Hello! I just finished Junior year and now I am going to be a senior in the fall. I have a 3.3 GPA. I know… it’s TERRIBLE! I have taken the SAT and got a 1450 on it.
I struggled the first two years of school because I was bullied, so I transferred to another school Junior year.
I took 2 AP classes Sophomore year (AP World and AP Environmental) along with Pre-Calc. Unfortunately I got C’s in both AP’s. (All of my classes are honors). I also participated in orchestra and got a honors credit for it.
Junior Year I took AP Calc, AP Psych, AP US History. I got an A in history, B in psych and B in Calc.
For extracurriculars I swim all year (2 times a day) and participate in an orchestra (rehearsals every Sunday). I also work as a swim coach in the summer.
I live in N.C. and although my GPA is really low, I’m hoping for Chapel Hill. I know it’s a really good school where almost everyone that attends is in the top 10% of their class. (I’m in the top third of mine).
I’m just hoping that my essay will be good and that my issues in the first 2 years of school will be understood.
If Chapel Hill is out of reach, could anyone recommend some top 30 schools I could get into?
Thank you so much!
^I also have a huge chance of being swim team captain next year
It is highly unlikely you are going to get into schools where your gpa is not going to make the cut. There is no magic here. Unless you have some hook that transcends the gpa, class rank, it’s not going to happen. You are not Top 30 material without top 30 test scores and gpa.
Those schools are lottery tickets for s lot of kids with the grades and test scores that put them in the upper quarter of the class. No reason why you can’t give it a go; anyone can “buy” in.
What’s important is picking your safety school, the schools you know will take you and that you can afford. Finding one of those that suits you is your challenge and it’s all up to you. There are far far more than 30 of such colleges so not like there isn’t going to be a lot of choices.
Reed College will take a few with high SAT (like yours), but it would likely depend on your essays, recommendations and interview. Reed is very stressful. Reed meets full need.