PLEASE i need help- can i get into howard+other colleges?bad grades.coupleD's & F's

Parents Forum
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<p>I hate to be the one to tell you, but with your states, as a parent, I would not wish you to set yourself up for disappointment, because even as an URM, those Ds and Fs are like neon lights to adcoms for all the schools on your list. </p>

<p>Unfortunately, you need to take an honest look within and review your school record from the point of view of an adcom. You probably may need to research schools using terms such as “second chance,” or “B- & C student.” I know what we’re saying may hurt, but it’s the truth. As an URM parent, I would not purposely undermine your aspiration to attend college, but your only option may be attending MCC or St.Paul College, then transfer to a 4-year institution after 2 years. </p>

<p>If you were my child, I’d have you look at schools with acceptance rates of 65%-95%, and where your stats equal or exceed the top 75% or higher of matriculated students. And yes, these schools may be tier 8, 9, or 10, but you have to be honest by looking at look at your stats, as they determine the type of college you’ll be able to attend. Then look at which schools that offer merit aid for top students. After creating a list of at least 20 schools, the next task would be locating financial safety schools that we are affordable without tons of merit or scholarship aid.</p>

<p>Look at the following websites: College Results, Inside Colleges, College p#r#o#w#L#e#r.</p>

<p>Ranked colleges look at all 4 years of high school and expect to see an upswing in grades, or a solid GPA year-to-year. Bbased on your first post, your grades dipped every other year, including the Ds and Fs. </p>

<p>Lower your expectations and wants, work hard the next year and through out college, and I look forward to hearing that you matriculated to William-Mitchell Law School in about 5 years.</p>

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<p>EXCUSE ME??! I KNOW that i WILL work my ass off in college (and even starting now is HS i just made a couple of bad choices plus i had a very high gpa freshman year with no bad grades at all) and i know that (inshallah) i will get into the Law school of my choice…i wont subject myself to lowering my expectations my entire life (maybe a little now for college…but that doesnt count :P)</p>

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<p>@eastafrobeauty </p>

<p>I hate to be rude, but you’re treating many of the parents posting on this forum with great disrespect. You have laid out your stats and asked for help, and these parents are doing their best to offer suggestions and guidance to make your journey down this path of college admissions a bit easier. The parents on CC have been life savers for myself among many other students, and it is upsetting when you shoot down suggestions, attack people trying to offer valid advice, and don’t treat each post with courtesy. </p>

<p>No one can predict what becomes of your future. It’s all up to you. Best of luck.</p>

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<p>eastafrobeauty,</p>

<p>I read the entire thread and the other thread you posted on on the college admissions forum. I can talk to you as a GC (who has worked with a lot of low income URM students), I can talk to you as a URM parent, I can talk to you as person whose kid is fresh off the law school admissions cycle (GPA and LSAT). </p>

<p>The net-net is this:</p>

<p>You are going where your grades and money take you. </p>

<p>Run your numbers through the financial aid calculator. You can use the college board using the federal methodology of the FAFSA4caster ( [FAFSA4caster</a> - Federal Student Aid](<a href=“http://www.fafsa4caster.ed.gov/F4CApp/index/index.jsf]FAFSA4caster”>http://www.fafsa4caster.ed.gov/F4CApp/index/index.jsf) ). This will give you an idea as to how much your mom’s EFC (expected family contribution) will be.</p>

<p>Sit down and have a realistic talk with your mom about how much she is going to borrow and pay for your education. If she says she can only pay “X” amount of dollars do not think that the money fairy is coming to your house to make up the difference.</p>

<p>While you like Howard and may be your dream school, school at the end of the day it is not about getting in to Howard, it is about paying for Howard. With your stats should you get into Howard, you are going to be freight payers minus any federal aid that you are eligible to receive. If your mom makes 60k, you are not pell eligible so you will receive stafford loans. Please don’t say I am going to borrow the money (the CC student fave), because in this econony, who is going to loan you 100k?</p>

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<p>Highly unlikely at Howard. I know a number of students who got accepted with merit money, had a bit too much fun lost the scholarship (a good friend of my daughter’s as a matter of fact) and the money was not replaced.</p>

<p>You really need to take a bottoms up approach and make sure that you apply to schools, where you can be admitted and will be financially feasible options for your family. Yes, this means that you will have to apply to schools in minnesota (who by the way has a top 25 law school) and schools where there are reciprocity agreements with your state; Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota and the Canadian province of Manitoba and the Midwest Student Exchange Program which includes Kansas, Nebraska, Indiana and Missouri. The MSEP allows students in certain programs at participating institutions to pay 150% of instate tuition (thanks wisemom). </p>

<p>Unless her mom is amenable to paying full freight at SUNY I woudl remove them from her list because the OOS cost of attendance is $27,150. Where is the money coming from. While OOS for CUNY is considerably less expensive, unless she has friends, relatives in NYC that she can live with for 4 years, it is not a realistic option. In addition her current stats do not make her a viable candidate for many of the SUNYs with the exception of the community colleges where the cost of attendance is $19,110. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.suny.edu/student/downloads/Pdf/2010_Admissions_qf_stateop.pdf[/url]”>http://www.suny.edu/student/downloads/Pdf/2010_Admissions_qf_stateop.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.suny.edu/student/downloads/Pdf/2010_Admissions_qf_cc.pdf[/url]”>http://www.suny.edu/student/downloads/Pdf/2010_Admissions_qf_cc.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Towson University</p>

<p>While you may get accepted, is with the cost of attendance being ~ $31,830 (oos, living on campus) or ~21,360 (if you can live with relatives and commute, it is a financially feasible option for your family. Remember you are going to get very little in terms of financial aid.</p>

<p>You should definitely check out some of the HBCUs because the cost of attendance will be cheaper.</p>

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<p>Cast a wide net of schools, including some of the the HBCUs where the cost of attendance may be less expensive. There is no shame in going to school in your own back yard even if it means going to community college in order to put some distance between you and high school. It will help you to demonstrate that you can do college work, it will be less expensive and hopefully it put you in a better position to attend the college of your choice.</p>

<p>good luck to you in your search.</p>

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<p>Also, make on account on collegeboard.com, enter your stats, and use the “am I on track” and “how do I stack up” features. Can you share your SAT subscores? If they are highest in reading and math, those we pretty good. I think they are pretty good anyway!</p>

<p>And if you end up at Howard, I’d lose the “ewwww”… (smile).</p>

<p>You already know I went to Howard for undergrad and med school. My sister went to Howard undergrad and Georgetown law.</p>

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<p>I will echo what several other parents have offered here in that your attitude needs an adjustment. You need to take a realistic look at where you are, where you want to be, and how you are going to get there…without the ‘ewww’s’ and ‘EXCUSE ME’s’ and backtracking when someone points out your rudeness with ‘I really looovvee all your help!!!’.
The good news is you know where you want to go. Excellent! Now, where are you? Be honest, those grades will matter and your obvious lack of concern and arrogance will show in your essays which will be a killer. Take a good look at what the weak links are.<br>
Now, how are you going to get there? I believe you were given great advise in talking to you guidance office about retaking at least one of the classes that you failed this summer. Yes, cutting into your social time, however how serious are you about correcting your transcript? Colleges will find your effort very respectable. Often you can take classes online during the school year. You could take one more class that you have done poorly in during the fall semester online if you feel you can handle the extra load. Colleges will see you are very serious about doing well, what they call an upward trend. Replacing those F’s with B’s will go a long way to bump your GPA.
Have you taken the time to do some community service? That can be done this summer. Most colleges are taking a ‘holistic’ approach in their admissions process.
Considering schools: I don’t know if anyone mentioned NCState and you shot that down. It may be an option. ODU would be an option. Radford in Roanoke VA is not an top level school but some students start there and transfer to VATech which is quite close. This is not your ‘dream’ but you would not start at a community college (something you are opposed to) and move on to a very good school. You would be close by in your first two years and could be there on weekends to go to football games, etc. if that interests you. Longwood is in VA also, and some students who do very well their first two years (3.5) do transfer to UVa which is also not far. All of these are OOS so I don’t know what financial aid package you might receive. Did you dismiss Alabama? That would be doable admissions if your grades continue upward and your SAT’s are good. They are recruiting heavily OOS so you may receive scholarship funds there to equal instate tuition depending on your academics and test scores.
Take a breath. Work on doing your best right now. You can control what is happening right now. That will determine how broad your options will be 4-5 years from now. However, you have a job to do and that’s focus on making your admissions package the best it can be and finding a realistic school that is the right fit for you. I have the utmost faith the with the attitude down a notch you will succeed beautifully!! Best of luck. Please let us know how things progress! :)</p>

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<p>Sorry!! i have a little bit of an attitude sometimes (im actually very polite and NEVER disrespect my elders…) im sooo sorry i was just getting a little defensive.</p>

<p>I would also like to add TempleU to my list…</p>

<p>Ive also talked to my counselor about going to a CC…so i can prove that i can handle college work and then transferring out later to my state U or elsewhere but he suggested that i should still apply to colleges just so that i have options</p>

<p>and again i REALLY, reaaly appreciate the help. I get 0 help at home and not very much at school so…Thank you thank you thank you :)</p>

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<p>but again, if i go to a CC im afraid i wont be able to make as many friends + have the social life i’d like…plus i dont think my parents would be cool with me staying at home for another 2 years…would it even be feasible for me 2 go to a CC in say…VA??! or at least a lower tiered school where i can stay + the credits will transfer? </p>

<p>but i think of i go to normandale CC (which is the closest) i might be able to make friends …LOL (sorry to go off topic). - CC to me seems like High School Part II just go there and come home and your day is over-- but definitely an option i will consider towards the end.</p>

<p>and actuallyyyyyyy i never shot down any schools out on the east…only the ones in the midwest. sorry :p</p>

<p>im also going to start working 10-20 hrs a week if that’ll help</p>

<p>i am going to start making up the classes i lost credit in this week :slight_smile: and i’ll think about summer + online classes :)</p>

<p>@ Shrinkrap: my math subscore was the highest. (ironically)</p>

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<p>Community college, like anything else in life, is what you make of it.
But you can’t have it all. If your goal in life is truly to get to a top law school and make something of yourself and turn around your life – and more power to you if it is! – then that means that your social life is going to have to take a backseat. That doesn’t mean you can’t have friends, but it means that your activities with your friends will be more low-key. Maybe you all sit and study together and then go out for pizza or ice cream afterwards. </p>

<p>Think long and hard about the steps it will take and the hard work it will take. Don’t just dream without having a plan to achieve your dream. Leverage the wisdom on here – please do not be dismissive of adults who have been around, and who have some accumulated wisdom from our time here on earth. Be humble. Good luck to you.</p>

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<p>Also, may I make a suggestion? “Practice” writing, even on the internet, the way you will want to be writing when you communicate with colleges, employers, etc. </p>

<p>Proper grammar and spelling … not being dismissive or childlike in responses … </p>

<p>Make it so it’s an automatic habit and it will serve you well.</p>

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<p>^Thank you for the suggestions. And, I will try my best to turn over a new leaf. :)</p>

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<p>I just read throught this whole thread. While I am new here I must say- either this person is a “■■■■■” or you need a serious attitude adjustment. </p>

<p>I’m telling you just like I would my own 17 yr old. Even though you keep saying sorry, please forgive me - Your attitude really stinks.</p>

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<p>^ I’m sorry! I promise i’m not a ‘■■■■■’. I wouldn’t waste my time on here if i was one.
IRL i’m not like this at all. I’m not rude person.</p>

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<p>east; good luck in making up your lower graded classes, great step. I happen to be in the same income bracket as your mom and sole contributor to my daughter’s education. She ended HS in the top 5% and got into a great school that offers to meet all your financial need. They also did away with loans to avoid the after college debt. The college has a monthly payment plan that can be adjusted as you need. My EFC is around 6k, that is towards the fixed costs like tuition and housing, you still need extra money for books, travel and personal items (that can be accomplished by careful spending). WS is allowing my D to also contribute. COA is over 45k but I don’t think we spent more than 10k a year from our contribution. Fastweb.com has a great site for finding colleges and scholarships also, try it. When you look for a school, things like a monthly plan, not included in the requirement information in their sites, should be researched. Things that would help make college more affordable. I was very scared I could not afford the college, even with the generous grant, but it has worked out better than expected. Small women’s colleges CAN offer a great alternative and social life is not nonexistent.</p>

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<p>^Thank you :slight_smile:

I would also agree…ive met the admissions counselor at a college far from Mt holyoke and she sent me a postcard once…so maybe i should also apply there. I could also look into simmons in boston.</p>

<p>At this point, I will try my best to end HS on a good note. I’ll let things fall into place when the time comes to apply for colleges. I’ll keep you guys updated/posted in the meantime (:</p>

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<p>east: start outlining all the travels, cultural influences and situations encountered in the countries you lived before. Colleges look at the admissions essay as your best selling item, sometimes tipping the admission scales in your favor. Not only goals, aspirations and accomplishments need to be in the essay, but how the world has influenced and changed you. In the year my D was admitted, DIVERSITY was a big theme and I think it still is. My d focused on how that theme was incorporated in her life through things like her music library, which included music in 9 languages. You need to sell yourself well. In the acceptance letter from Wellesley, they mentioned how the incoming class included a NASA intern, an animal trainer and another unusual activity I can’t remember. THey look at that essay as the deciding factor sometimes, work on it, get an English teacher to help by proofreading. Work on the academics and that essay. In the search for colleges, the sites ask for your preferences and wants and give you a list that you can work with. But you need to research the guides mentioned above and google things like “best colleges for your money”, it might mention little known/off the beaten path schools. MCLA in MA was one of those schools and very affordable. Fastweb.com provided some results, but we looked at the literature sent by the different schools, after the PSAT, boxes of it, and really study their offers, the way they calculate aid, and the financial aid. It is not just COA v. aid because COA can include fixed costs and variable costs as well, not everyone does it the same way. Aid is not all based on EFC in some colleges, it is not the bottom line in many of them. Research on your own, we can not possibly provide all applicable information.
gl</p>

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<p>I have one last question–</p>

<p>Since Howard is my first choice and somewhat of a reach school…would it be best for me to apply EA (deadline nov 1) or regular decision (deadline feb 15)?</p>

<p>-If i were to apply EA would it give me an edge? Or should I just wait to apply Regular decision to help boost my application?</p>

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<p>Applying EA is not going to give you an real advantage because most of the EA pool is going to consist of students with high gps/sats who are looking to snag merit $$.</p>

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<p>sybbie, We were advised to not have our son apply early action interms of merit money. Applying early lets the school know that they are your first choice and that take some of the incentive away for them to try to to “lure” you.</p>

<p>We are only one family but it worked out for us. My son was offered very generous merit aid at his top two choices by applying regular decision. It’s just something to consider. </p>

<p>eastafrobeauty, Since you are so interested in law school, please gather all the information you can about cost concerning undergrad. There are tools on line that show you exactly how much you will have to pay per month based on the debt you graduate with and they can be eye opening. </p>

<p>My son will be attending a college where we will only have to pay for room, board, books and personal expenses. This will allow him to graduate debt free which in turn will give him far more freedom when it comes to either accepting his first post-college job or choosing a graduate program. </p>

<p>College is a wonderful time in life but more than that is a tool to get you to where you want to be for the rest of your life. I wish you the very best of luck.</p>