<p>I went from straight A’s and a few A+'s Freshman year to A-'s and B+'s and one B in senior semester (but that one B was from AP Physics, the hardest science course offered in my school, with massive curves given out in the class anyways!!!).
While I increased the rigor of my classes as time went on… I also saw a drop in grades. However this was NOT due to the increase in rigor, I don’t think, because I could have gotten the A’s if I really worked for it. I tried expanding my interests and took risks though, and that took up a lot of time (and while I absolutely don’t regret that at all, I can’t help but feel wistful at the very evident slight drop in grades from year to year). Plus, this last quarter which brought down my grades so much (went from all A’s and A-'s first senior quarter to pretty much all B+'s and B’s), was just a huge slump for me. I don’t know what happened, I just felt somewhat depressed all throughout and lost focus.
Is this an automatic disqualifier, or should I send colleges a note detailing what happened? </p>
<p>Because I do still have a fantastic GPA (close to 4 and like 4.4 weighted, valedictorian is usually like a 4.6), and have taken the absolute most rigorous classes my school has to offer, and am still in the top 3% of a 700+ class size. Would that cause them to overlook this and/or is this a minor thing to be worried about?
If anything else, I can easily produce some evidence as per my general lack of focus and NOT due to rigor this past quarter, because I got a B+ in my Orchestra (regular, not chamber) class this quarter, and I’ve taken the same orchestra class my entire high school career and never gotten a B+ before, which alludes as the “Standard” for my track record and just goes to show how affected I was these past few months…</p>
<p>Trying to squeeze out any hint or clue from your package; trying to see any blemish in order to explain it away; trying to examine and re-examine every iota – is fruitless and creates in peoples’ minds the big potential for undue disappointment. The fact is what’s done is done. </p>
<p>Come April 1st, you’ll likely have some great options. What should you do? Have a great last few months of HS. Ask out a ton of girls/guys. Make some great memories. Get a 4.0 because you CAN and not because someone is going to be impressed. Show your extreme gratitude to your parents. Have a ball.</p>
<p>I agree with the other two posters, but I’d like to ask why you think doing poorly because of this “lack of focus” is preferable to doing poorly because of rigor. What you call “focus” others may call “motivation,” and I wouldn’t be so inclined to send a note to colleges with evidence of your own lack of motivation.</p>
<p>Thanks for that link T26E4… really put my mind at ease.
I guess I just kept telling myself that I had the ability to get in to Harvard, but I didn’t know if I for sure would be accepted, so it was all about the “what can I do now” aspect rather than the “do I deserve it” aspect. Because if I “knew” I should be able to get in, it was a burden to fall onto my shoulders to see to it that I did. But everyone’s like that, I guess. And in the face of everyone else, I guess I’m just another person and it’d be arrogant of me then.
And I’d forgotten too, “Because whether you realize it consciously or not, you will expect more out of the process than might come out.”, that I’d said these same words the day before sending in all my things, because I knew that I’d learned so much from my essays as much as others would learn about me, but… somewhere between then and now I’d somehow forgotten that. Thanks, I really needed that.</p>
<p>@DwightEisenhower: Well the lack of focus/motivation was just in the face of… a lot of things that have happened recently that just beat me down. It was so easy to look at all of them in succession in a negative light, and so I did, and it’s been affecting me since (especially in the face of working so hard for a class knowing that the only reason I was working so hard was for colleges, that I could easily pick out all these flaws and I felt so unsatisfied just sitting there that I just didn’t even feel like trying anymore).</p>