<p>Wait a sec. It’s a serious dip when you come “very close to failing out this year” The list of courses you note doesn’t tell us anything about rigor or the other factors adcoms look for. We still don’t know what sort of colleges you have in mind. It’s too vague. You didn’t mention depression til 1/2 way through the thread. You also show us nothing that says you “overcame.” I am pretty sure any competitive college isn’t going to see a kid who, by his own admission, had a so-so soph year and nearly flunked out in jr year- but has great recs- as a sure thing.</p>
<p>Something in the ADA act supposedly covers emotional issues. (Not sure how it applies, but an adcom mentioned it.) I believe you can’t be excluded based on depression, per se. BUT, you can be excluded for not meeting a college’s standards. It is not enough to get a 4.0 first semester of sr year. You have described a yo-yo. You need to find colleges that routinely accept whatever your gpa is. (Or will be after 1st semester.)</p>
<p>ps. a better question is: can you get past this and succeed in
college. YES. But, IMO, you will need to pay some serious dues. At this point, you can’t point to a history of tackling your challenges. Sorry. Pay those dues. Set the goals that are right for you and do your best to move forward.</p>
<p>But, what do you want?? I saw you hypothetically mentioned Columbia or Princeton on another thread. Throw out a few reasonables and we can fine tune.</p>
<p>Also, any idea what your comparable gpa would be? And, what sort of input from the GC?</p>
<p>Sorry, I tht the thread was about upswings.</p>
<p>From UMCP’s website: For the Fall of 2011, students admitted…have an average (weighted) GPA of 4.05 and the middle 50% of SAT scores ranged from 1250 to 1400, and between 28-32 on the ACT. As a result 25% of the admitted students scored below a 1250 on the SAT and 25% scored above a 1400. [I believe that is M/CR only.] </p>
<p>Per collegeboard, 96% had a gpa 3.25 and up. </p>
<p>Also per CB, at Oxy, 87% of freshman admits fell into the top 20% of their hs class. Will someone at your hs state you are there? 88% had a gpa of 3.25 and up.</p>
<p>Don’t know if finaid is an issue. Oh, yes, I see this: Home state is NY and my parents can’t afford much at all but we qualify for financial aid at my high school and I imagine I’ll qualify in college but it would help if the college had a lot of money for that.</p>
<p>Faulty assumption. NEVER make assumptions about finaid. Go to finaid.org and learn up. Not kidding. I suspect MD is going to prioritize aid to in-state. Any school will need info about your income and assets to determine need-- and if you choose a school that is not “meet full need” you may be stunned at the paltry aid package and huge loans. Your best bets may be NY schools. Do well for two years and turn yourself into a fabulous transfer candidate. Look at Cornell’s transfer details for kids from certain state colleges or cc’s. I wish you luck.</p>
<p>I don’t know exactly what your GPA is, but you know even 3.9 is not considered high enough for the competitive colleges.
I guess if you get a 4.0 in your senior years, it’s too late.</p>
<p>But don’t lose hope because it also depends on what specific colleges you choose to apply to. Also, you can show another aspect of yourself such as sports, Extracurricular activites, community services. Or you can put your overcoming obstacles in your essay. It would help a bit but I don’t think they will weigh it more than your academic performance.</p>
<p>If I were a college app reader, I would prefer a kid who showed their continuing effort throughout their high school.</p>
<p>I’ll try to throw out a few ideas, but first I’ll need a little more information. Your SAT is 2040, and you’re projecting a 33 on the ACT. Those are pretty good. </p>
<p>What is your GPA overall and by year? I understand that junior year was bad, but unless you tell us what it was there is no way anybody can make an informed recommendation.</p>
<p>Do you have any significant extracurricular activities?</p>
<p>Well, my school doesn’t give us percentages or letter grades. All we get is a page written by each teacher about our performance that year in the class, which is what gets sent out to the colleges (I know- it just makes this more difficult).</p>
<p>My most significant extracurricular is probably having co-founded a non-profit. I don’t hold any leadership positions in any extracurriculars at school but I do have a few and they demonstrate my interests (i.e. i don’t they don’t come off as scattered “activities for the sake of activities”).</p>
<p>Volunteer Work: Volunteering at a local non-profit <a href=“2%20yrs”>not my non-profit </a> ~100 hours</p>
<p>It seems you want to try for the best college you can, under the circumstances. That’s fair. But you can’t tell us any gpa equivalent and we know junior year is a serious problem. We know you want to do better this fall, but not how that will average out.</p>
<p>The issue many adcoms have with “founding a non-profit” is how to measure how legit this activity is- whether it had any impact or even did anything. We don’t have any idea what you did, if it was challenging and if it was successful (in ways that will impress adult adcoms.) Only that you describe this as your “most significant” EC-- and that you put in what amounts to one hour/week for two years. So what do we say?</p>
<p>I wish I could name a school- but we dont have much to go on. We don’t even know your major. Perhaps you will know more after speaking with the GC. And go look at the Cornell transfer program for cc kids.</p>
</a> ~100 hours</p>