I am at the end of my Sophomore year and I have been looking at colleges and what they will expect of me in the next few years. I know I will be in the engineering field and I currently want to be a mechanical engineer. I want to go to a school like UW Madison of UM Ann Arbor but with my current uw gpa, the odds are against me (3.1 freshman, 3.3 sophomore) I go to a small college preparatory school of 300 people, it is small but it has the highest ACT scores in the area and is recognized by most colleges. I am not very athletic and a lot of the kids that do play them are stuck up pricks, the only sports I have played are 1 year football and 1 year tennis. I will be taking 4 years of all the basic courses like science and math, except for foreign language (no AP classes). Long story short I should have taken Spanish 1 in freshman year but now I can’t go back and am now stuck taking Spanish 3 when I struggle to maintain C, giving me 2 years foreign language. I would like to take another year of Spanish to go to a school like UM Ann Arbor or UW Madison, but I have accepted that it would be too much of a far reach even if I did take it, leading me to my questions.
Some other things you may like to know:
-Eagle Scout
-full high school scholarship
-Normal middle class but never have to worry about financial aid… last gift from deceased relative
-Both of my parents went to U of W
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I know most colleges only need 2 years foreign language but should I take another? (I HATE the class and I have never gotten better than a C on a test)
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I am not sure if colleges would care about my “excuses” so let me know what you recommend my actions.
-Freshman year I was diagnosed with symtoms that would resemble ADD add was given meds which fixed my gpa.
-The main reason why my sophomore gpa was not 3.5 was because a close family friends took his own life which devastated my family and made me think of what I took for granted (main reason I am writing this) -
I want to go to UW Madison or UM Ann Arbor but I don’t thing that is possible so I am looking at UIUC, Purdue and other engineering colleges (probably mechanical) in/near Wisconsin. What do you think my chances of these colleges or if you know of any others?
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What should my actions/goals/plans be in and after high school?
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My town has several major engineering businesses and a CC that has excellent engineering courses so I am thinking of going there for a couple of years, get an internship and eventually transfer to a college. I would guess 25% of the 200,000 people in the local area work for a engineering business, just to give you an idea. Again I don’t have to worry about money and this is a good plan but would it be better to go straight to college in my situation?
Thank you for your time in reading this article.