My college 'Pipe Dream'

Chance Me / Match Me!
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<p>I'm not going to lie, this is probably going to be a lengthy post. So if you're interested in a TL;DR version... Just scroll to the bottom to get a gist of my post. Nonetheless, let me give you some background information about myself. I'm a 17-year old GED holder and to be honest, I had an abysmal high school career. My cumulative GPA was a 1.9, and without getting into explicit detail, I was going through a pretty rough time throughout high school in my personal life which ultimately lead to my eventual decision to leave school this past October and earn my GED instead of going to a continuation school to earn my degree. Personally I feel like your high school degree (or equivalent) really doesn't mean anything once you earn your Associates, Bachelors, Masters..Etc. Despite having poor grades, I retained a lot of the information that I learned which showed on my CST's (California State Testing for those who live outside of the state) I usually scored proficient or higher in all of the subjects except for math which was never my strongest subject. And a lot of my teachers (current and past) were disappointed once I told them that I was getting my GED, the most common response I got were along the lines of, "You showed extreme potential, but you let your adversities get in the way of your education." Which is true, most of the teachers I had were mad at me because I would answer everything correctly in class, and would score extremely high on their tests, just I never turned in any work. Looking back, I wish I would've actually turned in my work because I feel like I probably would of had a 3.5+ GPA throughout high school versus the 1.9 I left with.</p>

<p>So, that's a condensed version of my HS career. Currently I plan on going to a community college to not only earn my Associates, but to also put my HS career to shame now that I'm in a better place mentally, and emotionally. Of course, my top three schools are essentially a 'Pipe Dream' to get into because of how BAD I did in HS, and they're pretty difficult to get into anyways. I want to attend MIT, Stanford, or UC Berkeley. Those are the three schools that I always wanted to get into since Middle School. MIT is my first choice. I would really love to get into that school, but to be honest I think it would take a miracle for me to get into. I don't think it's impossible...But, I also know it's not going to be a cakewalk. I just want honest advice about what should I do throughout community college to try and rectify the F-ups I made throughout HS because I REALLY want to go to MIT, but I won't lose sleep if I got into my other two choices.</p>

<p>TL;DR I had a pretty horrible HS career, my cumulative GPA was a 1.7, I earned my GED in lieu of going to continuation school. I'm going to community college to earn my associates, and I also want to attend MIT. Seeing how I did REALLY bad in HS, I want to know how can I increase my chances of getting into MIT.</p>

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<p>Berkeley is going to require you 3.7+ in CC and some extracurriculars related to your chosen field. Same goes for MIT and Stanford.</p>

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<p>I’m sorry to tell you this, but no matter how smart and motivated you are, unless you’ve demonstrated that intelligence and motivation through grades, test scores, and extracurriculars, highly selective colleges won’t accept you. Colleges like the ones you’re aspiring to are only understanding of low GPAs if you’ve experienced significant hardships which made it incredibly difficult for you to succeed, (for example, if you’ve suffered from a life-threatening illness, lived in a war-torn country, held a full-time job through high school, or lived in extreme poverty), and unfortunately, they aren’t at all forgiving of anything besides those kinds of hardships.
It sounds as if you have a lot of motivation and intelligence, and your situation is really unfortunate- having a bad record is a hard thing to escape. I think that you could get into a great college after a few years of a really good community college record, but unfortunately, these colleges are just way out of reach for you, at least right now. These are the hardest colleges to get into in the country, and reject hundreds of applicants with perfect scores every year, and I urge you to talk to a college counselor to find some colleges more within your reach.
To have a real chance of getting into any of those schools, you would have to pull a total academic 180, and get a GPA of between 3.7 and 4.0 (and, really, anything below 3.8 gives you much worse chances), get between a 2100 and 2400 on the SAT, and engage in a ton of extracurriculars- and even then, it would be a total bargain. Sorry, the admissions process for these schools are completely insane.</p>