Came here to ask on your honest opinion on how bad my situation is.
Currently in the 2nd semester of my junior year of highschool. (I live in the suburbs with a decent public school)
I currently have a 3.1 unweighted GPA, and I have a 4.3 weighted GPA.
I took 1 AP class (AP Human) during my sophomore year.
Currently taking 4 (AP language, AP US History, AP Biology, AP Psychology) along with Pre-Cal my junior year.
And plan on taking 5 during my senior year. (AP calc AB, AP literature, AP chem, AP government, AP statistics)
I have no extra-curricular activities (hence the lazy part) since I do tend to enjoy sleeping in and not staying after school to attend anything (such as sports, band, orchestra, etc).
So, I just wanted your honest opinion (no sugar coating) on how bad is my situation and what kind of colleges and universities can I attend assuming my GPA’s stay the same.
Edit: Forgot to mention that I have a SAT score of 1250/1600.
You probably are fine at mid-tier universities. Your (relatively) low unweighted GPA and lack of extracurricular activities will likely be a problem at more competitive universities. Your course rigor is pretty solid on a surface level, but keep in mind that colleges like, and often expect, level 3 or 4 foreign language and physics.
You should apply to your State U. They don’t care about ECs as much.
For colleges of interest, look at the Common Data Set in section C7 to see how much they care about ECs in admissions.
You’ll be able to make it into those state colleges as sheep flock to the pastures… If they weigh the GPA as they are wont to do, even better… No problem concerning the extracurriculars either… Money is the main thing but you’ll still probably get some anyway… Get through anyhow… Laziness makes it easier to muddle through… The most grim prospect is the SAT score for sure
The very large difference between your unweighted and weighted GPA makes me think that your highschool gives a huge bump to GPA for honors classes and AP classes. However, universities will look at your actual grades. Based on your unweighted GPA I am guessing that you mostly have B’s, and that your A’s and your C’s are close to equal in number with a very slight edge to A’s over C’s.
Given this, if you live somewhere other than California, then depending upon where you live you might have some chance at you in-state flagship public university, and should have a very good chance at a “not the flagship” in-state university. At this level I don’t think that ECs are the main issue. The main issue is unweighted GPA, with your SAT to me being pretty much in-line with your grades. If you live in California you might be looking at CSUs or maybe Merced but I am definitely not an expert on California (we live near the opposite corner of the “lower 48”).
There are a very large number of universities in the US, and to me you look to be solidly on track to attend a good one. However to me anything in the top 50 looks hopeless and top 200 looks iffy. Given that there are something like 4,000 schools to choose from that still leaves a lot of options. If you can start getting more A’s this year and next then you might be able to open up a few more options.
Agree that you will need to find schools are GPA/SAT based for admissions (often the larger state schools). Also, I’m not sure if it is relevant to your situation but things done outside of school (ex. a part-time job, community/church based activities etc.) also count as valuable activities and can be included in a college application.