<p>I am a high school student in my junior year. I go to a public school in the south bay in california. I've been feeling extremely afflicted about college and admissions because of my performance in my sophomore and junior year. During my freshman year, my classes were relatively easy and I pulled a 3.5. In my sophomore year, I had much more difficult teachers, and I ended up with a 3.1 because of my laziness. Essentially, I did not have a single A in my sophomore year. I Felt extremely inadequate, and I was conflicted over whether to take regular CP classes again the next year, or try and make up for my losses by taking harder AP and honors classes and try to get A's. I felt like I could perhaps redeem myself in my junior year, so I signed up for AP biology, AP united states history, and Honors English. Unfortunately, I am not faring any better. in fact, my junior year is my worst academically. In addition to underestimating the difficulty of my courses, one of my best friends committed suicide during my junior year and I just couldn't do well in school because of it. I ended my first semester of my junior year with C's both my AP's and a B in my honors english, and only one academic A, putting my unweighted gpa somewhere around a 2.7 or 2.8. I'm in my second semester of my junior year, and my GPA is barely a 3.0. I try not to be pessimistic, but I have never felt so inadequate in my life. Realistically, are there any UC's that might still accept me? I really liked UC Santa Barbara or UC Santa Cruz, but I feel that my performance in my sophomore and junior year have decimated my odds of going. My unweighted academic gpa is a 3.07. Would I have been better off to just take regular CP classes if I could get better grades in them?</p>
<p>I would choose 1 (MAYBE 2) Advanced courses and just keep the rest regular. You have to realize that you’re not going to help your GPA that much if you make B’s at this point. You have to pull straight A’s if you want to see some sort of increase. Colleges like to see improvement and some great SAT scores could help balance a shabby GPA somewhat. Good luck, you can do it!</p>
<p>thank you for the advice mirrorimage. Unfortunately, I’m already too far into my second semester to drop any classes, so I am stuck with the ones I have. I have taken the ACT, but I have yet to take the SAT. I don’t really know my score in the ACT because it hasn’t come back yet, but I know that I will retake it because I did not feel like I did as well as I could. I would really like to go to a UC school. I can’t drop any of my AP’s now, and I think I will still have high C’s in both of those classes. I do want to do the best I can in my senior year. Will UC’s look at my senior year at all? Now that I know my limitations, I am only taking one AP next year, and it will most likely be English (it is one of the only courses that I do well in)</p>