<p>Hey everyone, I made this thread b/c I wanted to share a story. And also, I want your stories as well (maybe others will care, too). So the topic is: Why you couldn't go to the university you wanted, what stopped you from reaching your dreams, and how you will change it. </p>
<p>So, I'll start. I used to be a video game addict. I averaged 4-5 hour per weekday and 10-11 hours on weekends on "maplestory." I went through high school knowing one thing: holidays, c'mon! get here faster so i can play video games. Although I completed my homework and did okay on tests, I never bothered to care what I studied. It was a wax on, wax off kind of thing. I just wanted it done. I went through the first two years of high school not knowing what the SAT was for, even though I've been told. The end of my junior year was what had hit me, which I then realized I need to sign up for the SAT. I went and took it and got a horrible score. I was mad that summer, so i decided to study. But that summer I was playing this new FPS game called "Combat Arms," so my studying went bye-bye. So then I had to cram in for December SAT and that didn't go very well. I planned to go to UCr next fall, but I knew I couldn't get a C in calc, so I canceled the SIR. And that was the end of my high school career. As a change, I would like to be a good student in college and get good grades. Study hard so I don't regret.</p>
<p>Share your obstacles!</p>
<p>P.s If I made any grammatical errors above, please excuse me b/c I'm on a rush to sleep. Thanks for understanding.</p>
<p>I was an underachiever in high school. I never even got to precalculus because i got a D in Algebra 2/Trig. I graduated with a 3.3 weighted GPA but i managed into UC Santa Barbara because i got a 33 on the ACT. Somehow, without taking precalculus or knowing what logarithms were, i placed into freshman calculus. I ended up withdrawing from UCSB after my freshman year and went to a CCC so that i could transfer. Now, 3 years later since walking out clueless from my first freshmen calculus lecture, I’m going to be a senior Applied Math/Economics double major at UC Berkeley and am on track to graduate with departmental honors from the math department as long as i earn a 3.7 in graduate level math coursework.</p>
<p>I worked really hard in high school got great grades and was crazy involved. When admissions came out i was rejected by UCLA UCSD UCB Stanford and USC. UC merced accepted me without me even applying and even offered me a full scholarship but i rejected it and went to community college because I wanted to go to UCB (my dream school) sprinkle in some death, major medical problem for my parents, emotional instability due to massive amounts of stress, major medical problems for me, chronic hiccups that still havent been cured, and a side of involvement in the Puente program, Student Alliance for Education, Student Government and you get this</p>
<p>out of high school i had a 3.4 GPA, 27 ACT, very little extracurriculars, no personal obstacles anywhere near Nadia’s, so basically had no chance anywhere and hoped i’d get into UCSC. ended up only getting into UCR, and UCM after i appealed to UCSC. they offered me a Shared Experience program, where i could go to UCM and transfer to UCSC after 2 years guaranteed as long as i had a 2.8 GPA. I applied to UCSC and UCI after 1 year at UCM because i hated merced A LOT. so i got into UCSC after 1 year at UCM, but ultimately stayed for one more year to keep my options open. Ended up with a 3.8 GPA after 2 years at UCM, and i am now transferring to UCLA (also got into UCI, UCSC, UCSD, and rejected from Berkeley). i also joined a couple clubs and got an internship last year to boost my application.</p>
<p>I did pretty decent in high school. Would have gotten into some alright schools but nothing too amazing. My drafting teacher throughout my junior and senior year was really pushing engineering or architecture for a career choice. Come my senior year in high school I was taking all AP classes and building my portfolio to apply to arch programs. Basically that is around the same time that my parental units decided that my college education was “not a good investment for them”. As a family who made over half million a year and with about $15 million in private assests (property, show horses blah blah) I was pretty much on my own for college, as far financial aid goes. Moved out the day after I turned 18, got a full time job, went to the JC for a few years longer than I wanted, but completely on my own, changed my major more times than I have fingers and now I am transferring to UCSD (my dream school) without any help for my parents, majoring in something I would have never done without discovering it for myself at those years at my JC.</p>
<p>The JC is my area is really good so its common for people that go to it right after high school and then transfer. But I was a brat in high school and never wanted to be one of those people who went to the JC, but I can honestly say it was the best thing I could have done for myself as far as growing up and maturing but also finding something I loved and having the time to really figure it out.</p>
<p>thank you NoRegret, and i got in as a Psychology major, going to minor in Accounting as well.
and RxQueen, nice job! i’m in the same boat as you in terms of being barred from financial aid</p>
<p>You guys have good turnaround stories from being slackers in hs to doing well in CCC and transferring. But I do loathe SOB stories. Whoo 400 posts.</p>
<p>Nobody in my family or anybody I associated with ever went to college. My mom knew nothing about college and we never had any money for it so it was never talked about. In 8th grade I started skipping school because I didn’t want to go and I was sent to a school for people who couldn’t succeed in a regular setting. I stayed in independent study until my sophomore year when I transferred to a regular high school. Even though they probably had AP classes, I never knew about them and nobody talked to me about them. Basically, I knew nothing about the whole college application process and I thought I couldn’t afford college because I didn’t know about financial aid. Anyway, I graduated with a 3.5 GPA and did not take the SAT, ACT, or apply to any college.</p>
<p>I didn’t really think I was going to go to college but I had to do something so I applied to a CC. I went on and off for 8 years, changing my major several times and taking time off of school to work at low paying jobs. I was depressed during this time and all I did was play World of Warcraft all day (10+ hrs) and go out with some friends occasionally.</p>
<p>However, I maintained a 3.9 GPA in approximately 125 units of work. Several times my mom asked me why I bothered to do so well. Despite the fact that I held out little hope for ever transferring, I always did well in my classes just because I knew I could. Finally this year I applied to several schools and I got into most of the UCs and some privates. I will be attending Berkeley in the Fall as an economics major. </p>
<p>That’s a very simplified version of my story, but I think it gets across the general points.</p>
<p>I slacked off like crazy in junior high, enough so that I failed and had to repeat the 8th grade. I managed to pass my second time around, and moved on to high school. But having lost track of pretty much all my friends when I stayed behind at junior high, I felt like a complete loser (Which was true) and turned to making new friends on World of Warcraft. I missed about 60% of my classes in my freshman year because I wanted to stay home and play WoW. Somehow I managed to BS my way to a second chance at that high school and was allowed back in for my sophomore year. Of course nothing had really changed and again I skipped most of the year so I could play more World of Warcraft. By the end of my sophomore year I had a grand total of 0 credits out of the 230 required to graduate. Well this time I wasn’t so lucky and was sent to an “alternative education” school where you get your credits twice as fast. </p>
<p>It was here, in my junior year, that I started to really learn about college. I researched it and just became enthralled by the whole thing, and especially by UCLA’s campus. Yeah I knew I was pretty much screwed if I wanted to go there straight out of high school, but transferring from a community college? I could definitely do that. So I breezed through the rest of the two years at the alt ed school and graduated “on time” (If you can call it that), with the goal of attending UCLA in just a few years.</p>
<p>I decided to work hard for the first time in my life at my local CC, and guess what? It actually pulled off. I was admitted to UCLA with a 4.0 gpa and will attending this fall as an astrophysics major.</p>
<p>I was a new kid my freshman year of high school (and at a school where everyone pretty much grew up together) so a lack of having a social life made me put a lot of effort into my grades, giving me a 4.0. The next year, I got more active and made new friends (unfortunately for me, ones that enjoy drama) and was a little more lax in my studies, which resulted in a 3.4 and a 3.5 that year. In addition, kids were already looking into studying for the SAT and applying for colleges and being the daughter of immigrants who have no idea how the application system works, I was a bit disadvantaged. I had to learn what the SAT was, finally figured out why the honors kids were so into their extracurriculars (which I naively thought people took for fun!) so I buckled down and applied to our city’s most prestigious high school, which concurrently enrolls you in high school and community college at the same time.</p>
<p>I got in, and immediately went to work on my grades and extracurriculars, although sometimes laziness got to the best of me and I ended up with a 3.7 when I know I could’ve worked harder. After taking a bunch of college courses at my community college, my eyes were opened up to the practicality of community college and the possibility of me graduating earlier than my peers. But long story short, I was a bit embarrassed of my friends telling me CC was inadequate so I applied to a couple schools. Got in, but decided that I would just stay at CC. Now I’ve just graduated high school with 45 transferable units and an AA in Social Science. One more semester and I’ll be set to transfer, which makes my graduation date at 2013, one year before my classmates who went straight to university. :)</p>
<p>I hope to transfer to Pepperdine, USC, UCLA, or UCSB.</p>
<p>My story is pretty simple. I am the definition of upward trend. From a 1.8 my first semester of high school, to a 4.0 this spring at CC, my GPA has gone up each time. Now the trick is maintaining it. I’ll be back in 10 months to let you know how I did ;D</p>
<p>Starting high school I was extremely motivated. My dream school was UCLA and I knew I needed to do well not just academically, but be involved in a lot of extra-curricular activities as well in order to gain admittance. I ran cross country/track, played in the school orchestra, joined the mock trial team, continued my involvement with boy scouts, and was involved with my church’s youth group. I had no free time, and slowly I became fatigued from all these activities I was involved with on top of still having to get good grades. During my junior year, I just could not handle the workload/pressure anymore. Something inside me snapped, I became extremely depressed, fought with my parents everyday, and there came a point when I just gave up in school and life. My grades slipped an entire 1.2 from sophomore to junior year, and I knew that UCLA was no longer attainable. When senior year came, I had no more motivation…I was at the very best cal state bound, and to me that was just unacceptable. I continued to cut class, wouldn’t turn in homework assignments, and on those rare occasions I actually made it to class, I would sleep. I finished high school with an overall GPA of 2.3, and got a pathetic 1650 on my SATs with lackluster effort (I actually took a nap for awhile during the test). I was on attendance and tardy contract for the entire last 2 months of high school, and was an absence or one tardy away from not graduating. I was an absolute wreck during that time when all my friends were celebrating their college acceptances/graduation. Somehow, I made it those 2 months, and got my HS diploma. I went to comm. college after HS, but my confidence was shot. I had nightmares of failing my classes daily (I failed trigonometry twice in high school, and got 2 D’s in AP US and Journalism). My first semester at a comm. college was no different, which resulted in a 1.7 GPA with an F in Stats, and a D in Bio. At that point, I thought my life was over, I really wanted to just die. I retook stats completely fearful I would fail again, but this time it was different…I had an AMAZING teacher who really just showered me with enlightenment. To this day I have never thanked him, which I should really do, but he made such a big difference in my life. From that class on, I slowly shook off my past, and began believing in myself again…I continued to get mostly A’s with a few B’s here and there, and eventually was accepted as a transfer student last fall at UCLA. I just completed my first year and it was an amazing experience…well worth the tribulations I had to go through in order to get here. Words of advice, don’t be ashamed as transfers…I love meeting other transfers because we are real people who have faced extreme hardships to get where we are. Not to bag on the Freshman admits, but most of them are extremely immature and arrogant since people have been kissing their asses all of high school because they were the best and brightest…Transfers have such amazing stories of overcoming all odds…don’t be embarrased, embrace it!</p>