MESSED UP on first two years of high school

I am a rising junior and I MESSED UP the first two years of high school. I was accepted into a special program that allowed me to take AP Biology, Honors Geometry and Honors Algebra II (at the same time), all at a different high school. However, this backfired on me as coming from middle school getting As required no work at all. I got a D on AP Bio and a C- on both honors math subjects. My grades weren’t too hot in my other courses from freshman year either as I got a C+ in Honors Comp. Sci and C+ in Honors English.

Sophomore year really didn’t go smoothly either as I came back to my home high school thinking that no work would really be needed. Instead, I realized at the end of this year that my work ethic and self-discipline suck I received a C- in honors precalc, a C in honors chem, a C in honors English, and a C in Spanish. The only things I really have going for me this year is I am on the varsity XC and varsity track team and that I am treasurer of Model UN.

However through all of that my confidence was still somewhat present as I truly believed I would succeed in my AP subjects(Calc BC, Physics I, APUSH, Micro/Macro) next year as I would do everything I can to prepare for them over the summer. But after calculating my GPA and reading a couple cc forums on the similar cases to mine I am absolutely crushed to find out there is a slim that I even get into my safety school of Rutgers. (WAS looking at NYU (Stern), Penn State, Villanova, Syracuse, UMD, BU, WSU) Does anyone have any suggestions for improving my chances of any of these schools even looking through my portfolio before throwing it out?

btw I am currently taking a SAT class and studying for a Chem SAT subject test to try and boost my chances a little.

Don’t rely on the opinions of other teens to determine your chances.

Go to collegenavigator.gov Take a look at the 25th and 75th percentile SAT scores and GPAs of the kids they’ve admitted.

@bjkmom thank you for the website, although I am unable to find the GPA of those admitted. Would u mind telling me where to find this information?

You should focus on what you can do now, and you should be determined to do better next year.

Hopefully you have learned by now that you have to WORK to do well in school. You are already past the point where you can just coast into the room and wow people based on smart thinking alone. School is just going to get more difficult past this point. Signing up for an AP class is a huge mistake if you are not going to work hard in the AP class.

I think that by far the most important thing that you can do in terms of improving your chances for university is to work very hard in your classes and pull your grades up very considerably. ECs are not going to help you much. ECs are how Harvard and Stanford decide between long lists of students all of whom have only A’s and A+'s. You need to get your grades up.

Your C- in precalc is quite worrisome. Math is an area where what you learn now is strongly based on what you learned last year, and what you learn next year is based on what you learn now. A C- suggests that you really are NOT ready for calculus. AP calculus is going to be very hard for you. I would STRONGLY urge you to take some sort of math catch-up/preparation classes over the summer.

You also appear to be behind in Spanish. If you are taking Spanish again next year, then you should also study Spanish over the summer. At a minimum you should watch Spanish TV or movies or video to try to catch up, and should try to see if there is a Spanish person in your neighborhood whom you can talk to in Spanish to practice.

Taking SAT preparation is a good idea. To some extent very strong SAT scores and a strong Junior year can help to partly make up for a bad freshman and sophomore years, but these are going to require a lot of work. You should start now and do not wait for September.

@DadTwoGirls Thank you for the great advice. I do plan on revisiting precalc this summer as well as going over some prep book for BC/AB (not decided yet). Also, I will start working hard in all my classes as this year I have an interest in a lot of my classes (APUSH, Micro/Macro, and Physics). However, I don’t think my GPA will rise considerably even with all my hard work which is why I plan on keeping my ECs and working toward a close to perfect SAT score.

“I do plan on revisiting precalc this summer as well as going over some prep book for BC/AB”

Great. This should help a lot.

“However, I don’t think my GPA will rise considerably even with all my hard work …”

A strong Junior year and a strong upward trend plus a good SAT score will make the point that you are capable of doing university level work. At this point this won’t be enough for Harvard or Stanford or equivalent (for undergrad), but should be enough for a very good (perhaps top 200) university. You can do very well at a “top 200” or even “top 500” university, which will in turn open up many options down the road.

I do know people who started off as a total goof-off in high school, went to “pretty good” (top 500) universities, did super well, and then either transferred to a “top 30 in the world” university or did graduate work at a “top 30” university. In most cases they ended up doing very well with their lives (eg, one ended up as a tenured professor at a university that he could not possibly have gotten into straight out of high school). Good luck with this.