Well, here's to not expecting much!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I'm a sophomore at a very competitive public high school in Connecticut. I haven't taken the SATs since eighth grade, but my PSATs were 68 critical reading, 72 math, and a perfect score on the writing. I plan on taking a review course, etc to improve these scores (especially critical reading, I did better on that section in the actual SATs in eighth grade. Embarassing, I know.)</p>

<p>My problem, however, is in my GPA. I've taken the toughest classes available at an already tough school, but that certainly doesn't help the fact that my GPA is currently exactly 3.3 unweighted (first semester this year was 3.4, so my grades are at least ont he upswing, and should improve significantly because my courseload is substantially lighter this semester in terms of homework). It should also be noted that I have some sort of deficit/disorder/something (to be honest I don't have the faintest idea what it's called) that couses me to be excruciatingly slow when doing work (basically from my understanding of it I understand and comprehend things pretty easily, but it takes me a while to reproduce this information. I've spoken with the psychiatrist who tested me and he said it was likely the result of a rather cruel combination of OCD and ADD.) And due to this, for the upcoming semester I have and IEP/504/one of those that allows me extended time on tests and written assignments, which should ease my burden. </p>

<p>The other reason for my low grades? During my freshman year, my mother was diagnosed with lymphoma (which = cancer) and I pretty much spent all of my time caring for her and wound up never finishing all of my homework and getting 2-3 hours of sleep a night (I still did pretty well on tests, but missing assignments and getting ten points off of seemingly everything for lateness didn't help). But now that I no longer have to devote all of my time to caring for an ailing mother, I should be doing a lot better (well, doing better in math is still a challenge, because seemingly every time we do something my teacher goes "well you did this last year so you should be able to get tested on it" and I'm sitting there thinking "are you sure?" And it doesn't help that I tought myself Geometry as an independent study in eighth grade and never actually learned much, so therefore no AP Calc BC for me!).</p>

<p>One big question that I have is whether or not I should include all of this, in whatever form, in applications. I definitely think I should seek out interviews so I can explain and not seem like a sob story, but if someone else disagrees, then I'll reconsider.</p>

<p>So... onto the schools. This is not necessarily every single school I'd consider, but I think it's a good spectrum of schools, some of which I think I'd have a chance at, some of which I'm almost sure I couldn't get in to. (If anyone has a school that they're particularly fond of that they think I could get into, feel free to make a suggestion). So... here we go!</p>

<p>Notre Dame
USC
Connecticut College
UVA
UMiami
UMaryland
UIllinois
Georgia Tech
Penn State
Syracuse
UTexas at Austin
Catholic University of America
Clemson
Virginia Tech</p>

<p>Not necessarily in any order.</p>

<p>Thanks for the help!</p>

2

<p>just curious if you meant UCONN instead of connecticut college? because that would make more sense in terms of the rest of the schools..</p>

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<p>No, I realize it's different from the rest of the research universities that I put on there, but that's sort of why it was included.</p>

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<p>Okay I know I just posted this last night for the first time, but I'm gonna have to bump this back to the first page.</p>

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<p>i think its too hard to tell right now because you're only a sophomore. youre qualifications will change, and you might have new ideas about what you're looking for in a school. if possible, you should tour some campuses and get a feel for what different schools are like. for example, connecticut is a small enough state that you can see small liberal arts schools like conn, trinity, and wesleyan; big publics like uconn; medium private universities like yale (regardless of your stats, just take a look!), take some time this summer and explore!
i wouldnt start worrying about making a college list until your junior year.</p>

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<p>If you're into Connecticut College, you may also want to look into Skidmore College, Bard College, and Hampshire College.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the suggestions. I've actually visited a few schools in Connecticut (and actually around the country, visiting with my brother, a senior) and I've toured/visited friends at all the schools Huskem mentioned sans Wesleyan, and for some reason my school can get kids into Harvard and Yale and Brown that get denied by Wesleyan.</p>

<p>Also, to OniLawliet, I appreciate your suggestions over schools, and I'm pretty certain that unless I go through some big change in the next few years, Bard and Hampshire would be a little... off for me politically. But your post got me thinking and I checked out the college board website and there are a substantial number of schools that I'd be pretty happy at that accept kids with GPAs around mine, and I'm pretty confident that my grades are going up, especially since all the classes I've done poorly in sans math have been unweighted classes where I've gotten lazy and approached them as if I was too smart for them and the work was below me, so I'm thinking that my schedule for next year is pretty well-tailored to helping me succeed.</p>

<p>Once again, I really appreciate the response!</p>

8

<p>bumppp</p>

<p>Thanks in advance.</p>