If you can retake the Physics over the summer and replace that C, it is going to make some difference in chances.
@billcsho it will still show up on my transcript but it probably won’t be included in my gpa. I’d say it will raise my gpa by about .05-.1. Then again, there’s the chance it won’t get factored into my gpa, but do you think they’ll disregard the initial grade and take my counselor’s word for the tensions with the teacher?
@shuttlebus @coolguy40 which colleges would you say would be matches for me and how do you think my list is so far? My family and I came up with this and I got some advice from some friends to create it. I think I have 28 schools in mind already. Shouldn’t be a hassle because most don’t require long supplementals and the application fees are not a problem.
Here’s my list of where I plan to apply. All of them are for EECS/CSE/CS. Maybe someone could advise me on it as college admisisons is definitely not my expertise.
Reaches & Matches:
MIT
Stanford
Princeton
Harvard
Yale (applying to HY because my family wants me to)
Caltech
Upenn
Cornell
Columbia
Brown
Uchicago
CMU
UC Berkeley
UCLA
UCSD
Umich
Duke
Rice
Vanderbilt
JHU
Northwestern
GATech
UIUC
Harvey Mudd
Safeties:
UCI
UCD
UCSB
UCSC
It depends on your school and school district. In our district, one may retake a course in summer and the new grade will replace the old one on transcript, better or not. You should ask your GC. Only a few schools on your reach and match list are matches. It would be fine as long as you have a couple and they are affordable.
Have you looked at any Net Price Calculators yet to see what will be affordable for your family?
You have way too many reaches on your list. I can’t imagine you will have the time you need to write the best possible supplemental essays for each of the uber selective schools on your list. I’d strongly suggest you trim down your reach (FWIW I’d classify almost all of your “reach & match schools” as reaches) schools and add more true match schools to your list.
And if you haven’t done so yet, have the money talk with your parents and be sure schools you are considering appear affordable.
@evergreen5 @happy1 the application fees will not be a financial barrier to us. Overall, money isn’t as much of a problem. We can definitely pay for the UC’s without financial aid. One more reason why UCB and UCLA are extremely desirable. They would be willing to pay $60k a year only if it was a top school. They tell me that they’ll definitely shell out all the money necessary for me to go to a top school, but they would be hesitant to use their hard earned money for anything else. However, they’d still be willing to pay for UCSD. So I’d have to take the community college route and hope to transfer, which I really don’t want to do. But if cc is the only option, it’s better than nothing.
I’d say I feel this need to apply to so many reaches so I can increase my chances of getting a few acceptances. Mathematically speaking, if I apply to 20 reach schools with ~5% acceptance rates, then I’d have a (.95)^20, ~36% chance of getting rejected from every single one of them, which is far less than 50. However, if I only applied to 5, then I’d have a 77% chance of getting rejected from all, which seems way too high for me. I mean, the only way you can be 100% sure you’ll be rejected is to not apply at all.
So we have UC’s, private reaches, and oos public ivies, what other options are there in the context of my profile? Any specifics? So far I think my matches are the UC’s other than UCB and UCLA.
And how realistic is my list overall given my profile? Would you say any of the reaches are worth applying to and some are not? I know HYPSM and similar schools are reaches for everyone but I don’t believe everyone who applies to a school has the same chances.
^^* Your math is wrong. They are not independent events.
Many on your long list of reaches are >$70k per year, not 60. You and your parents need to become more familiar with the costs - run Net Price Calculators with your parents.
Many more schools than just HYPSM are reaches for everyone. You are correct that not everyone who applies to a school has the same chances; the bottom line is that every single one of your reaches will be looking closely at your junior year grades.
I think the OP has made clear that his parents will pay full cost, whatever it might be, for certain schools.
Please, @“Prestigious Nerd” I urge you to spend some time off of College Confidential. At this point, most of the people are repeating what information has already been given to you in the previous thread you opened about many of the same things. It seems you are just looking for validation for your own opinions, and CC is not the way to go for this.
Get off CC, spend some time with your grades and ECs, reconsider your list of colleges, and stay sane!
So I screwed up the most important part of my application. Will I need to explain the dip in grades somehow in there? Should I play out the whole learned my lesson thing?
Yes, you can explain it. Done!
If there was no specific.reason for the dip in grades (ex. major illness) then don’t try to explain…just improve your grades going forward.
And when the time comes, create a college application list that is in line with your actual academic stats.
Why does everyone keep banging there head against a wall? OP clearly hears just what he wants to hear. Let this thread end.
College admission decisions are not independent events, since most colleges consider many similar applicant characteristics, though with some differences in how they are considered and weighted. One of the most important applicant characteristics is your academic record (courses,grades, GPA and/or rank).
Your parents will pay for in state UCSC, UCR, and UCM, right?
The colleges on your “Reaches and Matches” list are all reaches. That does not mean that you can’t get into some of them, but your strategy of a shotgun approach would actually decrease rather than increase your chances.
Your GPA isn’t tragically weak, but it is likely to be the weak point of your app. To compensate, you will need to have fantastic ECs, essays and (in the colleges where it is a factor, which is approx. half of those on your reach list) developing an airtight case for why you are the absolute perfect match for that school even with your slightly weak GPA. The problem is that many of those schools are looking for very different things, so you cannot just write some good essays and reuse them for all the schools. Since that’s the approach you’d be using if you apply to 28 schools you will be more likely to be denied from all of them. Instead of the scatter approach, be strategic.
Identify at most 6 (even better to keep it to 3 or 4) of the reach schools that would be most likely to take someone with a slightly lower GPA, but who wants your other characteristics. Then relentlessly target your ECs, essays and actions to those schools. Visit, contact the AO now and start the relationship, follow and comment on Twitter/FB, etc. Make it clear to those schools that you are the absolute best fit ever and that you are absolutely dying to go to their school. You’ll have a much better chance at having one of them give you a chance than you would just flipping in generic apps to the top 28 colleges from USNWR.
OP misses what top colleges look for. That alone can put him off track.
It’s not explanations, excuses, what he wants or how he believes he could succeed.
It’s actual results, the grades he did get, not the dreams. No matter what gpa he calculates including this or excluding that, they’ll look at the transcript, see the B and C grades.
This isn’t “good enough” gets you in. You compete with days and days of kid after kid who performed at consistent top level. No excuses, no misses, no “if you just look at it differently, it looks better.” Nope.
And what about ECs? It’s not starting some club or writing to profs about internships you don’t yet have.
Where’s the pattern here? Hopes, massaging numbers? OP should stop explaining and go learn what does matter. Learn to properly and maturely “match” himself.
I’m kinda stuck on his comment that first semester grades aren’t downward.
OK, I read back through the other thread and have a little more of the overall picture.
Forget about the C. The C is a problem but it’s not the big issue here. You’re missing an overall understanding of what the top selective colleges are going to want out of an applicant in general, much less what specifically appeals to subsets of the selectives.
You have the test scores that show potential, where you’re falling down is the actual results piece. GPA is part of how you show actual results and your performance - results - so far hasn’t been up to the level for most of the tippy top schools. And the same is true for your ECs.
The EC list reads like one put together by someone who is trying to “check boxes” rather than explore interests, gain knowledge or make a difference. They show again that you have potential (leadership, admittance to interesting internships and projects) but no actual results. Instead of spending an hour or two a week on that assortment of things with interesting titles but no real substance, pick a few and get some results. Did you actually get a startup running? What was/were the challenges, product, results, new understanding, next goals… Did your research produce any results? Great! What were they and where was it published? You did quiz bowl and all sorts of competitions… did you win anything or gain knowledge that prompted a revelation? Results, not participation, is what makes for impressive ECs. For the ECs to be helpful, you’ll need to show that you had a stellar result, made a difference, learned something, made impactful personal growth or something similar - not just attended. Right now your list makes it appear you’re doing a lot of attending without accomplishing much, just like in school.
The issue you’ll face with your apps is that your grades will not be enough to make you competitive at the top level, nor do you have any real EC accomplishments or story (at least not that you’ve conveyed so far). AOs and Adcoms aren’t dumb and this isn’t their first rodeo - they will be able to see your app for what it is. And right now, it is representative of someone who has a lot of potential but hasn’t done top level work to get top level results either inside or outside of school.
Does that mean you’re a failure? Not even remotely. If you make no changes at all you can go to many good schools and have a great life, even though they will be schools and a life you currently feel is beneath you. But all this does mean unless you make some major changes in understanding what top colleges want, getting some actual results and a story in your ECs and improving your grades, you shouldn’t waste your time or money on apps to 90% of the schools on your list because you have no realistic chance at entry to the programs you’re looking for.
Do you have time to change this? Yes! Getting great grades is the first piece, but you really need to work on understanding what the colleges are looking for before wasting more time on the ECs and overall plan.
Some good news here: I talked to my counselor just now and they might be able to let me retake the first semester of physics and completely wipe away the initial grade because of the abuse I suffered from the teacher. I anticipate that this will help me tremendously if I get an A and my transcript will be much cleaner. Hopefully they make this happen. so a couple of b’s in spanish, and 2 b’s in math and history probably shouldn’t be a big deal, but nevertheless i’ll still have the disadvantage of a crappy gpa.
So the thing here is that my grades have typically been very good and I’m taking the most rigorous courses available. So it was a blip semester and I hope they’ll see that. My gpa is definitely well below average for many of these programs, but I’m hoping they’ll see that these 5 months were atypical for me. No idea about rank since my school doesn’t give it. However, there is very heavy grade inflation so I’d assume top 7-9%.
My parents think 2 years at cc and then transferring to Berkeley on the tag program is better than 4 years at ucsc, ucr, or ucm. i’m above the average stats for uci, ucd, ucsb, and ucsd (not engineering), so getting in probably shouldn’t be too big of a deal. My ACT score is above average of UCB and UCLA as is my weighted gpa, probably about average for engineering, but it’s my gpa that’s pulling me down since it’s below average even for L&S.
@lookingforward I understand how tough it is to gain admissions to selective schools. I feel like my profile stands a solid shot in every respect except my gpa and crappy grades this semester. I fear that this is a reason for them to throw me out in the first round. The B’s and C this semester greatly stand out and put an inescapable stain on my application. But the C could end up going away. And I have next semester.
@milee30 @lookingforward I know my ec’s might sound a bit disorganized. Perhaps I conveyed them pretty poorly. I think I just listed everything and a couple of these I only do for like an hour a week and probably won’t include them. Quizbowl was just freshman year. My main things are computer science and social entrepreneurship. I’m making a portfolio of my computer science projects and getting videos from my robotics team which I plan to submit. Maybe 5-10 quality projects in total. Also, I’ll have done two related research papers (currently doing parallel computing and plan on doing computational genetics this summer) with professors which I’ll also include. I’m going to submit them to siemens and Intel in the fall. For the internships, I’ll get letters of rec from my supervisors to discuss my results. As for the startup, we’re creating it for some competitions and making the products and websites. I might be able to get a patent for the product. I don’t plan to get any massive sales, but I’m learning through the process and building the foundations. I’m also a leader in some clubs so I can show leadership experience. Debate is my non stem thing and probably takes up 4 hours per month. Also, would you consider taking online courses in my areas of interest to be quality ec’s? On a related thought, I might have some additional accolades from the more test like competitions like AIME qualification, USACO gold, and USAPHO semifinalist. Competitive programming is something I do and I’m ranked at around the 90th percentile on some of these sites, but would you say that demonstrates potential or results? So, would you consider these results competitive for these schools? What suggestions would you make for improving these and targeting them to these schools? Do I need to win any major awards which I have a .1% of winning, or can my portfolio and papers do results? The spike I’m trying to develop is being a technologist with a social impact.
The 5 schools listed in the title are the places I’m truly aiming for and want to put my attention there. I do feel I fit the hacker/entrepreneurial culture of those. I also follow AO’s on twitter.
Is there a local college counselor that you know has success with admissions to your desired top schools and for which your parents would pay the consulting fees?
Honestly, you seem unable to benefit from the advice given here, so your best bet might be contracting with a consultant. You may be more inclined to listen to advice when you are paying for it.
I don’t think it’s necessary for most people to pay thousands of dollars for college admissions consulting, but in your case I think it could be the difference between success and disaster (defined by your concept of what admissions outcomes are acceptable.) With some adjustments to your direction, choosing ECs wisely and focusing on results, you might still be able to get into the schools you deem worthy and maybe a consultant can give you some guidance that you seem unable to hear free of charge.
FWIW, my son was just admitted to a top 5 school and his grades and test scores were similar to yours. But his ECs and targeting of the colleges were IMO what get him admitted. No, I don’t think the additional explanation you gave of your ECs helped your case any; if anything, your explanation showed you aren’t “getting it”. You still have time to get it and turn this around, but obviously spending time on cc where you either don’t listen to or don’t understand the advice isn’t helping. That’s why I think you should start looking for other help such as a paid college admissions counselor.