Selective Colleges Acceptance with a Low GPA?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Cornell University
1

Hello All,
Like the title says, I am curious about my personal chances to getting into any selective colleges with my low GPA. I am currently a Freshman, going into my Sophomore year. I attend a competitive high school with over 1000 kids in my graduating class. I know it is a little early to be thinking about college but I really need someone’s perspective on my situation. I had during freshman year, I attained some bad grades, I don’t want to make any excuses for my academic performance, but I would just like to note that some tragedies had happened this year; my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer and my grandmother had passed away. As a result I couldn’t do as well as I could academically and attained the following grades:

Semester 1: (Unweighted)
Global Honors - 98
English Honors - 90
Living Environment Honors - 98
Spanish 2 - 88
Geometry - 85
Computer Science - 88
Junior Reserved Officer’s Training Corps - 95
Average: 92%

Semester 2: (Unweighted)
Global Honors - 98
English Honors - 91
Living Environment Honors - 98
Spanish 2 - 87
Geometry - 70
Computer Science - 89
Junior Reserved Officer’s Training Corps - 93
Average: 89%

Next year I will be taking 3 Honors classes, 1 AP, and 3 regular classes due to the classes having no honors (my school only allows 1 AP for sophomores). I will be taking English 10 Honors, Chemistry Honors, Advanced Algebra and Trigonometry Honors, Spanish 3, Virtual Enterprise, AP World, and the Junior Reserve Officer’s Training Corps. My dream schools are ones that are associated with business or finance such as:

  • Northwestern University
  • Cornell
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • New York University
  • Haas School of Business, Berkeley
  • University of Chicago

I really hope that my low GPA does not automatically knock off my chances at attending my dream schools. However, I do want to know if I don’t stand a chance so I won’t waste my time chasing an unattainable dream.

Some additional information: I’m Asian, male, from New York, and would like to ultimately be a Financial Manager. I go to the largest public school in my city with over 5,000 students, ranked #90 in NYC. So as you can see, there is a lot of competition in my school.

Thank you in advance for any advice given to me, and please feel candid about anything and everything!

2

It is way too early to think about specific colleges (especially the hyper-competitive ones). You just have one full year’s GPA and you have no standardized testing. And as of right now your academics do not seem to be up to the level necessary for the schools on your list.

You need to recognize that HS should be an experience in and of itself – a time of learning and growth and not just a 4 year college application prep experience.

It is good to take school seriously and know that college will be on your horizon, but it is too early to start planning for specific colleges. I would highly recommend that you get off of CC until your junior year.

For the next year you should focus on:
–Working hard, learning, and doing as well as you can in the most challenging curriculum you can manage.
–When the time comes study for standardized tests.
–Continue your involvement in activities you care about and work towards making meaningful contributions to those activities.
–Enjoying spending time with your family and friends.

When the time comes (junior year) honestly asses your academic stats (including GPA, standardized tests, course rigor) as well as your financial needs and apply to a wide range of reach, match, and safety schools that appear affordable (you will have to run a net price calculator for each school you consider) and that you would be excited to attend. You should expand your horizons and recognize that there are many wonderful schools out there where you can have a great 4 year experience and get where you want to go in life.

3

Haas Business school at UCB does not accept Freshman level applicants. You apply as a current student at UCB during Sophomore year or as a Transfer with 60 semester/90 quarter units. Also if you are OOS, UCB offers little to no financial aid to OOS students so you are looking at paying $65K/year to attend.

As stated above by @happy1, it is way too early to be looking at specific colleges. The California UC’s will not use your Freshman grades for their GPA calculation, only 10-11th so there is no way to tell if you are on track at this point. You have been given some great advice in the above post so continue working hard and enjoy HS.

4

Keep building a good foundation in math – you may have to take some sort of calculus in college.

5

Thank you for your excellent responses.