<p>I didn’t do any homework 9th/10th grade year. Occasional marijuana use and video games occupied much of my time. At the end of 10th grade I had a 2.8 (failed digitools and art) and was relegated to GenEd English. So far in my Jr. year I have a 4.0. I’m taking the most rigorous schedule available apart from AP Lang (will transfer back to AP 2nd sem. 11th grade/12th grade), self-studying for psych, and prepping for the SAT. Will my mistake forever haunt me, or is immature apathy generally ignored if a student pulls a 180?</p>
<p>It shouldn’t. Schools really look for improvement in prospective applicants as well as a great GPA and ACT/SAT scores. Good EC’s are also considered.</p>
<p>As long as you keep up your GPA and do well on your test(s) you should be fine.</p>
<p>I disagree. It will haunt you at least as far as college admissions go. You’ve already messed up part of your junior year by having to take a lower level English class. Pulling a 4.0 is great, but you will basically have two bad years that have only one good year counterbalancing them. Senior year is at best a partial year.</p>
<p>Sorry for the bad news, but on the plus side, continued good work plus good test scores will give you a decent shot at most formula (rolling admission) schools. (Starting from a 2.8 this year is a good thing. Pull a 4.0 all the way through this year and you’ll start senior year just short of a 3.2) Most kids do well from RA schools, but if you had your eye on any elite schools, you can pretty much discount any chance you had. Too many applicants will have had 3+ successful HS years for you to come anywhere near competing with them. Do well at your state flagship, and you will do just fine and no one will ever look at your 9th and 10th grade grades again.</p>
<p>Formulaic admissions as in a college computing one’s acceptance or rejection? I have my hopes on a small liberal arts college (like Whitman College). On an admission do SAT scores in the 80+ percentile counteract the 9th/10th grade problems, or at least reduce their effect?</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies<3</p>
<p>Formula admissions simply take your GPA and test scores, run them through a formula, and if you exceed a certain result, you’re in. Below, and they have to decide on a case by case basis.</p>
<p>Your idea about exceeding a school’s 75th percentile test score is one that has a chance of working, but the further your GPA is from their norm, the more difficult that is. And sometimes, there’s nothing you can do if you don’t exceed a certain threshold. In the case of Whitman, the Cappex scattergram is not exactly accurate, but taking a look at it, it seems that students under a 3.5 GPA are rarely accepted, so you might need to shift your focus to a school where your idea will work, as there is no mathematical way for you to achieve a 3.5 UW GPA by mid senior year. Not saying you would never get in should you pull a perfect score, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up, Whitman is just too competitive for that.</p>