<p>I messed up my junior year pretty badly (almost failed out). But I am blessed to go to a school with "NO GRADES". Plus side is that many schools (even high ranking institutions) won't look at all 4 years of reports, which are a page for each class detailing our work that term (most only look at 1st semester senior). </p>
<p>However these will be my stats around application time.</p>
<p>SAT score: ~2040
SAT2s: Literature and Latin (TBD)
AP: U.S. History (3) and Aeneid (4)
ECs: 4 years of chorus, Co-founded a non-profit, Plays piano and sings in a band for 1 year, 3 years of Ceramics, 2 years on the school newspaper, as well as a bunch of activities that I only participated in for a year or so which I won't list here.</p>
<p>What are the best schools I could apply to with stats like this?</p>
<p>Please help especially if you're experienced with schools w/o grades.</p>
<p>Each teacher writes about a page discussing your performance in their class during that semester and that’s what gets sent to the colleges (rather than a letter grade or percentage- consequently no gpa or class rank).</p>
<p>Whatever your grading format, the fact that “you almost failed out” precludes any chance at selective colleges (e.g. Ivies). To be a viable candidate, you minimally need to be one of the best scholars at your school. And this is only to be in the ball park – still facing 80-90+ rejection rates. If you’re less than the handful of the best students, you absolutely will be wasting your money. </p>
<p>Like someone else said, your HS guidance counselors will know what schools that others with your similar academic achievements applied to and were accepted into. Your SAT says that you still should be able to achieve well at college. Best of luck to you.</p>
<p>Every single college will look at your Junior year grades. Frankly, it’s the most important year under consideration b/c that’s the year that the truly outstanding students shine in terms of taking honors & AP classes.</p>
<p>Most colleges don’t look at junior grades for my school according to my college counselors. Some do but a lot of good ones don’t (ex: Stanford and Barnard do check them, the ivies don’t)</p>
<p>Wow. If that’s the quality of your counselors (who are flat out, 100% wrong), then you better expand your advice-seeking network. Hopefully you’ve just mis-understood them.</p>
<p>There are some schools who will look past freshman grades. Not a single college from Ivy league to community college, looks past Junior year grades.</p>
<p>Than I guess it’s good I don’t HAVE grades. If you read the entry you know it’s a special case. Few colleges want to read through four years of reports when they have thousands of applicants to look through. They DO ask for all four years of PERCENTAGE OR LETTER GRADES- but not individualized reports.</p>
<p>But they’re not gonna just admit someone because “oh, they don’t have letter grades? Let’s just forget about what they did in the classroom and admit them based on ECs and test scores.” Face it, they’re going to look at your reports/recs/whatever they are. If you almost failed out of Junior year, you’re probably not going to get into an Ivy or close to an Ivy. Be realistic.</p>
<p>Awesome, kids from your school have went to good colleges. They were probably good students, too. That means nothing as far as your situation goes.</p>
<p>OP: you’ve been given advice to seek those close to home: your guidance counselors who know your academics. that’s your best source. Otherwise you’ll just get a smattering of random school names here and there from this board. </p>
<p>As for banking on schools that will discount your Junior year grades, I challenge you to find a single example. If you’re bannking on your hazy reporting system, then don’t. The “good” schools that previous grads have gotten into is despite the haziness of your grading system, teachers were able to praise them highly in ways that gave confidence to the decision makers. Since you barely squeaked by last year, it’s safe to assume your reports will be at the opposite spectrum than the Brown, Princeton and Yale accepetees, right? I can guarantee you their applications were thoroughly read. </p>
<p>Please please speak to your guidance counselors. They should have the most vested interest in meeting all your needs. Good luck to you</p>
<p>I absolutely will but I can’t until summer break ends and I’m trying to get a sense of it early, that’s all.</p>
<p>That’s fair, T26E4. But if I do okay this year and pick teachers from Freshman, Sophmore, or Senior year for recommendations? My resume won’t be perfect but surely I can get into an okay school, if not an Ivy.</p>
<p>I don’t think our reporting system is “hazy”- we offer as many of the reports as the schools want to see and in a way you learn more about a student from a comprehensive report than a percentage. But enough about that.</p>