<p>Hey guys,
I'm a junior right now in high school and have been doing quite poorly in my classes. For all of freshman and sophomore year, I had almost all A+'s and A's and one B in AP Calc AB sophomore year. This year, I loaded myself up with APs but really struggled. I got a C+ in both AP Macro and AP Chem. My grades have never been this poor and I am working to improve my AP Chem grade. Macro is a lost hope since it is only offered as a semester class in my school. As of now, my unweighted GPA is a 3.900 and my weighted GPA is a 4.7882 out of 5. At this point, my class rank also stands to be 24 out of 554 people. I've pretty much lost all hope for the Ivy League or any top 25 schools. Is there any hope? My top choice is Dartmouth but I don't see how that is possible at this point. Also, are any of you familiar with people who have gotten into these top schools with such poor grades? Is the myth that non-top ten people can get into these schools actually true? Thanks so much for your help :)</p>
<p>Yes, non-top ten people can get into these schools, especially if they come from competitive high schools where a lot of students get accepted to top universities. If you get 5s on the macro and chem tests colleges will assume that your school is rigorous and will be slightly more forgiving. And because they practice holistic evaluation, one or two grades will likely have a very insignificant impact. Also, what’s done is done so the best thing to do at this point is focus on this semester’s grades and the first half of your senior year, as those grades will be the most recent, and therefore most useful, demonstration of your academic abilities.</p>
<p>Ok thanks for the help! I’ve been freaking out since this kind of thing never happens. This just lifted a huge weight off my shoulders :)</p>