I’m a high school freshman and although the college search process is a year or two away, I just want to see some of my options. I noticed throughout freshman year, so far, my grades are lagging behind many other academically motivated students. During my first term, I got three B+'s. That was a tough pill to swallow, especially for someone who used to get all A’s. Second term, I ended with two B+'s. As for midterms, I received a B and a B-. Note that I’m Asian… so that’s completely behind others. Extracurricular-wise, I don’t win awards; but hopefully that will change throughout the next couple year. Do I have a chance to turn around and apply to selective schools or am I completely done for?
If you get straight A’s for the rest of high school and solid SAT scores, you may still want to apply to Harvard, Yale, etc. If not, you should still apply to the “lower Ivies”, like Cornell. I personally know someone who had mostly B’s that got into Cornell ED, but you need to have a good hook for something like that.
Come on now. You are only a freshman. Just kick it up a notch. You need to start working harder.
Luckily most schools will recognize an upward swing in grades. However keep in mind that the major determinant of whether you get into Ivys will be your ‘story’ instead of your grades/SAT scores.
As a freshman, your fate is not really sealed. Sounds like you need to study more though. You can’t get mostly Bs and EXPECT to be admitted to an Ivy League school. Do note that there are many elite colleges that are not in the Ivy League, so you should also consider those. No matter the case though, if you are targeting elite colleges, you need to bring those grades up.
@BrownHopeful27 @sgopal2 @stepay I know this thread is old, but thanks to all of you for your advice. I took it deeply and stopped worrying so much about the results and focused more on the process. Right now, I have all A’s. It was all in training my mind to accept failure, learn from it, and bounce back higher.
same here (age wise), I get straight As but Canadian highschools’ competitiveness is no where near American high schools. I am also not great at one particular area, I am medicore at everything so it’s kind hard to win impressive awards. (maybe I just haven’t discovered it yet) Any advices or words of encouragment would be great, also, we should totally be friends.