Hi, my name is Carla and I am a very strong student. I take all Honors classes since I started high school and I will be starting my junior year in the fall. First semester freshman year, I had a 93.82 average on my transcript but second semester I messed up horribly for reasons I can not begin to comprehend with an 83.54 average. But, sophomore year I got my grades back up to a 90.59 average for my first semester. I am currently in my second semester, and I have a 98 average in the moment. I want to know if that one semester will ruin my chances of getting to college, and does it make me look bad? By the way next year I am planning on taking the following classes:
AP Chemistry
AP US History
AP English Literature
Algebra II/Trigonometry Honors
Spanish 5&6
Please help! I want to go to an Ivy League or Rutgers!
I’m going to disregard your last sentence because I feel like you may just want a higher status. One semester, that averages out as a B, is not the end of the world by any means. What are your extracurriculars? Do you have a passion? WHY do you want to go to an Ivy League and what do you even want to do with your life?
I got into a “respectable” school in Pennsylvania - don’t know why it’s so high in status for a private school because it sucks in my opinion and I’m transferring - but I seriously had probably a 2.7 GPA, no extracurriculars, absolutely nothing to show for. Peers of mine who were in the top 15 of my class didn’t get into the colleges that I got into, even with the added extracurriculars, honors they received, and volunteer work. You should’ve seen the look on my face every time someone who worked to their full potential told me that they didn’t get into a school that I was accepted to. Want to know why I got here and they didn’t? Because I have an enormous amount of passion for wanting to help people. My family cried when they read my essays. That’s why I got in instead of the other people in my class.
If you want to get in somewhere, put some passion into it along with your amazing stats, and do everything you can outside of high school possible - but only if it’s because you WANT to do it. Show the universities that you want to attend that you deserve to be there. Not only because you are going to accomplish your dream, but because you are going to attack it with everything you have. Everyone has a weak spot and that’s how I worked it. Do your research on that. May not work with Ivy League schools, but you might as well incorporate it a little.
Best of luck! 