Hi everyone,
I am a high school senior in a rather tough situation that has me panicked.
I’ve gotten a mix of A’s and B’s throughout high school, in a progression that started with a mix of A’s and B’s freshman year, and included a junior year with straight A’s. As I got older and more mature, I realized how much grades mattered in terms of getting into college, so I worked harder and harder. I also have ECs that, in my opinion, are 10x more impressive than any grades that I may or may not have earned.
I applied to my top-choice school ED (single-digit acceptance rate), was deferred, and then denied first-year admission. I am going to a different school next year, but I still love my first-choice school so much and want to apply to transfer there.
This all sounds great. BUT the problem is… this year has been the hardest year of my life outside of school for SO many reasons that any normal human or admissions officer would understand (no need to get into details here). As a result, my grades have suffered and I am performing at the same level I was freshman year, even though I know I could be doing better if my homelife circumstances were better (I still do my best, but there has been a lot of trauma, etc that has impacted my ability to stay reasonably healthy and focused on school).
I am still getting A’s in honors classes related to my study interest/major, but I have B’s (and maybe a C!) in classes that aren’t related to the major I intend to study. I am so worried about this, and I feel like my senior year has destroyed the clear upward trend that I worked to build. If they had just accepted me ED, this wouldn’t have been a problem!
I plan to knock it out of the park freshman year of college with straight A’s and unbelievable ECs. Any other advice? I hope I can explain–and my college can understand–my rough senior year.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much.
The likelihood that a school that didn’t admit you as a freshman, will accept you as a transfer is very very slim.
My advice is to love the school that loves you back and knock it out of the park there. Starting with the intention of transferring makes it hard to get involved and engaged.
College is going to be harder than HS. A high gpa is going to take hard work and focus.
If you are set on transferring down the road, waiting for a junior year transfer will make your HS gpa less relevant.
Congrats on your acceptance in hand!
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You have a choice to make here, and it’s going to sound worse than it is but it could save you a lot of heartache over the next few years if you stop and consider it honestly. Here goes: You need to mourn the loss of Dream School, roll around in the pain of your rejection, feel it in your bones, and then you need to stand up, dust yourself off and move on to Real School.
If you do not do this your college experience will be like having a conversation with a person who is constantly and obviously looking past you to see who just entered the room. It’s annoying, not fruitful, and vaguely insulting. You’re not going to make friends that way and you won’t get the grades you’re expecting because you won’t be invested in your current situation. And honestly if your high school grades weren’t tip-top and now you go off the a school you’re not rooted in with fewer friends than before how do you expect to weather the stress from your home life at a distance and still raise your academic game?
The better, healthier, stronger way is to embrace the new school and the new people fully and without reservation. You’ll be amazed at how many interesting and lively people are out there if you just engage who is in front of you. You’ll find that they might have expected to be somewhere else as well, that some are smarter than you, that others will support you when your home life churns up again, and that what you loved about Dream School might not be so important once you get into college life. Cool architecture isn’t as important as smaller class sizes or TAs that speak clear English. There are only 12 football games in the fall and that leaves a lot of boring weekends to fill. You might find that you enjoy staying on campus and never do go into the big city that looked so cosmopolitan in the brochure.
Search the site and read any of the mountain of “I got rejected but being at Other U was the best thing that ever happened to me” tales. This place is rotten with them, and the reason is that it’s quite true for many people. Give your school, your Real School, a chance to sweep you off your feet. Invest yourself and reap the rewards. Good luck!
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This is exactly right IMHO.
There are a lot of very good universities in the US. High school students will often care about a small difference in ranking, where that different is not going to matter either when looking for a job after graduation or when applying to graduate programs. Once you get your bachelor’s degree no one will care anymore about what you did in high school. Some will care about how you did as an undergraduate student, including grades, internships, research opportunities that you took advantage of, and references.
I agree with this also. However, at least in my experience most of the “harder” was in my major or closely related fields. This is exactly where many of us are most able to deal with “harder”.
What university do you expect to be attending in September?
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OP- you’ve gotten great advice.
The point of college is not to engage in “unbelievable” EC’s…the point is to get involved with things you care about, or things that relax you, or things that work a different part of your brain than your classes and your homework.
Don’t start college trying to impress anyone else- take the classes that interest you, volunteer for the organizations that interest you, find a hobby or two that bring you joy. Don’t start on the treadmill you are just now exiting by focusing on a transfer application!
There is nothing about my EC’s in college that are “unbelievable”, but every job interview for the first two jobs after college asked about them. They didn’t need to be impressive- just a way to engage with the interviewer on something other than “Gee, you translated Greek texts into English, what’s that like?”
Good luck to you- you will likely LOVE college and you can put your ED college in the rear view mirror now that you’ve committed somewhere else!!!
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