<p>I am an extremely motivated student at a very competitive high school, but I have had some things happen to me, and made some mistakes, and came through frosh-junior year with a 3.21 GPA. I know I am much better than that. I am confident that I can get near a 4.0 this year, but I know that won't be enough in all likelihood to get me into a lot of the top schools. I have good scores, but I found out about a PG (post-graduate) year, and it really intrigued me. Would it be a good idea for me to do it, improve my transcript (I believe I can bet my GPA up significantly), and apply to colleges after that? I have heard there are some potential drawbacks to this, so I wanted to get some opinions. Thanks!</p>
<p>It depends what you would be doing your post-grad year and what funds you have for that. Are you thinking about applying to a PG program like at Phillips Exeter where you would receive grades? Or are you thinking about traveling and taking online courses? </p>
<p>Realize that you would have to begin applying to schools fairly early into your post-grad experience. Also, if you apply regular decision, colleges will see your first semester senior year grades and that may help very much, especially if there is a significant upward trend.</p>
<p>I was planning on applying full time to a boarding school for a year, such as Phillips Exeter. I just wanted some opinions to see if it would be worth it or actually help at all. I think I would be able to build my resume pretty significantly outside of the classroom as well.</p>
<p>GPA is important point, but is not only one. Your EC may make up the drawback.</p>
<p>Ok, yeah I think I have pretty good ECs and test scores, but if I want to get into a place such as ND, which is my dream school, I’m scared my GPA may just simply be too low, even if I do really well this fall semester.</p>
<p>Bump???</p>
<p>People who do a program like Phillips Exeter do find benefit in it, and it might work to your advantage in terms of getting into certain schools, and giving you more time to prove yourself academically. In other words, if your dream is to go to a certain college, this might work. </p>
<p>On the other hand, it’s quite costly, and frankly, why is that your dream? You go 4 years and then you need to find a new dream anyway. Why not find a new dream now. I wouldn’t have wanted to stay in HS when all of my peers were moving on to college. I would simply do the best you can in the college admissions process. But that’s me. If you’ve got the money to pay for Phillips Exeter, you have the money to pay for a good liberal arts college that will take you.</p>