Senior Year Course Load Dilemma

Pre-College Issues High School Life
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<p>Hello, all! I am a rising senior with a bit of a dilemma on my hands. This post is a bit long, and I apologize for that. Thank you to those who read through it and even more so to those who reply.</p>

<p>In the process of applying to colleges, I can’t help but be worried my GPA fails to compare to the schools I plan on applying to. Not only does it not adequately measure up to their standards, but also to my own and to my intelligence level. I will list my GPA and other information shortly, but I would like to give some background info. </p>

<p>I am what you may call a “smart lazy person”, meaning that I am naturally able to grasp difficult concepts and learn them, but I fail to actually try to do so. However, I have the problem of knowing this and I fail to preform to the best of my abilities. This means that I would not pay much attention in class and the word “study” has never been in my vocabulary. This has hurt my learning abilities and GPA to no end and sadly, I came to this realization towards the end of junior year when it was too late in the game to really fix anything. At the end of junior year I began to work my butt off to make good grades and I actually started to study. Something I learned really wasn’t that bad when I knew how rewarding the end product was. I was able to raise my grades from ending with 1 A, 3 B’s, and 2 C’s to ending with 3 A’s and 3 B’s. </p>

<p>Now for the stats:
Current UW GPA: 3.25/4.0
Current W GPA: 4.85/6.0
SAT: 1920 (I also want to raise this)</p>

<p>Classes I will be taking next year:
AP English Lit
AP Stats
AP Calc
AP Gov/AP Macro (Semester classes)
Journalism (Easy, required class for graduation)
Financial Operations (Easy, required class)</p>

<p>I am hoping to be able to get straight A’s next year, even though I know it will be very hard to do so.
Even if I were to get straight A’s, from what I’ve figured, it would not raise my GPA enough. </p>

<p>My question is, should I take Online courses in hopes of getting A’s in those classes (I’m thinking around 3 others?) also to try and raise my GPA, or just focus on the ones I have at school and then also tutor kids in AP U.S. History (in which I got a 5 on the AP test and a 750 on the SAT)?</p>

<p>I am only going to do one or the other and I’m stressing out over which to do. I feel like I’m asking a lot here and I really appreciate any replies to this.</p>

<p>Also, for reference here is a list of some schools I am applying to:
University of Miami
University of Washington - Seattle
University of Puget Sound
Carleton College
Macalester College
Richmond, The American International University in London</p>

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<p>Bump? I’d really appreciate any feedback.</p>

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<p>I really feel what you’re going through; I’ve struggled with a lot of procrastination, slacking, and taking easy courses the last three years and now I’m struggling to get my GPA, scores, ECs, etc. up to college-standards too…</p>

<p>I’ve known people who were able to manage four AP Classes and more ECs than just tutoring. Granted, these were freaks of nature who had discipline and could avoid the call of the Internet when boredom struck (unlike me, right now), so it might be difficult to tutor kids. It really depends on your learning style, your strengths, the teachers, etc.</p>

<p>So I would say if you already feel some sense of panic about your current courseload, stick to the online classes. But if you think that this could be possible, need the tutoring to put on college apps, and keep the tutoring to one or two kids for one or two hours a week, I think you should go for the tutoring…</p>

<p>Good luck to both of us!</p>

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<p>I was thinking of doing my tutoring through NHS at my school? It’s 1 hour a week and it gives me the necessary community service hours and points I need to remain in the club (this is versus doing other projects on weekends and such). Is this nearly enough tuturing or should I do more? </p>

<p>If I were to do it through NHS, I would also be taking online classes. I think I may choose to do this, because it doesn’t seem like that much of a burden at the moment. I’ve already showed how dedicated I am this summer (dual enrollment and a job) and I think I can do it during the school year. I’ll also probably tutor a few friends I know during lunch or the like. Nothing too “serious”, you know?</p>

<p>Thanks so much for your help, I’m sure you’ll be getting into the schools you want to go to! I just peaked at your post and I was shocked because I feel like you’ve got it all and don’t really have to bring your scores up! The best of luck to you, though you probably don’t need it :)</p>