<p>Ok, so about two months ago I heard back from my number one choice dream college when they asked me for my first quarter grades. I'm sending them in about a week at the latest. But before you lecture me for not writing back right away I can explain. My school went on strike for six weeks right after they asked for my grades. I've typed up a letter explaining this of course but I still haven't gotten my report card and the secretary at my school said that the grades aren't coming in until December 21st. Today is the 15th. My brother attends this college (iup) and he's coming home for Christmas around the 21st and doesn't go back until late January (which I assume means that the admissions office will be on break too). Even though eventually they might get my grades I feel like something is just going to not work out correctly or they'll think that I'm only writing back after 4 months, plus the anticipation is almost too much to bear because I applied to five different schools (all state schools) with everything, 2 letters of reccomendation, a personal essay, my transcript with a 2.8 gpa (not stellar I know), both SAT & ACT scores (1010 on the SAT(took it thrice my junior year), and a 23 or 24 on the ACT). I volunteer for habitat for humanity and at a haunted house, I'm a boy scout, I've worked two jobs since I turned 16, overall I feel like I have a pretty good shot. But I haven't heard back from ANYWHERE other than iup, and it's been over 2 almost 3 months now. The colleges I applied to said they'd notify me 2 weeks after I apply. I can understand there's delays but come on already.</p>
<p>Also, IUP is one of only two schools that has a deaf education major in the state of Pennsylvania and going out of state is not an option for me (too expensive). I've been on top of the whole college thing since I started taking SAT courses my junior year. If I end up at community after all this I'm gonna throw a fit.</p>
<p>The other thing that is getting me worried is this first quarter grade thing. My grades are A's & B's but they're all slacker classes! And my core classes (trig, honors environmental, and British literature) I have two C's and one B (the B is in trig) I mean sociology or psychology has some substance to them but imaginative fiction, film as lit, democratic leadership, they're such obvious blow-off electives. I feel like they're gonna look at my senior grades and think I'm blowing it off but I've actually been trying really hard in Brit lit but I still only have a 72. My 1st quarter GPA should come out to about 3.1 or 3.2, but that's with the help of all these electives. IUP's website says that the 'average student' has a 3.2 gpa when accepted and an SAT score of 1000, which I guess I meet, but it's borderline especially considering my cumulitave is 2.8.</p>
<p>Also I have a really common name, and I heard that colleges sometimes look up your facebook. I don't have one, but this guy who's about my age does and he has the same exact name as me and his location is Pittsburgh (I live right outside pittsburgh!) - and to top it off there's pictures of alcohol on this guy's page (I don't even drink! Gah!) There's also one of him graduating some airforce academy and there's George Washington quotes on his page so hopefully they'll glance at my application and see that I'm not in the military and that it's not me. God this is a mess.</p>
<p>This whole thing has been a nightmare; can someone please offer me some advice on this? If it hadn't been for the stupid teacher's union deciding that they wanted lower healthcare costs I could be sitting here totally relaxed, not even thinking about college. Now I might have to drive myself mad going over tiny little details until February. Gah!</p>