WOW this is such a good post, you have to read it (please)

<p>Hi. This year (sophomore year), i took:</p>

<p>Ap us history: B
Ap gov: B
Bio honors: B
English honors: A
german honors: A
Algebra 2 honors: C (terrible, i know)</p>

<p>first semester was really tough and overwhelming because i had a job, volunteered every weekend, joined a lot of clubs and out of school extra curriculars, took up an instrument (piano), and i had a sick family member, but i improved a lot second semester (however, not enough to get all a's)
I especially struggled in algebra and i am most likely going to take Pre Calc CP next year. What i want to know is how bad will these grades look? Also, how bad will it look if i go down to cp math next year but then take ap ab calculus my senior year? would it be okay since i will still take ap math senior year?
Also, this will be my schedule next year:</p>

<p>Ap art history
Ap lang/comp
AP us history 2 (split up into two yrs at my school)
Pre calc cp
Chem honors
German 4 honors
Philosophy/ Clothing construction (electives)</p>

<p>Is this okay?</p>

<p>Ps: I'm posting this because i want to know how all of this will be viewed by specific schools such as nyu, columbia, ucla, uc berkeley, and boston college
thanks</p>

<p>Well the C obviously doesn’t help, and many colleges prefer at least honors classes. All the schools you listed are very competitive and reject more 4.0-in-all-AP students than they can keep. What’s your overall GPA?</p>

<p>And if you got a C in Algebra, what makes you think you are going to do well in AP Calculus AB? If you get an A in AP Calc, that’ll definitely be good though.</p>

<p>Grades > ECs</p>

<p>What’s your unweighted cumulative GPA?
Assuming your future grades are similar, I don’t really see any of those schools happening. They reject people with straight As rather frequently.</p>

<p>Freshman year i got all a’s and i’m planning on getting all a’s junior and senior year. This year was just really bad because it ttook me awhile to adjust to everything (since it was so much harder than freshman year) but now my study ethic has improved and so have my grades</p>

<p>what a good post</p>

<p>this kid prolly has a medium sized swagsack</p>

<p>Read the title. </p>

<p>Read the post. </p>

<p>I’m disappointed.</p>

<p>To be completely honest with you, if the only reason your grades where so low sophomore year was because of a poor work ethic you are going to have eliminate schools from your list. The truth of the matter is that for schools like Columbia they get tons of applicants with spotless grades who they then go on to reject, so why would they accept you who will probably end up with around a 3.5 and a rather off sophomore year.</p>

<p>P.S. I had the same issue but not as drastically. It happens to many people when their lives get busier or their rigor increases. Just be realistic and know that not every school is going to accept you despite the bump in the road.</p>

<p>I am going to be flat out honest with you. Your freshman grades being all A’s is pretty good, but I don’t know if that is enough to make up for this year. Your sophomore grades aren’t the greatest either. Top colleges frown upon B’s and a C, especially in an Algebra II class, makes them cringe. </p>

<p>It sounds like you have plenty of extracurriculars, but it will be hard to convince a college that your EC’s are an excuse for bad grades. While colleges do like to see them, they also like to see how good you are at balancing them with academics.</p>

<p>I am not sure what CP math is, so I have no ability to comment on that. AP Calculus AB will look good if you can get a good grade and score well on the AP exam. If you struggled in Algebra II, you are going to have to work REALLY hard in calculus.</p>

<p>It is going to be really difficult to get into the colleges you mentioned. People that get straight A’s and have just as many EC’s as you get rejected all the time. In my opinion those schools are all a long shot for you (as well as the majority of everyone else). </p>

<p>Prove me wrong though. Don’t let me tell you that you can’t do it. Give it your best go.</p>

<p>based on my estimations (getting all a’s junior and senior year) my uneweighted is probably going to be around 3.8-3.85 (including electives i got a’s in that i didn’t mention) (not 3.5) and i also had an ill family member and another one who passed away which also added to the stress of this year, so it wasn’t solely due to a poor study ethic
also i plan on getting above 2100 on the sats (i took the psat and got a 196, or 1960)
and idk if this would be viewed as interesting but i taught an ancient language called syriac (very rare) to some kids at a school for the whole year, could this be viewed as interesting by colleges?
also, thanks for the responses</p>

<p>Don’t include senior year in your GPA calculations. College won’t care tht you’ll have a 3.8 by the end if your senior year bthen won’t care what AP score you receive in your senior year, either.</p>

<p>Remember that schools recalculate without electives… The EC sounds decent, but again you must remember the GPA > ECs. You have to remember that academically you had less then a 3.2. The medical excuse is much better, but again you must be realistic about your grades. This is not intended to discourage you, just for you to be realistic.</p>

<p>Also know that junior year is the hardest year in high school (mainly because of all the additional standardized testing and classes that produce so much homework). Pulling a 4.0 is much harder junior year then freshman year (again speaking from personal experience). I had a similar schedule for junior year in regards to rigor (I am a junior right now) with two APs, one DE, two honors and a third that was taken outside of school that was basically honors. It has been much harder to pull similar grades to my freshman ones (3.9 uw), often resulting in nights with two or three hours of sleep.</p>

<p>Hopefully this helps, let me know if I can help with anything else…</p>

<p>Thank you! This was all very helpful! I am going to work my butt off next year, haha</p>