Please "chance" me! Horrible GPA but descent test scores. Yikes...

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Please give this thread a look and offer any insight you can. My grades haven't shown any improvement throughout highschool (my junior year grades were actually the worst). I go to a fairly competitive school, so my class rank is complete crap. However, I took the ACTs and did fairly well with a 31. </p>

<p>For ECs, I was in "Youth and Government" sophomore and junior year, played tennis through our park district through all 3 years (but not from school), I was part of the Principal's Advisory Committee, in which me and about 30 other people in my lunch period would meet with the principal each month and talk about things which need to be dealt with at our school (such as garbage on the floor, school lunches, etc.). I'm also part of a youth committee at a cultural (Indian) association, where I basically just find things for the kids to do or help host children's events (this doesn't have any affiliation with my school). Also, I've been volunteering at a hospital once a week since sophomore year (hopefully I can get 50 hours by the time I send my applications).</p>

<p>I'm looking for colleges in the Midwest, and live in Illinois. The closer the better. I'm probably going to end up going into Computer Engineering, but I'm not 100% sure yet so I'll probably go in undecided or under LAS.</p>

<p>To clear up any confusion, I failed honors pre-calculus during the school year 2nd semester, so I'm taking 2nd semester (regular precalc) over the summer again.The GPA is on a 4.0 scale for regular classes, and on a 5.0 scale for honors/AP classes...</p>

<p>Freshman Year:
Sem 1:
Comp Apps 1: B
Hon Eng 1: D
Spanish 1: C
Hon Geometry: C
Gym: B
Hon Biology: B
Honors World History: C</p>

<p>Sem 2
Notetaking: C
Hon Eng 1: D
Spanish 1: B
Hon Geometry: D
Gym: B
Hon Biology: C-
Honors World History: D</p>

<p>Summer School
Alg 2 trig Semester 1: B
Alg 2 trig Semester 2: C</p>

<p>Freshman Year GPA: 2.63</p>

<p>Sophomore Year:
Sem 1
English II: B
Spanish II: C
Honors Alg II Trig: C
Health: B
Honors Chem: D
American History: C</p>

<p>Sem 2
Eng II: B
Creative Writing: A
Spanish II: B
Honors Alg II Trig: C
Gym: A
Honors Chem: C
American History: B</p>

<p>Summer School
Government: A
Economics: A</p>

<p>Cumalitive GPA after 10th Grade: 2.88</p>

<p>Junior Year:
Sem 1
AP English III: C
Spanish III: C
Honors Pre-calculus: C
Gym: A
AP Chemistry: D
Honors Physics: C
Psychology: B</p>

<p>Sem 2
AP Eng III: D
Gym: A
Honors Pre-Calculus: F
Spanish III: D
AP Chemistry: D
Honors Physics: C
AP Psychology: D</p>

<p>Junior year GPA: 2.00
Cumulative GPA after Junior Year: 2.739</p>

<p>This Summer:
Graphic Arts: A
Pre-calculus: A (probably)</p>

<p>I don't know what my Cumilative GPA will be after these summer classes, but I'll probably end up with a 2.74 as my final GPA when I start applying.</p>

<p>ANY comments, words of advice, criticism, suggestions, and so forth are welcome. THANK YOU!</p>

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<p>Hmm...your GPA is going to prevent you from getting in a lot of colleges. How are your ECs? A 31 on the ACT is an excellent score, and will help you a lot.</p>

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<p>You should apply to IIT. And since you're Indian, and live in Illinois, you should know what I'm talking about.</p>

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<p>Fusiondogg: I added my ECs in the 2nd paragraph.</p>

<p>Shravas: Yeah, i was considering IIT but I'm not sure if I can get in with a 2.7 and such low math grades. Also, I've heard a lot of things about that area being a bit shady.</p>

<p>Thanks guys</p>

5

<p>What is going on here? Every class you are taking is an honors class--yet you keep getting Cs, Ds, and Fs in them. Either work harder or drop down a level and stop taking all honors stuff. I'm guessing you could get As and Bs if you weren't taking 5 AP courses.</p>

<p>Do this, then apply to a university at the end of your senior year. There are many schools where you could get in late in the year if you show significant improvement in your senior year courses.</p>

<p>As it is, you are not going to have many choices with these grades (heck, you are hardly doing well enough to graduate from high school). Yet--as we can see from your summer courses--you can do just fine if you aren't being forced to take a crushing workload. Talk to your counselor and explain your concerns--and stop letting your parents force you to take such an unreasonable, harsh, demanding set of courses all at once.</p>

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<p>Calcruzer: Yeah, you're right, my course load was pretty rough, but the main reason for my poor grades is my procrastination and slacker tendencies. Most of the time I didn't even do my homework... for my math class I think I only did like two assignments the entire semester. Nobody to blame but myself for that :(. </p>

<p>Hmm, applying at the end of senior year sounds like a pretty good idea, so I can present myself with a higher GPA and maybe retake the ACT for a higher score. I think the deadline for a lot of applications is near January, so I suppose at least I could apply after my first semester senior grades come out. </p>

<p>The thing is, I've been getting a lot of people telling me to apply as early as possible to increase my chances, and a lot of colleges say that a factor of theirs when choosing whether to admit you into the college or not is how many "spots" they have left. This is true especially for rolling admissions (I think). Would applying late with my Senior grades still be a good idea with these?</p>

<p>And also, thanks a lot for the advice and honesty. Greatly appreciated.</p>

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<p>Well, your honesty should help you do better. Since you realize the problem is you and not something else, you are on the first step to improvement.</p>

<p>I think in your case you need to apply to schools that have extra spots--thus end of year is better. Also, as I already said, you need to spend a year showing that you won't procrastinate or slack off--and that you can do college work. Then a college is more likely to give you a chance. There are a lot of good schools that usually have open spots all the way up until around June 30th or even August 30th since they get a lot of applications--but the yields aren't so accurate (meaning the % of acceptees that actually choose to or can afford to attend aren't estimated accurately).</p>

<p>For example, this year, great schools like the University of Iowa, Auburn University, University of California at Merced, and even Indiana University at Bloomington all had some open spots very late in the school year. Seniors could have applied to all of these schools up to June 30th this year and still possibly have been accepted. </p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

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<p>Wow, great. I'll probably do that for my borderline schools then like Purdue and IU. Thanks a lot, you're really helpful Calcruzer.</p>

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<p>Anyone else?</p>

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<p>Bump. Come on, people, I'm desperate here!</p>

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<p>although your GPA is a tad low, colleges will recognize that you challenged yourself with a tough schedule. if you work hard senior year, they should recognize your efforts. your ACT score is a definite plus (and shows what youre capable of), and also colleges will see (and like) how active you have been (referring to your ECs). So all of that on top of a good essay and you should have a good enough shot at a bunch of schools. i wish i could give you ideas for which schools to consider, but with being from the northeast i am not very familiar with your area. good luck!</p>

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<p>Thanks a lot, raspberry.</p>

<p>Here are some schools on my list:</p>

<p>Purdue University
University of Illinois at Chicago
Illinois Institute of Technology
Northern Illinois University
Michigan State University
Indiana University
Illinois State</p>

<p>What do you guys think? There are a few lesser-known local type of schools on the list, so you may not know much about of them, but anyone have any comments on any of these?</p>

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<p>I think that you need to look at what you want out of a college and the benefits of them. Chicago is a bit of a reach, but always try you never know. I think if you are trying to go for business or overall good college, Indiana is your best bet. Look into these colleges though they all have great things individually. You may ask me a question any time, just send me a reply or a PM. I can help you some more if you need. Good Luck.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the replies, everyone.</p>

<p>Anyone else?</p>

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<p>That's a great suggested list of yours averagedesi</p>

<p>The only thing is that Indiana will definately be a big reach for you. They are starting to be way more selective and are trying to up their prestige to the more prestigious big ten schools like Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin.</p>

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<p>Thanks funployee. What do you think my chances are at UIC and Purdue? Anything I can do as of now to increase my chances of getting into those? I'm about to leave to visit UIC in about an hour, actually. But yeah, UIC and Purdue are the two main schools that I want to get into.</p>

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<p><a href="http://www.uic.edu/depts/oar/apply/freshman_requirements.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.uic.edu/depts/oar/apply/freshman_requirements.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>you have a good chance to UIC</p>

<p><a href="http://www.purdue.edu/Admissions/Undergrad/purdue_profile/first_year_profile.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.purdue.edu/Admissions/Undergrad/purdue_profile/first_year_profile.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Purdue will be a reach</p>

<p>You'll have better chances of admission at Illinois schools</p>

<p>You could take a summer course(s) at either Purdue or UIC to help show you have interest, or you could apply early to either of those.</p>

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<p>Thanks! Yeah I saw the middle 50% GPAs on their website, but when I visited today (I just got back like 30 minutes ago), they said that their average GPA is a 3.1 unweighted. The 2.74 I have is my weighted GPA, so I'm guessing my unweighted may be much lower =. </p>

<p>I was thinking of applying late to the schools, so that they could see the first semester of my senior year grades. UIC doesn't have rolling admissions so I don't think that'll be a problem (I'm not 100% sure how it works though), but from what I understand Purdue DOES have rolling admissions, so for that I don't really know what to do.</p>

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<p>Apply to the less selective Illinois state schools. Your GPA is horrible and I'm not sure you'll be able to compete at competitive institution due to your grades.</p>

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<p>Look into the University of Arizona dude.</p>

<p>Half of the students they accept there have a GPA of 2.5-2.9</p>

<p>My GPA is as bad as yours 2.8</p>

<p>And I’m from California.</p>

<p>I got about like 6 D’s and 1 F but I made all of those classes up.</p>