I’m in 9th grade, going to tenth grade. I really screwed up bad freshman year. I did mediocre math, sucked at science, did amazing in social studies and English, but I did really bad in some electives which really crushed my GPA. I think it is 3.77 weighted. The reason I did bad was because I spent a few years memorizing the Quran, and because of a illness in the family. I memorized the Quran (maybe this could be a “hook”?)
Please tell me I can get into Harvard, Columbia and the other ivies. I want to skip a year as well, because I was taught advanced in every class in my old school in 9th grade, and now I’m going to another school or 10th grade. My parents are going to hire a tutor, and I will be spending a lot of time on Khan Academy and IXL, so I can be ahead of the class, so I can get 100’s in every single class. I’m gonna try getting a near perfect score on the SAT.
These schools are lottery schools meaning even if you have a perfect GPA/test scores/EC’s and essays, there is no guarantee you will be accepted. Do Not skip any grades. Continue to work hard to develop a solid and competitive transcript. These schools will not be impressed with skipping grades and believe or not there are thousands of colleges in the US besides the few that you have listed where you would get a great education.
It is way too early to think about specific colleges (especially the hyper-competitive ones). You just have one full year’s GPA and you have no standardized testing. You also need to recognize that HS should be an experience in and of itself – a time of learning and growth and not just a 4 year college application prep experience.
It is good to take school seriously and know that college will be on your horizon, but it is too early to start planning for specific colleges. I would highly recommend that you get off of CC until you are further down the road.
For now you should focus on:
–Working hard, learning, and doing as well as you can in the most challenging curriculum you can manage.
–When the time comes study for standardized tests.
–Instead of spending time on the Khan academy, get involved in activities you care about and work towards making meaningful contributions to those activities. Colleges want interesting/involved students, not academic drones.
–Enjoying spending time with your family and friends.
In you junior year asses your academic stats (including GPA, standardized tests, course rigor) as well as your financial needs and apply to a wide range of reach, match, and safety schools that appear affordable (you will have to run a net price calculator for each school you consider) and that you would be happy to attend. You need to expand your horizons and recognize that there are many wonderful schools out there where you can have a great 4 year experience and get where you want to go in life.
I would add that:
–There is zero benefit to graduating early, especially if you are trying to raise your GPA. It is just a bad idea.
–Memorizing the Quran is an accomplishment, but certainly not a hook.
–The top schools have acceptance rates under 10% and do not have enough space to take all of the qualified candidates. No matter what your grades and accomplishments are, acceptance to the Ivys is a longshot.
In your situation, you want as many grades as possible to be able to compensate for your lower gpa. Skipping a grade would probably make things look worse in terms of grades. Hooks are very limited (URM, recruited athlete, very wealth, legacy, kid of a huge donor). If you are a black muslim, then you are hooked, because you are black. If you are a middle eastern muslim, then you are white, and therefore not hooked.
How serious was the illness, who was sick, what impact did it have on you? Those are the questions that will make a difference. Excel in these next couple years of highschool, and then use the additional information session of the application to describe what happened in freshman year. Then maybe, just maybe, you will make it.
Skipping a grade makes no sense at all. The idea that you might want to skip a grade makes it seem as if you don’t understand how much you still need to learn in high school. Your grade 10, 11, and 12 teachers have a LOT to teach you, and you need to work very hard for three more years of high school before you will be ready for university (whether Ivy League or not).
A weighted 3.77 isn’t getting you into Harvard. You need to focus on your classes and focus on getting A’s. Start to think about universities after you have two more years of hopefully better grades and have gotten SAT or ACT scores.
Honestly… You need to chill. If your freshman year worries you so much write about it in your essay. You said you had an illness in your family? If it really affected you that much include it in your essay and talk about how it changed you.
Like I’m gonna write about how I lived in Mexico my freshman year & how I was homeless and how it affected my work ethic/personality. I’m sure you could work with what you had going on.
Also don’t skip a grade if you want to raise your GPA. And enjoy highschool. Join some clubs & party a little. If you do well the next 3 years you might be able to get into some of them. But if you don’t it’s not the end of the world, you can still get into some other great colleges.
I know ivy Is reach for even future nobel prize winners lol, but my dream school is nyu. I’m really good at the sat, I got 1100 on the psat, and I only studied for the reading for 2 months, and didn’t know any of the math, so I’m going to try to get a 1500, work really hard next year, get good recs and EC’s write a really good essay, and try to go to NYU.
As for skipping, I’ll talk to my counselor, about whats best for me. Is this better?
You just finished 9th grade. What you want to study in college, and where the best place for you to study that could change several times in the next two or three years - and even after you graduate from high school. So don’t get crazy in love with any one college or university just yet.
That said, if you truly dislike high school, and you really just want to get on with being in college, do some research on early college. Most places admit students who they deem to be ready for college who haven’t finished high achool yet. Some places admit students as young as your age. Financial aid can be a challenge in that situation because federal aid can only go to people with high school equivalency. If you aren’t going to need aid, however, you could have a number of decent options right now.
That is a question even for people who were accepted into the Ivies will not be able to answer with an emphatic yes when they submitted their application. You just finished 9th grade. Lots can happen in the next few years. But if you stay the same course as you had in 9th grade, the answer will be “no”. But if you are able to shift your life to better time management and start to love learning and take the fullest advantage of what high school has to offer, then it will all show up in your grades and make you a very attractive applicant to any colleges you apply to. Also many of the elite colleges will be looking for something you are passionate about and have excelled, such as sports, among others. So look for something you are or will be passionate and go all out as well, which can possible be a hook for you.
If you want to raise your GPA and make a well-rounded application, I don’t suggest skipping a grade. Using all four years in high school will give you time to redeem your grades, add extracurriculars and find passions.
It’s hard to understand the reasoning in a post that includes the phrases “I really screwed up bad freshman year” and
“I want to skip a year as well”… or to imagine a guidance counselor who would put the two together.
It sounds like he’s really trying to make up for his less than stellar freshman year, and wants to do something extraordinary to make it up, such as skipping a year of highschool. Don’t do it buddy. It’s not going to end well for you…
Colleges won’t be impressed by you graduating early.
Your main goal should to raise your GPA, and show them several years of good grades. That means that to reach your goal of being able to perhaps get into some elite level schools, you really DO NOT want to skip a grade. You need the year you plan to skip, so you can use it to take advanced classes and get good grades and raise your GPA. Do not skip a grade.