Worried about Grades

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>UW, my GPA is ~3.76</p>

<p>I am a sophomore.</p>

<p>Freshman year my GPA was ~3.7 as I was adjusting to the 1.5-hour-one-way-daily-commute, sophomore year my GPA was ~3.83.</p>

<p>Generally the long commute in/out I think has been somewhat limiting on my performance, though I've been overcoming that.</p>

<p>I"m anticipating all A's this (junior) year.</p>

<p>Weighted, my GPA is ~4.65 (all of our courses sans gym are weighted, and I received an A+ in our chemistry course).</p>

<p>I go to a private magnet school that generally has a pretty good rep for sending kids to really good schools (a la MIT/Princeton/Yale/Stanford, above-ish-average students go to UofC, Harvard we occasionally send people but those are our main big schools).</p>

<p>I'm Deputy captain of two of our science team events, have a history of commitment to the science team (including quite a few wins in scioly/WYSE, and this year I was on the first team from our science department that qualified for a national competition), participate in math team, and am really passionate about biology.</p>

<p>Going into it this year, I'm planning on doing USABO, which I just barely didn't make it past open for last year (though that was with a weak chemistry background, something I don't have this year).</p>

<p>I can count on good recommendations from my science and history teachers, both of which are classes I've demonstrated excellence and leadership in (one science teacher noted that I'm one of the most impressive science students they've ever had).</p>

<p>Additionally I've done ~40 hours of volunteering by helping out a local store whose proceeds go towards the local children's hospital.</p>

<p>Our school offers a program where we will be able to work on a research project through one of the labs on the University of Chicago campus, and this has fairly regularly produced intel semifinalist (and this past year a finalist) material.</p>

<p>I"ve had A-s in math both years.</p>

<p>My question is, does my GPA really significantly hurt my odds at the ivy leagues (particularly MIT)?</p>

<p>If so, what could I possibly do to compensate?</p>

<p>Just to further elaborate, this is a school where kids in the ~60-70th percentile range get into University of Chicago.</p>

<p>And Biology has been my main focus/area of interest.</p>

<p>To further elaborate, I've been taking the most rigorous courses that are available to me.</p>

<p>Additionally I'm fairly strong at testing (looking at ~2300+ in PSAT/SAT scores), so looking at being a National Merit Semifinalist.</p>

2

<p>You’re fine. There’s a good chance you won’t get into MIT but that’s because MIT is a reach for everyone, not because of your GPA. I was deferred and then rejected from MIT, as was the only other kid at my school who applied. We both had 2340 SAT, we both far exceeded the requirements for National AP Scholar, we both took all the hardest courses, we both had pretty good (nothing crazy, no international awards or competitions or anything like that) ECs, volunteer work, etc. His GPA was a 4.0 and mine was a 3.5 (2.85 fresh, 3.6 soph, 3.85 junior, later got 4.0 senior). It turned out the same for the two of us.</p>

<p>We also both got into CMU. Idk where else he applied, but I also got into JHU with a 3.5, so it didn’t kill me. We both ended up at our public state university in honors programs and with scholarships.</p>