Are you in a private school in the city, public magnet or public?
I am LOLing at the comment that OP has to go straight to community college with those stats. I think the OP has a lot of options beyond community college. DD got into Newhouse at Syracuse which has a crazy low acceptance rate (like 8-9%) with a weighted GPA 3.2. I also would not personally disclose mental illness during the admission process, but that’s just me. I agree with PP that there are smart people no matter where you go. They are not only found at “prestigious” schools.
does anyone actually read the posts, who said he HAD to go straight to CC?
“Your only real option with that GPA is to go to a Community College for a couple of years …”
(I’ll bet plenty interpreted that as cc first.)
Not. We have a long history on CC of a major thread about where to look for the 3.0 kids and, I believe, a recent new one. The difference is if OP wants to use the Guatanteed Transfer program to later get into Cornell.
But OP needs to get started with the motivation to look into his options and learn more about those colleges. All this speculation about who can do what or anecdotes are moot, at this point. And holistic means more than just the SAT or some impressive internship. OP has a story to put together, one that has meaning for the eventual targets. Some fine tuning may be needed to fill in the blanksin his experiences.
None of this is easy-peasy.
If your grades improved after you got your diagnosis and appropriate treatment, then it is perfectly okay and in fact very helpful for your college counselor to state in your recommendation that there was a medical issue that impacted your earlier grades. It is not necessary for the exact nature of the issue to be disclosed.
In a situation like this, it is more important to think about what you need in a college environment than to maximize competitiveness and/or prestige. Do you anticipate needing mental health support on campus? (Even if you don’t, a strong safety net is good.) Do you thrive on competition, or would too much academic pressure make it hard for you to thrive and do your best? Are small classes important to you? Is it important to you to be somewhere with high-level research going that you can take part in, or are you more likely to be working on your own projects rather than joining research groups?
There may be some entrepreneurship-focused schools that will take a detailed and holistic look at your achievements. (Babson comes to mind as one such possibility.)
Alternatively, look at larger public U’s where you could enter the university easily and where direct-entry isn’t the only realistic path into the business programs. One example that comes to mind is College of Charleston. You could likely get into their honors college once on campus if not on the first pass; and there’s a lot of cool entrepreneurial stuff going on in their business school. http://sb.cofc.edu/centers/centerforentrepreneurship/index.php (Note that Brad Feld, who is mentioned as the source of the “University blueprint” that they adhere to, is an entrepreneur who has gone public with his own struggles with major depression, and is active in fighting the stigma around mental health issues in the business world.) That’s just one example. There are any number of schools with relatively open admissions but terrific opportunities for students who distinguish themselves.
So, rather than using “where can I get in?” as a starting point, start by refining what you’re looking for. You may not have the most elite options, but you have many options, so you need to dial in your vision of what you are looking for and where you could thrive.
Look into Canada (Waterloo, UT, UBC, McGill) and most importantly, the UK (Oxbridge, Imperial, LSE, Durham, Edinburgh).
In the UK in particular they don’t care a fig about your GPA - it’s all about test scores and single minded dedication to your subject.
However you’d need to score 800s (or close to that) on subject tests such as Math2, Physics, Chemistry. Have you taken any STEM AP? Dual enrollment classes?
@SoQuantum , I’m not sure what @CU123 experience is, but as a Mom of 3, with 2 out if the 3 in the B range, I guarantee you will have many options if you loosen your prestige requirement.
Plenty of schools out of the top 20 have intellectual peers. Many also permit application to Honors College within the University after a semester if you were not accepted directly into Honors College.
Many SUNY schools will take you. LACs such as Ursinus College in PA will reward your test scores with merit in the range of 35k/yr.
Go over to the Parent forum and look at the schools B students have gotten into.