High School/College Planning for future ahead:)

Pre-College Topics High School Life
1

Hello,

For context, my freshman and sophomore year have been long and dreadful. GPA for 9th-10th grade: 3.2W. Classes for those two years: Bio H, English 9H/10H, Int Math IH/IIH, Physics, Chemistry, PE 9/10, World History, AVID 9, Spanish I/II(No honors offered)

So I had a rough first two years, but now I am focused on proving to myself that I am capable to be better than most, and so it begins..

Summer before 11th grade: DE Art Appreciation: A (on transcript; not included on 9-10 GPA calculation)

Schedule for this year(Junior) and grades as of now after first couple quizzes/unit tests:

AP Environmental Science: A+

AP English Language and Composition: A+

AP Biology: A

AP Pre-Calculus: A

AP United States History: A

AP Psychology: A

DE American Sign Language 1: A+

DE Intro to Business: A+

DE Chemistry: N/A(Hasn’t Started yet..)

Proposed for next semester JUNIOR year: Same AP Classes(Year Long) DE American Sign Language 2, DE Spanish I(Got 2 D’s in Spanish 2, this class covers two years of Spanish)

The reason for this post is because I want a general idea of how colleges will look at me overall, I want to prove I am not the same person as I was two years ago and that I am capable of working hard, my GPA is calculated to be 4.18 if I maintain my A’s for the next two years: Senior Year proposing CLASSES: AP Lit, AP Gov/(Both)Econ(3 classes, ALL AP), AP Physics C:Mech, AP Calc BC, AP Chem, AP Stats

Please reassure me that I will still look good for colleges if I go down this road, maybe even attend my #1 college Stanford, how will they look at my resume overall?, will I have done enough? Thinking about it, I say I regret everything I did my first two years of high school and I wish I could go back but I know I can only focus on now so that it what I am doing and I know my schedule looks crazy but I have to be competitive to my other peers who did great and for the sake of increasing my chances of getting admitted to Stanford, Top UCs(UCLA, USC) or Ivy league. Please give me some advice and thanks for reading this long post; most appreciated.

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I think your schedule is waaaay aggressive. I worry more about your mental health than anything with this and your charge forward, although I appreciate it.

With a 3.2 in your first two years, in theory the highest your UW GPA can be is 3.6. But after Junior year it will be less.

I don’t want to be a downer and I am not an adcom but I don’t see Stanford happening.

Another issue is you have two semester grades of Spanish. That’s likely an eliminator at many places

I think you need to take the SAT and see how you do but I am worried about your mental health. That is a crazy schedule.

Here’s the other thing - if you go to Stanford or San Jose State, you and not the school will make your success in life. So your drive will help you in life. School is great but it doesn’t determine your life’s success. That’s on Lou.

The UCs won’t see 9th so that helps and won’t use the test so that helps

I don’t see a likely path to a top school but I also think a top school is a myth. As I said, you and not the school will create your success. My son turned down a top 10 engineering for a no name and yet works with those top 10 kids.

My daughter turned down higher tier publics and a top LAC for a regional small public - started a club to help support the assimilation of refugees, interned for our state, at a DC think tank and now serves in a position that has grads from the Ivys and non Ivys. All these kids in that role, which is selective, made their success. The schools didn’t.

So if you are driven in life, you will win.
Btw Stanford is $400k - just a reminder.

Be the best you and you’ll find a spot for yourself - Stanford, San Jose State or Susquehanna. Maybe even CC which has a great path to the UCs.

Congrats on your new focus and best of luck.

but don’t burn yourself out. Life is long and you’ll find many paths to success.

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Hello!, thanks for responding, I understand where you come from and everything but I have a question about:

I don’t quite understand what you mean here, do you mean the two D grades? I am going to be retaking them through a cc to have a grade change, but would you mind clarifying please?

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A grade change may be accepted by some schools but not others. And if it’s at a CC, won’t the Ds stay on your hs transcript ?

But if you are repeating Spanish 1-2, then you don’t have a third year of foreign language which is a must for most top schools or will you take that Senior year?

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I will have to clarify with my counselor about the grade changes and see what will happen, but that change will only happen for Spanish 2 because I only failed Spanish 2 while I got an A/B on Spanish 1 so no need to repeat that class. I am expecting to take a college level Spanish class that corresponds to the third/4th year(will have to check) during senior year.

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I agree - this schedule looks overwhelming. And how much time does it leave for substantial depth in ECs? The colleges you mention - especially the UCs- do holistic admissions. GPA is probably the #1 factor, but GPA alone won’t get you in. You need to have activities and achievements outside of the classroom. What are your ECs? Will you have time for anything but study? Admissions aside, it’s important to have downtime and time for hobbies and other pursuits (and hanging out with friends!) just for a happy, healthy life. The schedule you’ve listed here worries me. And I’m afraid you’re going burnout on this schedule and, if you don’t end up getting into the college you want despite the grueling effort, will end up deeply disappointed. I’m afraid you’re going to crash and burn. Stanford has a 4% admit rate. You could do all this and the likely outcome is still rejection (at 4% rejection is the likely outcome for all unhooked applicants). What did your guidance counselor say about this schedule when you proposed it?

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First you said two Ds. Now you said F.

Which is it?

If you struggled on lower level classes, what makes you think you’ll ace those at a higher level, that the lower might lead into the higher?

In the end, you’ll likely end up at an easier to get into - like Oregon or Arizona or a non impacted CSU - with an overly rigorous schedule or not. Maybe UCM or R?

8

Isn’t a D considered “failing” in respect to college admissions since they will accept only Cs or above? And yes it’s Two Ds(both semesters)=). I wouldn’t say I exactly “struggled” but I struggled with time management, focus, and desire for better grades, I was definitively capable but with my own “issues/problems” chose not to. I would say though that Spanish definitively was the hardest class for me compared to any other class but hopefully I can become better at Spanish and hopefully regain necessary skills when I retake the class to go further in Spanish.

9

I do not see Stanford happening, for undergraduate study. Whether UCs are possible might depend upon which UC, and how your sophomore year went as compared to freshman year (my understanding is that UCs on the most part do not care about freshman year).

However, your uptrend, assuming that you can keep this up, is likely to help you a lot. Lots of good universities may be possible.

If you ever get to the point of applying to graduate programs, high school will not matter. DE classes that you took at a college might be considered, but high school classes will not matter. Also, if you look at the graduate students at top universities (including Stanford, where I got my master’s degree), they come from a huge range of undergraduate schools. Graduate study however if it happens at all is a long way in the future.

Perhaps more important, you can get an excellent undergraduate education at any one of a huge range of universities.

This is correct. Do your best from now on.

I am a bit concerned that you might have overloaded yourself with this year’s courses. Work Hard. Keep ahead as much as you can. Get some sleep. Do the best that you can, and see how it comes out.

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Courses and grades in 9th grade will be visible to UC admission readers, but the grades do not become part of the recalculated HS GPA for UC purposes. Courses taken only count toward UC and CSU a-g subject requirements if grades C or higher are earned.

Regarding community college courses, you can check their a-g subject clearance at University of California A-G Course List . A summary of how repeated courses are treated by UC and CSU is included at https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/_files/documents/csu-uc-comparison-matrix.pdf .

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Thanks, the second link was super helpful, thanks again!

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Congratulations on such a turn around in work ethics and perspective.

That being said, it seems you’ve taken on too much for it to be sustainable. Even top colleges wouldn’t expect more than 4-5 APs - even if you had straight As before, no human being would be expected to take 6 APs and 3 DEs at the same time, let alone do well in them.

I understand you want to offset freshman/sophomore year grades but that’s not the way to do it. If your goal is a UC, you need to do things the right way: fewer classes (5 AP+ DE combined, the rest honors). Drop DE Chem and DE Intro to business; you don’t need 2 social sciences so drop either APUSH or AP Psych; you don’t need 2 AP sciences, so drop either AP Environmental or AP Bio. If you plan to major in Science you could keep both sciences/if you plan to major in social sciences you could keep both social science classes but in that case drop ASL or take Precalculus Honors instead of AP Precalc. DO keep AVID. It will help you throughout the year wrt preparing for college, study methods, writing college essays, etc.

What do you do outside of school? Do you have a job? Volunteer somewhere? Practice a sport with your HS or a club? This will matter to selective universities in addition to straight As in 6 subjects.

Go to the UCSC NPC: what amount appears under “net cost”?