<p>My sophomore year was not as good as I think it could have been. Freshman year I took entirely honors courses and had a 3.9 the first semester and a 3.4 the second semester. I worked extremely hard the first semester which I think led to a bit of burnout the second term. This burnout became completely apparent sophomore year (at a prep school), when I took only one honors class and still only had a 3.3 GPA overall. I feel that I essentially took the year off, a move which I sincerely regret now that I'm looking back on it. I'm looking for advice regarding my next move. I feel that I'm ready to work hard again as I now know just what I'm striving for. I'm fairly certain that I will repeat a year I'm just not sure when. I was thinking that I could return home and do my sophomore year over again with a course load more suited for me (full honors again). I would however, like to return to a prep school for my junior and senior year. I was also thinking that I could just take my Junior year back home in the IB program (for which I have already qualified) and then repeat Junior year at a prep school. At the moment I'm feeling a little helpless and I'm not sure what I should do to fix this situation. I appreciate any and all advice, thanks in advance!</p>
<p>if you left prep school,
wouldnt you have to reapply or something?
i think it would be best to repeat your sophomore year because thats the one you’re not happy with,
and colleges are going to see those low grades,
so if you repeated that year,
you could make it up instead of working hard your junior year,
and then taking that year again when your grades were already decent.</p>
<p>will you burn out again after a while? junior year is tough so having two years of that might be really hard to keep up. Also 3.3 isn’t that bad esp if you went to a rigorous prep school. I guess personally I don’t see the point in repeating since I feel four years in high school is enough and I feel colleges probably have more resources for your education so why not just go to college? If what you’re “striving for” is admission into an ivy, then i have no idea.</p>
<p>After reading your replies I feel that sophomore year would be the year to repeat. While I’m not striving for an ivy, I’d like to go to Northwestern University and I will need better grades to gain acceptance. I’m going to try and become involved in finance, a field were positions are very competitive and I think that I should repeat a year so that my sophomore year will be better from a colleges perspective.</p>
<p>A 3.3 at a well-respected prep (along with stron EC’s, recs, etc.) should be enough to get you into most top LAC’s. Depending on your public, that GPA will carry more weight than the 3.9 and the all honors from your public.</p>
<p>I think I agree with all responses so far, although “subjective” things like this b/c in the end it’s the colleges’ “non-textbook” decisions that you can’t predict. Nothing can be promised, but I agree that slightly lower grades at a prep school can be “equivalent” to higher grades at “typical” schools, and college AdComs are aware of this.
However, colleges would notice such a <em>personal</em> drop in grades. The drop <em>may</em> seem like a steep drop to colleges, but again they know that grading at prep schools can be different. I would definitely, though, try your best in senior year. From my POV, redoing a HS year (if you take it after the first time you took it of course) may not be a bad thing per se, if you can convince colleges on apps that you did it for a good reason that was beneficial and helped you in your learning process. If you do repeat, <em>make sure</em> you’re prepared to explain the repeat well on apps - talk to a GC for tip on this! However, this would set you back a year, and although it could help in various ways, I’m not sure it’d be worth it (again talk to a nice GC). If you think you can put in a good effort for junior yr as you say, that could very well be enough to get into a school you want. Regarding finances, see if you can take an accounting or related class junior yr as an elective. If you’re mostly thinking about repeating a yr for your own “personal” benefit of taking more classes, that’s a different story, and depending on your dept/degree in college, there can be time for electives to learn in other subjects.</p>