I had been living with my grandmother for my entire life, but she was diagnosed with cancer when I was 8 and in the summer of 8th grade, she got really sick. She wasn’t able to do much so during the first 3 months of freshman year so I was taking care of her until January when she passed away, so my grades had been pretty mediocre and I was taking all regular classes. So then my sister and I had to go live with my parents. We were both extremely depressed since the woman who raised us had passed away so we both did pretty bad that year and I got 5 B’s and only 2 A’s in all regular classes. Then sophmore year came and by then I was starting to feel better, so I took all honors because I thought this year I could fix last year’s crappy grades. But unfortunately for me, in December, my parents had a very messy divorce, so I was moving back and forth from my mom’s house to my dad’s house which affected my grades which had begun to improve, so I ended the year with 4 B’s and 3 A’s in all honors classes. This year is my junior year and now that everything had settled down, I took 4 honors and 3 AP classes, for the first quarter, I got straight A’s and one A-, and now I’m doing SAT prep for the SAT that I’m taking on January 21. On my first practice SAT, I got a 1300 and I’m predicted to get at least a 1400-1500 on the SAT. So. My question is with a GPA of 3.3, can I get into a top university like Cornell or Yale?
I would think that if you had good ECs, good scores, and good essays (perhaps explaining your situation) then it is certainly possible. Though it is hard for anyone to get into those schools no matter what, I wish you luck.
Make sure to explain why there have been dips in your grade when applying. But still from the looks of it, you have very slim chance at getting in because of your comparatively lower GPA and SAT scores than of average applicants to prestigious colleges like Yale and Cornell. Note that a lot of applicants have been rejected despite with perfect GPA and SAT scores.
This may or may not be a good advice for you, but don’t rely too heavily on scores like your GPA and SAT scores when applying to college – although they DO matter a lot – because colleges want to know that you are not a studying-machine that only spends time studying, but also contributes your time to ECs. A lot of those students with flawless GPA and SAT got rejected due to their poor ECs, so try to develop your ECs as well.
Spking,
If you can really get your grades in your junior year significantly up, you might have a chance. Admission like to see an upward trend. Also, if you can write an excellent essay, you give yourself the best fighting chance. Your essay should not be simply about why your grades were poor but should be about what drive you to excel.
Sometimes Cornell accepts kids with grades below the norm, those kids need to be rather unique. You could be one.