Should I bother applying to Highly Selective Schools?

friendlymaniac
Mon, 03 Oct 2011 20:30:52 +0000

I’m a senior. I had an incredibly rough time emotionally junior year and that horribly affected all of my grades, AP test scores, and my first SAT score (I took the October 1 test this year, and I expect that I did much better). My rough time dropped my gpa and rank (I went from 3rd out of roughly 650 to 11th). I got C’s and D’s for most of the year in
AP Calc AB, and low C’s for most of the year in AP Chemistry. Low A’s for History, and mid-to-high A’s in English and Anatomy. Before junior year, I had an A+ or A in every class but math, where I typically received anywhere from 92-96%.

I have never really been rank or gpa-obsessive, but most of the schools I want to go to are Ivies or otherwise highly competitive. My question is whether or not I stand a valid chance of getting into these schools despite my less-than-stellar school records junior year. I know that institutions will say that they take these things into consideration, but my parents are not so optimistic. Any input on what my chances are, or how I might be able to alleviate the problem?

Other info: I want to go into environmental engineering or systems engineering, probably combined with some kind of business or economics degree. For the duration of my high school career, I have never taken a course that was not Honors or AP. I have 4+ courses in every major academic area, minus English (I tested out of senior-level English and am taking a University-level introductory linguistics course instead).

Senior courses:
AP Calc BC
AP Physics II
Honors Chinese (fifth year)
Linguistics (online course)
AP Comparative Government
AP US Government (1st semester), AP Microeconomics (2nd semester)

Predicted SAT scores (based on a practice SAT I took before the October test):
Reading: 750-780
Writing: 780-800
Math: 700-750

I have lots of extracurricular activities, but the main ones have been rugby, writing poetry and short stories, Science Olympiad (I’m captain this year), playing the cello, and serving as technical coordinator and pronouncer for the local North South Foundation junior and senior spelling bees.

Do I stand a reasonable chance of admission into the Ivies and similarly competitive schools?