do the same (don’t you hate that?). She’ll guilt you into working harder because she knows you’ll fall for it (the most of us do ;)), and if she really believes you’ll never get into a good school, prove her wrong. And even if you don’t, remember: just like you are stuck with her, she is stuck with you. She’ll always be there - whether or not that’s a good thing is up to you to decide. </p>

<p>Cheers,
Alex</p>

7

<p>^nice haha. i agree.</p>

<p>pull up your SAT a little, and keep working. i think you’re fine :)</p>