<p>Hi I'm a rising senior, and as I get more involved in the whole application process I have some questions in general.
1. Do I have a downwards trend? I had a B+ in 8th grade in Honors Precalc and then perfect A's in 9th and 10th grade. This year I got a B- in AP Language and Composition. Would this be a downwards trend? If I got an A- in Honors Spanish as well (this is a possibility) would this then make it a downwards trend? My school prints the gpa for each year, and my gpa for this year is likely to be very low, either about 3.81 or 3.76, my overall gpa will be 3.91-3.93 ( depending on Spanish). Do I still have a realistic shot at schools such as MIT or Stanford in either of these scenarios?
2. Can/should I ask my guidance counselor to talk about the following:
a. The teacher I had for AP Language and Composition grades extremely harshly (the other teacher gives 75% of the class A's), there's usually 1 person in her 2 classes each year who gets an A, my friend whose work she uses as examples gets A-'s. She said great work would usually receive an 85, and that students used to A's should expect a grade in the B range. My counselor is very new as well (joined this year), so she likely does not know about this. I was suggested to ask her to mention that this class is graded in such a rigorous manner and it does not reflect upon my general skills in English or my work ethic etc. Should I follow on this? How should I go about doing this.
b. I think guidance counselors check off a box for max course rigor; our school offers more AP's than it's possible to take, but I've taken every possible AP course and more math and science courses than students have in years (4 years ahead of grade level in math, first time in 4 years that someone has been more than 2 years above grade level and more science AP's than any student in years, will finish all of them next year). Can I ask her to express that I really went beyond what even the maximum course rigor is?
3. Which schools don't consider freshman grades and for which do you have to apply to a specific school/major within the university on my list (note i'm cutting some schools of this list especially the "Reaches")?
MIT(don't believe you have to apply to any schools here)
Stanford
Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Columbia(Engineering and Arts and Sciences as the 2 schools?)
Brown
Upenn
Caltech
Carnegie Mellon (know you have to apply to specific schools here)
Berkeley (same as above)
University of Rochester
SUNY Binghampton and Stonybrook
UPitt (know you have to apply to specific schools here)
4. To prove that i'm not incompetent at English, should I take the SAT Literature in October? I'm waiting on SAT scores, but am confident I got above 2300 and don't have to retake.
5. I'm also wondering how long one spends on average for each college application as I'm busy (working full-time at a lab) this summer so I need to budget my time for each application.
Thanks</p>
<p>1) A trend is a pattern. It seems you only dropped your grade in one or two classes so I wouldn’t see it as a downwards trend. There isn’t a significant change. </p>
<p>2) it would definitely be helpful to ask your counselor to bring those both up. Your skill of writing could be expressed through other means, such as AP/SAT scores or your essay. </p>
<p>3) I’m not sure about the 9th grade grades consideration, but I do know at UPenn you have to apply to a specific school. If you can’t find the information on their websites, shoot an admissions counselor an email. </p>
<p>4) Wait till you find results back from your SAT, then decide. You may want to use your subject tests to highlight your strength in another area, or you may need a specific one when applying to a certain college. </p>
<p>5) I can’t tell you a number on how long I’ve spent working on my application, but the best advice I could give you is to always keep working on it throughout summer and fall. You gain new perspectives when you spend months in advance preparing for them. </p>
<p>During my senior summer I finalized my brag sheet, decided which teachers I would ask recommendations from for each college, and I began brainstorming the college prompts. Go over the prompts over summer from time to time and you’ll get random ideas throughout the day. I’ve had “epiphanies” in the shower, while driving, waiting for my parents, swimming at the beach, etc. </p>
<p>I also did some prep for any final tests I needed to take. </p>
<p>Hopefully this helps! </p>
<p>Thanks a lot. I’ve already taken 6 subject tests, wasn’t planning on taking more, but I might be inclined to take literature now.
And I did get an A- in Spanish, so I’m worried that this is a downwards trend, my gpa is 3.76 for this year and 3.92 overall.</p>
<p>OMG please don’t take any more subject tests! You don’t want to appear to be a test taking drone. Please stop any more will only hurt how people perceive you. Plus if get 2300, that means you’ll minimum 700 on the Verbal — hardly poor.</p>
<p>Yeah that’s my concern. But it might already be too late, 5 800s and a 770</p>
<p>Should I not send in all the scores?</p>
<p>Each place that requires SAT II scores makes it very clear how many scores it needs. Send that many. You really don’t need to send more than that.</p>
<p>@happymomof1 I think our school automatically sends in scores for us and it includes all the scores (not AP’s I think) we have unless we request them not to and use score choice which is more expensive and not even accepted by all schools. I don’t think it’s worth it to score choice here, but I’m not sure.</p>
<p>You need to find out whether or not the places that you apply to will accept the scores from your HS, or if they will require that they come from ETS. If they accept them from the school, well don’t worry about it. They will get all of the scores. If they require that the scores come from ETS, that will be the time to worry about score choice.</p>
<p>I’m guessing they accept them from our school unless the school/my counselor is misleading me. They said you have to tell the registrar whether you want the school to send your scores or not and that it’s an all or nothing process and your alternative is score choice. In fact, I saw my subject test scores on naviance if I recall correctly.</p>
<p>Also my counselor (gently) refused on both the point I made, but I suppose it was worth a try. How serious of an issue would it be outside the top 10% of my class? It’s a fairly competitive public school (1-3kids to hypsm, ~10 to Cornell, ~3-5 to other top 15ish schools out of 300), but nothing extraordinary. Our “ranking” is based purely on unweighted gpa, and not to make excuses that greatly disadvantages me as I’ve probably taken the most rigorous schedule in years. (It’s not an exact ranking, our school sends a profile
Of the class which gives gpa distribution and the gpa of the top 10%). I regret taking ap language and composition.</p>
<p>First of all. Breathe. Enjoy your coming senior year. No more subject tests - it is overkill. And if you get a 2300 on the SAT like you think, do NOT take it again.
Question #1 - anomaly not a downward trend.
Question #2 - I was going to say “yes and yes” but it sounds like your guidance counselor isn’t interested.
Question #3 - I don’t know, you will have to research each
Question #4 - No, the Subject Test in Lit has little to do with AP Engl & Comp. How you do on the SAT in critical reading and in writing will tell how much you really learned in APE.
Question #5 - once you finish the Common App (if you are using that) – my daughter found that it took her 3-4 hours per application to write the supplemental essays, edit them, rewrite, edit, etc. What worked well for her was to finish her Common App by end of the summer, and then do one school a week beginning in September (some schools don’t release supp essays until end of August). She started with the schools she wanted to turn in first. One school at a time. Of course, one per week didn’t really pan out because there is always something … but she finished 8 apps by the first week of December when she learned she was accepted to her ED and she didn’t have to finish the remaining apps.</p>
<p>@Momof2back2back
Thanks.
I got a 2360 SAT (780CR, 800M, 780W (9/12essay) on fortunately my only try so I’m done with standardized tests. My weakness is in writing not analysis at any rate anyways.
Thanks for the optimism on my grades, I’m still a bit worried but nothing I can do now.
I know the common app requires the most time, so I’ll try to get that done in the next month and a half (can always revise if I get different ideas) and then I’ll move onto supplementals. 4hrs/school doesn’t sound bad.</p>
<p>I believe rigor trumps rank at most schools.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your replies.
I have just 1 question left. I’m not too sure on whether to take ap literature or not (got 5 on Lang comp 
). The alternative would be 2 1-semester electives in English (presumably at an honors level, still fairly rigorous). I’d really rather not take ap literature, but I will if it would really hurt my chances at highly selective colleges not to have it.</p>
<p>Bump?</p>
<p>I will take the AP Literature unless you get the same teacher.</p>
<p>Regarding SAT subjects, I believe there are only 3 spots to enter the scores on the apps. So just pick 3 that you like. For some schools, score choices are not allowed. So you will get college board to send them all anyway. Who knows maybe it can even help you. After all, universities are academic institutions first. You just have very little disclosed precedences to base on. And I wouldn’t be surprised that quite some applicants for top schools take 3-4 subjects. Maybe for lesser schools, use score choice to avoid the perception that you are over qualified.</p>
<p>@pastwise
My school sends out all the scores unless I tell them not to (I have to send each one). I’ll see if this is for all the schools, or if I can pick school by school (still expensive and hard to keep track off). Most of my “safety” or match schools are state schools (upitt, SUNY binghampton and Stonybrook, Berkeley), so presumably they won’t care about overqualified applicants? What about university of Rochester; does it
Exhibit tufts syndrome?
The AP literature teacher is different, and although the class is still rigorous, I think knowing I have a chance at a good grade will motivate me and I can probably scrape at least A-'s. Thanks for your help</p>
<p>Here’s my take on AP Lit. Many of the tippy-top schools upon which many of us on CC are fixated, give credit for Lit or Lang, but not both. I’m not a big fan of taking AP classes for which I will not get credit. If the alternative to AP Lit is a generic Senior English class, take AP Lit. If the alternatives are interesting electives (e.g. creative writing, 20th c. drama, detectives in fiction), consider those provided the GC will check the “most rigorous” box on the Secondary School Report.</p>
<p>I would imagine OP takes AP for college application, college credit is probably secondary concern.</p>
<p>Regarding Tufts syndrome, pretty much every private college has that. The nicer ones will put you on waitlist. If you run out of other choices and petition, you may get in. The less nicer ones will reject out right. I’m not familiar with Rochester to comment.</p>
<p>Regarding public schools, someone with better knowledge probably can comment. But I would imagine Berkeley probably has enough self assurance that it wouldn’t care too much. Besides you will be paying OOS anyway. However, I think there are so called impacted majors at Berkeley, and EECS or maybe even engineering in general may not be open to OOS. It’s best to verify whether that’s the case or not so that you don’t get surprised.</p>