<p>Hello, I am a current junior and struggling to find the right college for myself. I have always dreamed of attending Columbia but I now know that dream has almost no chance of coming true. I wish to study business and get my MBA.
My freshman GPA is a 2.7 ( don’t laugh )
My sophomore GPA is a 3.15
My Junior GPA is set to be a 4.0
I have played soccer since I was 5, I ref tournaments as volunteer work. I started my own for-profit news website. I manage 2 apartment buildings and an intern for T-mobile.
I do not share this with a lot of people but I have struggled with attention deficit disorder my whole life. Thank God for this program provided by my school which assists people like myself who have learning disorders. As you may have noticed my grades significantly improved over my high school career. I am now able to maintain an excellent GPA without any assistance other than a tutor for math. I do not expect colleges to treat me any different than all the other students and I am contemplating not mentioning my ADD on my application. I just want to attend a semi impressive college where I can thrive. I live in California and wish to stay in-state if possible. I thank you for your time and am looking forward to reading your reply.</p>
<p>P.S. Sorry for my grammar, it is very late at the moment and I am exhausted.</p>
<p>‘I just want to attend a semi impressive college’</p>
<p>You want to go to college so that people will ooooo and aaah when you say you attend Columbia? You can go to a ‘good’ college, but you need to stop thinking about impressing people.</p>
<p>Do you have a standardized test score? have you taken any honors or AP/IB courses?</p>
<p>An essay about your struggles with ADHD and your experiences with the website and with work might be very moving. If it is not, then abandon it but make sure your guidance counselor mentions the ADHD in a letter. Having a college that is good with ADHD students would be a plus. You might ask the Parents Forum for schools in CA that they have heard are good with ADHD students.</p>
<p>Hello, I’m going to be a senior and while I don’t have really the expertise on choosing the right college, what I can offer is motivation. I’m am confident that a talented and driven individual like yourself will succeed in what you do. Just be confident and try to find a college that you will feel at home in. A big help in choosing the right college for you is visiting campus. I was skeptical about how important a college visit was as I couldn’t afford the travel, but going to campus is very important. Through some invitations I have gotten to actually go to UT Austin and Texas A&M over the summer, and actually walking on the campus is a great experience and judge on college fit. Also I’m under the impression that colleges want to see that upward trend and yours is impressive. Good luck with business; I’m a genetics junkie myself :)</p>
<p>In reply to International95
You couldn’t be more incorrect. Impressive colleges ( or colleges with good reputations) tend to have the best academic programs, isn’t that the main reason they are prestigious? They have the best faculty, the best students, and the best campuses. I just want a portion of that since I cannot have the whole thing. </p>
<p>While “impressive” colleges may have the best programs, etc. you have to fall in love with the college itself. You can’t just fall in love with the name. Too often, people apply to every Ivy League in the hopes of getting into one without actually having a reason why they like each one. Each prestigious college is very different and is not right for everybody. So what I believe @International95 is saying is that you can’t just want to go to a college for the name. You have to focus on what you like in a college and go from there. </p>
<p>I recently toured UC Berkley and I loved it. I had the opportunity to meet some of the students at the HAAS school of business and I enjoyed talking to them tremendously. I think I would rather go there than Columbia since it is closer to home. I am not sure if I can get into Berkley though. I took a PSAT over the summer and received a 2040, I feel if a study hard and invest in SAT prep I can score even better. Since there is no changing the past investing in the future is a notable goal I suppose. What do you guys think? I tried asking my parents but they think I am way over my head. I live in the shadow of my brilliant sister who is attending Princeton, I am constantly compared to her and since my grades are horrible compared to hers my parents frown upon me. It is my fault and I take full responsibility. I just wish I cared about school as much as I do now 3 years ago but I was ignorant back then since I wanted to be like the cool kids which entailed getting bad grades and showing it to your friends and laughing at it. Now I know it is no laughing matter. Foolish I was.</p>
<p>Sorry for my rant, I crave some direction. Any help is good help.</p>
<p>ouch. you did what you did because you’re not the person who’s now taking responsibility for your actions and moving forward. to that extent, it was the younger person and not you who is responsible for what you did. America is a great country for second chances, so move on. There are 3400 colleges out there, and all but 50 or 100 of them would love to have you. :-c </p>
<p>I take it your PSAT score was 204, and that is very good. Improving your ability with such tests as the SAT will be well worth the trouble. It will lend credence to the improving curve. Don’t, however, take on so much this first semester that you don’t have time for your studies. So maybe a shorter list or one with only one essay would help.</p>
<p>I don’t know what schools you can get into without a standardized test score and your first semester grades. If you want to go to a UC like Berkeley, run the UC GPA calculator, which will not include freshmen grades. California itself has hundreds of colleges that want you. Be patient. Work hard. And consider, too, the schools that are less impressive than Berkeley or UCLA.</p>
<p>Cal cares way too much about GPA. UCD apparently has a good econ program (don’t quote me though; just a word from some of my friends). Since you wanna do business, your MBA would be much more important than your undergraduate school, so you shouldn’t worry about prestige.
I understand how you constantly compare yourself to your sister, but since you now know the value of academic success, you can try much harder in your undergraduate career and place yourself in a top MBA program. Plenty of kids from seemingly ‘unimpressive’ colleges land themselves in strong graduate programs. What you make of your education is far more important than the name of the institution you are enrolled in. </p>
<p>Btw, name-brand colleges are ‘impressive’ mostly because of the research that occurs in the graduate level, so no, the schools with name don’t necessarily have the best undergraduate experience. Cal may boast about how many nobel laureates they have or about how much research goes on, but their undergraduate experience is not far above the ones you find at the lower-tier UCs. Do you seriously think that these name-brand schools provide all their resources that have made them ‘impressive’ for their undergraduate students? </p>
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