okay I like rank top 25% of my texas public high school as a sophomore (my class has 565ishj kids) and all my ec’s are pretty good, but I got a bad grade in the ap pre calc & ap physics (79s), this first semester so should I still apply for astronomy general or just let ut pick my major, cause I don’t care that about my major (compared to the school I get into) as I’m gonna go into law school
A few comments:
–You don’t need UT to get into a fine law school.
–See where you stand junior year and create a list of reach, match, and safety schools that appear affordable and that you would be excited to attend.
–Don’t set up any college (particularly one that seems to be a huge reach) as some kind of “dream school.” There are tons of colleges where you can have a great four year experience and get where you want to go in life.
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my parents do though, they’re immigrants parents 
Sounds to me like they need to become more educated about the US college system, especially in TX. Unless there is a dramatic change in your class rank, UT seems unlikely. IMO it is best they understand that early in the process to avoid disappointment down the road.
Again, you can get into a good law school from may places – the important thing is to have a strong GPA, high LSAT scores, excellent LORs, meaningful essays, and often some experience (a number of students work for a year or two between undergrad and law school).
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Are you a high school sophomore?
Re: law school…it’s your LSAT and GPA in undergrad that matter most at most law schools…not anything you do in high school. And it’s a little premature to be choosing a college major if you are a high school sophomore.
Also, you are sort of highjacking the OPs thread…I think. Unless you are the OP with a different screen name.
what’s an OP? I’m sry I just joined tdy.
Two things come to mind.
One is that you do not need to take AP classes as a sophomore in high school. It looks to me as if you are jumping ahead too quickly. In general, and particularly in math, it is better to take classes that you are ready for and get A’s, rather than take classes that you are not ready for.
If your parents are pushing you to jump ahead, then you might want to have a private talk with your guidance counselor, and if necessary see if you can get your guidance counselor to talk to your parents about not jumping ahead too quickly.
The other thing that comes to mind is that I have seen that students who do very well in ALL of the prerequisites tend to do very well in calculus and find it to be straightforward. However I have consistently heard that students who struggle in any of the prerequisites for calculus tend to also struggle with calculus. I am concerned about whether a mediocre grade in precalculus is a predictor of a tough time in additional math classes going forward.
All of this concerns me a lot more than whether or not you get into UT Austin. You can attend any one of a wide range of undergraduate universities and still get into a good law school.
And to me UT Austin does look unlikely at this point. And you should most likely start your own thread.
OP is Original Poster…the one who started the thread.
Welcome to CC. In this case, the OP is asking a different question than yours. That poster is a HS senior who is wondering about their chances applying to a new major.
Usually you get better answers if you start your own thread, with your own question…unless it is the same as one already having a thread.
It also gets confusing if posters are answering queries that are different on the same thread.
FYI for next time!
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Thank you to the moderator who created this thread by moving posts here!
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yes thank you!!
okay lemme list my EC’s here:
- vp of astronomy club (gonna be pres Junior & senior yr)
- currently have just a social media platform but I’m working with this high school masterpiece program that’s gonna help me scale it up 1 mil teens
- co host of podcast (scaling it to 500-1000 listeners)
- and like interned for this non profit for stem/social justice
- rotc
- bronze honor in this astronomy competition (international)
- gonna apply to be a an ambassador for that
- also chapter founder for this non profit about stem skills for little kids
- orienteering, robotics, space, regulation drill teams in rotc
- applying to this research program
- 3 years of this coding camp
- hopefully going to make it into my local mayor youth council
-love reading horror books - want to make non profit about Krsna consciousness (really passionate about that)
- Self studying Sanskrit
- also passionate about astrology/yoga
my grades:
UW: 3.4
W: 4.5
PSAT: 1250
I’m working really hard this semester to improve my grades and get them to all high b’s an a’s
I wanna go into Space Law/ AI Ethics Law, but I’m lost and I don’t know who to go to, because my parents aren’t familiar with the college admissions process.
The moderators have kindly split your question into a separate thread.
If you are not in the top 5% (starting in fall 2026 I believe) of your class UT will be a big reach. Again, it is best your parents understand this. Fortunately, there are many other excellent TX public schools.
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I happen to know quite a few people who are lawyers who work for high tech companies.
Law school, at least in the US, is a graduate program. You can get a bachelor’s degree in almost anything and then go on to law school. You will need a high undergraduate GPA and a high LSAT score to get into a good law school. However, you can attend any one of a few hundred colleges and universities for your bachelor’s degree and still do well in terms of law school admissions.
The lawyers who I know who work in high tech have mostly gotten their bachelor’s degree in some field related to high tech. This includes people who majored in math, computer science, or some form of engineering (electrical engineering comes to mind for example). If you could possibly be interested in AI ethics law, it might for example be very highly valuable to understand something about how AI works. A strong background in math and computer science will be important.
However, you do not get a strong background in math by jumping ahead into classes that you are not ready to take. Math is an area where everything that you study depends upon what you studied in the past. You need to do well in this semester’s math class, because you are going to use what you learn now to help you understand next year’s math classes and the year after that’s math classes.
By the way, I was a math major in university. I did not take calculus until I was a freshman in university. That did not stop me from graduating from MIT with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. The main point was not that I jumped ahead in math. It was that I did well in whatever math classes I was taking, so I was ready to take the next one in the sequence when the time came.
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The PSAT that matters for national merit status is the one you will take fall of your junior year…so prep for that.
At this point, just get the best grades you can get.
You need to do some research into colleges. Make sure you have a college with a decent likelihood of acceptance on your list. UT Austin isn’t that school. But there are plenty of other great colleges in Texas.
Like A&M?
Thank you so much. I think I’m going to take only three APs next year keeping two “easy” (APES & AP Seminar) and one hard (Calc AB).
I’ll use next year to bring my gpa back up to 3.7 UW
Also do you have any recommendations to do better in AP Pre-Calculus/AP Physics? Those are my weakest courses.
Unless things change, I expect A&M would also be a big reach – the school seems to auto-admit only the top 10%.
For now I’d focus on doing your best in the courses you are taking.
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With these grades, you likely won’t get into UT or A&M and it doesn’t matter for law school but you will need great grades and a great LSAT.
You can go to a Lamar, Tarleton State, UTSA, Texas State or wherever and still get into Harvard or Yale. Harvard alone has 146 schools represented in the first year class. Penn over 200 in the law school.
Focus on being the best you and when it’s time to apply to college, find the right one for you.
Best of luck.
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If you want to do better in pre-cal or Physics (or any class), the best way is to talk to your teacher. Most AP course teachers are very willing to work with students who want to improve.
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are there any good out of state options? I just want to make sure I don’t miss out on good financial aid.
Public out of state colleges are usually not good for financial aid, they save it for in state students.
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