A college record of all A grades would be looked at favorably by many colleges. If you want to maximize your options, take the SAT and ACT and apply widely, but make sure that you have good safety plans in case the SAT, ACT, and college applications do not go well.
Also, if your parents are divorced or separated, have both of them assured you the amount that they can contribute?
Yes it’s fine. Most of the money is taken care by my college fund anyways. And the problem is the first Act I can get into is in February past all the application deadlines so I don’t think I’ll be a high school applicant. I’ll just be a transfer and take some classes God knows where
PLEASE listen to what we’re telling you.
Consider this your JUNIOR year. Give yourself time.
Take classes you enjoy - you’ll need 4 years of English, 4 years of Math (or up to precalculus or calculus), 4 years of History/Social science, 4 years of Foreign language (or up to Level 4), and 4 years of science in order to be competitive for good universities. Since you’re interested in science and engineering, take as much math and science as your community allows. Add some art (required for California universities), explore subjects you’re interested in. Shop, Current Events, Cooking.
Find clubs in which to participate.
Since you’re on a college campus, meet with professors and find one who’ll involved you in his/her research as his/her assistant.
Don’t take the SAT until March, then take subject tests in May and the SAT again in June. Buy the Fiske Guide, Insider’s Guide to the Colleges, Princeton Review’s best colleges, and/or Colleges that pay you back; start making a list of colleges that look appealing: HarveyMudd? Olin? WPI? Rose-Hulman? UOregon? PortlandU? UMaryland? UMinnesota? Penn State? Virginia Tech? Cal Poly SLO? UCSC? Figure out your reaches (Stanford, CalTech), your matches, your safeties.
You cant decide “I’ll just be a transfer applicant”. That’s not how it works. Even if you classify yourself this way, almost all colleges will place you with the freshmen. (At Harvey Mudd and CalTech, MANY if not virtually all applicants come in with dual enrollment credit in math and science. They all start in first-year courses anyway.)
Except the deadlines and requirements aren’t the same, and you’ll be pushed back by a year anyway.
Write essays over the summer and start basic applications plus the CommonApp. In the Fall, retake the SAT if need be, polish your supplemental essays. Apply REA/SCEA to your favorite top school, add a few Rolling Admissions, get your replies in December. Depending on the results, you’re done… or add more RD colleges.
Being a transfer applicant has all kinds of drawbacks. Being a commuter when you are so lucky as to have 60K/year in a college fund is missing out on so much.
“And the problem is the first Act I can get into is in February past all the application deadlines so I don’t think I’ll be a high school applicant.”
WHEN you take the ACT has NOTHING to do with your standing as an applicant.
IF you “graduate” from HS under your current program, and THEN proceed to enroll in college classes somewhere, you will then be considered a transfer student and you will effectively be reducing you chances of being able to go to a great [ non public] college or any college that takes few if any transfer students.
. So dont take anyadditional college classes beyond those that will appear on your HS transcript.
. After this coming summer, get a job, do volunteer work , travel, etc, etc while you are waiting to apply next Fall. What’s the rush? You’ll greatly reduce your chances of getting into great schools by applying as a transfer student.
AND most scholarships are set aside for freshmen. Transfer students have little chance of receiving scholarship $$ at all.
I graduate in August basically unless I fail a course. And I have a shitty Gpa. I don’t feel like I have another choice other to go to country college after I graduate and apply as a transfer student.
Are you actually reading what we’ve written?
DO NOT graduate in August. It’s simple: DO NOT enroll in community college this summer.
Instead, work/volunteer/write application essays.
Take 4 classes this Spring, 4 Fall 2016, 4 Spring 2017 if that’s what it takes. Or, if you wish, graduate in December 2016.
Review your classes: you need 4 years of English, Math, Science, Social Science, and Foreign Language. Do you have them? If you don’t, you need to make time to take them. Do you have one unit of art?
You have straight A’s in college, right? Keep like this, it’ll matter MUCH more to universities than what you did as a freshman and a sophomore in high school. Any college GPA 3.75+ will be highly valued, because - surprise- the best predictor of college success is success in college, so it’s HIGHLY valued.
If you’re so scared of standardized testing that you’d do almost anything except take them, apply to test optional colleges. LOTS of them are highly ranked.
http://www.fairtest.org/sites/default/files/Optional-Schools-in-U.S.News-Top-Tiers.pdf
You do have choices.
OP,
We are not trying to pick on you!! Only to prevent you from making a BIG mistake that once done- you CANNOT undue.
IF you enroll in college classes AFTER YOU GRADUATE from HS then you can ONLY be considered to be a transfer student and you WILL be eliminating any chance to be accepted at HUNDREDS of colleges that have HUNDREDS IF NOT THOUSANDS of openings for Freshman, but few, if any openings for tranfer students.
Stanford is a Prime EXAMPLE of this
Magical thinking- " I have a good college GPA therefore I think I WILL be accepted as a transfer student" to a college that takes maybe 1-2% of applicants- - WONT make it happen. . \
“I don’t feel like I have another choice other to go to country college after I graduate and apply as a transfer student”
You DO have a choice.
I’ll see what I can do but I don’t really pick my own schedule. My dream school right now is university of Michigan Ann Arbor.
“I don’t really pick my own schedule”
You mean you have no control over which classes you are taking?
if not, then WHO is making the decisions instead of you?
Its YOUR education.
It’s the program it’s very structured I didn’t get to pick a single class last semester
@elena3142 - In your initial post, you state that you want an engineering program with smaller classes. While Michigan is an excellent school, it is not small by any means. If you still think that small schools are an option, consider some of the smaller [url="<a href=“http://theaitu.org%22%5DAITU%5B/url”>http://theaitu.org"]AITU[/url] schools.
can you list the classes you have taken and are golng to take?
And who, besides you, is thinking erroneously that you have to graduate by next summer?
Michigan is probably a poor choice for a transfer engineering student, or even a frosh bringing in college credit completed while in high school; its transfer credit pages indicate that it is very stingy about accepting transfer courses for subject credit, so you may have to retake (at extra cost, of course) some of the courses you have already taken.
Agree with others that you should not close the door on frosh entry to various colleges now without trying the SAT, ACT, and college applications.
I know that michigan seems like an add choice but for some reason I fell in love with it. And it has such a strong engineering program which is number one priority. I’m going to try to stretch out my high school diploma for another semester. But wont that look like I’m slacking? Taking fewer courses, Most of the credits I need are elective credits so my only choice is to take less classes
@xraymancs Most of those schools are out of my reach or are rated very low
UMichigan Engineering, Stanford, CalTech… are not easier to get into than some of the colleges on xraymancs’ list.
Right now, can you give us
You survived leukemia. You’re a survivor and therefore, among all juniors and seniors out there, you’d be allowed to “slack”; but as a high school student you’re allowed to take 4 classes per semester, or to take elecives at the college level, and it still looks most rigorous.
^^exactly. Why can’t you knock out some dual enrollment humanities courses that you will need in college anyway?
We have a friend of our family who went on tour (musician) and had to drop back a year in high school (was in my DS’s grade until this past year). It really was no big deal. Just graduating in 2017 instead of 2016. This kid was a bit young for the class so that helped too. Still on a lighter load for performance reasons.
Generally speaking, you have many more options as a freshman than as a transfer.
According to the [National Center for Education Statistics](Table 5.1. Compulsory school attendance laws, minimum and maximum age limits for required free education, by state: 2017), schools in Oregon must offer a free high school education to any student who is 19 or younger. If the student hasn’t met degree requirements, districts can enroll students who are 20. If OP were to move in with her dad in CA, she could attend high school until she was 21.
I would respectfully disagree that many of the AITU schools are “rated low” On whose rating? It is well known that every ranking system is flawed. If you want to study engineering, then the AITU schools are specialized in just that and their graduates get excellent jobs. That being said, there are many public schools with strong engineering programs. You have a vast choice, you only need to find one that fits your needs and is financially affordable to your family. Good luck!
Okay so the high school classes I took are a little all mixed up becuaseI switched schools after freshmen year so my freshman year was
Honors English I
Honors Biology
Honors Algebra I/2 ( Where you take both algebras in one year)
World History
Wellness for one semester (otherwise known as health
French I
Theology
Intro to Computers
Sophomore year I transferred to a public school and a lot of my credits were lost.
English
Geometry
Algebra 3-4 (otherwise known as algebra 2)
World History
French 3-4
French TA
Missed my Junior Year:
Now my current duality courses are a little weird because they start you off with remedial courses so your ready for campus. Which is so irritating to say the least
Reading 90
Writing 90
Alc 50 (writing/reading lab)
College survival 100
Another lab
Yoga I (for PE credit)
What I’ve signed up for for Winter 2016 quater
Preparatory Chemistry 151
Math 111 College Algebra
Health
CG 130
Over the next few semesters this is what I’m going to take:
Physics 200
US government
Economics
Math 112
Math 254
Another PE course
Another Chemistry
Another Physics