Hi I’m currently a junior with a 2.1 gpa and a whole year of the school-year left. I’m going to get a 3.5 or higher the whole year to at least graduate with a 2.7-2.9 gpa. Although I have an extremely low gpa I plan on getting a 2100 on the SAT when I take it January. If I have a really low gpa but a pretty good SAT score what are my chances of getting into colleges like Penn State, Howard, John Hopkins or Delaware? I am really smart but my high school social life got the best of me :(. I also do a lot of clubs and played a sport for two years and I plan on graduating with 300 service hours. I want to be a pharmacist so I have to get into a great college with a great pre-pharmacy program. If not the colleges I mentioned please give suggestions on what colleges I may be able to get into that’ll help my profession. I just want to be successful I have it in me it just took me a while to get on the right track.
Come back in January after first semester and the PSAT and let us know how you are doing at that point. And even with the scores and grades you mention, Johns Hopkins is probably not on. Look at the common data set, section c (google it) to compare those stats to those of the admitted students. Only 3% of admitted students had GPAs below 3.0. Those 3% are almost certainly URMs who started slow, but surged ahead in their final years (much as you are proposing to do) or recruited athletes (ditto).
http://web.jhu.edu/registrar/reports/Reports_2013_2014/CDS_2013-2014_10-9-214_guidebooks.pdf
I would add that service hours, clubs and sports are worth nothing if your grades don’t meet the minimum required for admission to most schools. Most schools do not consider ECs at all, except as proof that you have a life outside of school and therefore some basic social skills. Those that consider them, don’t care which ones or how intensively you do them. 2-3 ECs is plenty. Only the most selective schools will use ECs differentiate between all otherwise indistinguishable kids with great recommendations, high test scores and top grades. You are not in that category.
My advice - drop all but one of your ECs. If you do really well this semester, you can add back one more. All that time that you free up should go to studying and practicing for your SAT. That 3.5 GPA is crucial if you think you are going to a great college with a great pre-pharm program.
A 3.5 GPA would mean going from a C student to an A-/B+ student. Do your best, but definitely don’t assume this’ll happen in putting together your college list.
IF you can bring your GPA up to a 2.9 and get an SAT score over 1800, you could look into FAMU. They have a decent PharmD program. Be forewarned, a pharmacy program is very competitive and challenging. Lots of advanced science courses (Physics, Chemistry, Biochemistry, etc.).