Well the title is quite self explanatory. I slacked off in Grades 9 and 10 (im in grade 10 second semester right now), especially in subjects I didn’t care about. Granted I achieve a 97+ average (which I am definetely capable of) in my junior and senior years, do I still have a shot at reviving my chances for admission into schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, and Stanford? Im thinking of self studying for some AP Exams (school doesnt offer any) in hopes of demonstrating my academic potential. I know admissions to schools of this calibre boils down to much more than just grades, my concern is that my rubbish Gr 9 and 10 marks may disqualify me from the first round of screening. Thank you for your time and all advice is appreciated.
Previous Grades:
Grade 9 English - 90
Grade 9 Math - 94
Grade 9 Science - 96
Grade 9 Gym - 92
Grade 9 Geography - 82 (highest mark in the class, ridicoulously hard marker)
Grade 9 French - 83
Grade 9 Business - 83
Grade 10 Math - 87 (got zero sleep day of exam, course mark was 95 before)
Grade 10 Business - 85
Grade 11 Computer Science(took in Gr10)- 94
Grade 10 History - 96
Current marks in second semester Gr10:
Grade 10 English - 87 (only getting better)
Grade 10 Science - 95
Grade 10 French - 95
Civics/Careers - 85 (used class to socialize)
Frankly, at this point your chances to do undergrad at “Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, and Stanford” looks somewhat bleak to me.
However, if you pull up your grades from now on it can definitely help you down the road. For example, top grades for the rest of high school from now on, combined with your existing sort of okay grades up to now, should be able to get you into a pretty good university for undergrad. This combined with high grades while you are an undergrad might for example depending upon your major either start a strong career, or get you into any of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, or Stanford or a different very strong school for graduate school.
HYPSM are dubious. Those are just not the grades of the exceptional student they’re looking for.
(Note that they look at course rigor and unweighted GPA.)
There are 3,700 colleges in the US. As a sophomore, you’ve only heard of a handful and latched on to them. There are probably 200 colleges that’d be reaches for you, too, but they may become matches if you up your rigor and results.
Go to the library, borrow a book called Princeton Review’s best colleges, and read through all colleges where the GPA is in the 3.4-3.7 range. Write down a list of the colleges you liked (as many as you wish but at least 20 + 2 instate public universities) and run the NPC for each of them. Then go see your parents and see what they can afford from income and savings - cross out all colleges out of budget.
Create a special college email (collegeteen458…) and provide it on all ‘request information forms’ for these colleges. Don’t forget to click on the stuff they send you.
I heard that they only use grades to determine of you’re able to pass in 4 years and handle their rigourous workload. Won’t getting 5s on a few AP exams and getting 97+ in Junior and Senior year prove to them that I’m capable academically speaking? Especially since 90% of my Bs were in ‘joke’ courses (and the geography mark is the highest in my grade, I heard they only compare you with people in your school so I think I can get a pass on that one).
Here’s the deal, you can be fully academically qualified and not get in. In fact, it’s far more likely that you will not get in, even if fully qualified. The schools you are considering receive 10 times or more the number of fully qualified applicants than they have spaces for. So, pick one, but don’t get your hopes up, even with a 4.0 from here on, or for that matter of you were a 4.0 before. Develop a list of more likely candidates. Finally, realize that the “i need to go to a top school to be successful” is a myth created largely by the ranking systems started in the 80s. Your success will be driven by what you do, not where you go. Good luck!
I know that admissions to these schools is holistic. I was just asking if those few Bs would disqualify me from them even looking at my ECs and Essay in the first place. I do know that success depends on the person and not the school, but I’m not looking for financial success in choosing my college, I want to be absorbed in the atmosphere, go the debates, join secret societies, get enlightened, etc. Thank you for the kind words though.
This can be found at about 100 schools though. The fact you’re international throws a huge wrench into the process.
Now the question becomes : what’s your budget - except at five colleges which pretty much expect straight As.
You’re right that you have a very good shot at UBC, McGill, and UT since only 11-12 results will be taken into account.
As for your odds at top 25 universities, consider them to be 2% because that’s the rough odds for all internationals at the universities you listed.
Please review #2.