<p>as i approach my senior year of high school, i have encountered a plethora is academic endeavors. It all started second semester sophomore year when i received my first academic c in the dreadful chemistry honors. This is where i began to lose all hope for a brighter future. To make matters worse my counselor stupidly had me take ap physics b without any physics background whatsoever so i ended up receiving a “d” for the second semester. my sat scores are not to die for either. I took the sat in march and got a 1280 then again in june and got a 1360. I studied more than my peers on the sat but yet i still scored the lowest, i plan on going to sat school for the summer to figure out why i earn such low test scores. Before i had these plans to want to go to schools like pepperdine, northwestern, dartmouth, duke, or a uc school, but now as i can see it, i feel that i will be lucky to be able to go to community college. So i was just wondering if i had the slightest of chances to be able to still get into any of these top notch schools and if i would be able to redeem myself. I know that i am thinking way to highly of myself but please i need all the help that i can get.</p>
<p>Dartmouth is not a sure thing for anybody and acceptance at the other schools you listed is not a realistic expectation for the vast majority of high school students. The C in Chemistry will not keep you out of college while the D in Physics means it would not be wise to apply as a STEM major, but otherwise you can survive it.</p>
<p>The big question I have is are your SAT scores of 1280 and 1360 out of 1600 or are they out of 2400? If they are out of 1600 they are pretty good and should get you into many colleges and universities. If they are out of 2400 than I am afraid your options are going to be very limited as to which, if any colleges you can get into.</p>
<p>It seems like you think that the options are the ‘top’ schools or community college.</p>
<p>There are lots of really good colleges that are not the ‘top’ schools, where you can get an excellent education.</p>
<p>As you plan for college, take some time to investigate some of these second tier schools and you might be surprised.</p>
<p>You need to widen your search for colleges. Get a better SAT score. You can get an excellent education at state universities if you do your research on which ones to apply to. Don’t worry about prestige because in the end it won’t matter all that much after you land your first job. </p>
<p>Community colleges in CA can get you into all of the UC’s if you do well. A majority of my friends are transferring to Berkeley and UCLA. Just one to UCSD. Good luck. It is not the end of the world.</p>
<p>You can get into them for grad school, if you do exceedingly well in your undergrad studies, and get involved in research. But then, you might find at that time that other “lesser” schools are actually better in terms of grad studies for the field you’re in, so try not to be fixated on a particular school, and instead on doing the best you can with what you’ve got. :)</p>