<p>In high school my freshman year I was a smart kid got a 4.0, then my sophmore year I discovered a nice green plant and booze. Needless to say my gpa junior year was a 1.1 and my senior year I had a 1.9. I went to a community college and took hard schedules and got good grades and managed to get an acceptance at the University of Miami. I plan to continue my major (biochemistry) and end up in dental school in the next year or two. Good luck to everyone applying, remember the only time you are really finished is when you quit. Nothing can stop you from achieving anything and everything that you want!</p>
<p>wow, great job burgler! did you do well on the SAT? Can you PM me your stats? I too did awful in high school. Granted I never went below 2.0 but 2.5, which is what I had, is still very low.</p>
<p>Nice job, johnny1 and burgler. Thatās really impressive.</p>
<p>This whole time I thought it was too late to go to a good college. Damn this gives me hope.</p>
<p>i had a 2.0is in h.s. Iāve always been a nerd but I worked full-time my junior and senior year to help support my family. What made it worse was that I was a hardcore slacker. My poor marks continued into college. I eventually got kicked out. It was a combination again of work/family issues coupled with a lack of motivation. Anyways I took some time to seriously reevaluate where I wanted to go. I went back to a new school in the fall, changed my major to biology and thus far have a 4.0 over 20credits. Iām taking 16 more right now. Because I got kicked out of school once Iām not holding my breath until I get into a top 10 school. Iāll be quite content to get my bachelors from Umass Boston and go on to an excellent grad school :)</p>
<p>Iām the counter-example here :(</p>
<p>Highschool
4.0 throughout, 2190/2400 sat, crapload of ecās, top 1% rank</p>
<p>Georgetown Univ.
3.2 w/ 17 cred 
having the crummiest time ever (ok, this may be biasedāit is midterms week, after all)</p>
<p>Hang in there, kornpopz. It will very likely get better.</p>
<p>This thread is awesome. Iām sick of all the pretencious people who look down at community colleges, when they really play such a big role in helping people turn around their lives and get into amazing programs.</p>
<p>I was doing well in high school but left high school after my junior year, took a year at community college, and got into Cornell, UCLA, Berkeley, etc. Iām now at UCLA - double major/3.8 GPA, and just got accepted to the London School of Economics with funding.</p>
<p>My sister did the same thing and got accepted to Princeton, Harvard, Duke, and now goes to Stanford, human biology major with a 3.9 GPA. She still did well in high school and graduated at the top of her class, but the universities didnt look down on the CC classes one bit.</p>
<p>Community colleges are not for people who arenāt smart/donāt have plans for the future. Best of luck to you all!</p>
<p>The point of MY story? Itās sitll possible to get in your dream school even after the first rejection. I had 3.2 GPA out of HS (with 6 APs) but my SATs were terrible (1090). After being rejected from Colgate, I called them and said, āWhat can I do to get in Colgate?ā Their answer was enough for me to buckle down and get As for once. So I applied againā¦ and got in for transfer with a 3.4 GPA.</p>
<p>So even if you didnāt get in your first choice school, you can always call up and find out what went wrong and FIX that. Keep them updated.</p>
<p>Now if I can get in that attitude for my current grad school admissions Iām not really looking to lose another yearā¦</p>
<p>WOW nobleguy- That is really impressive. That sounds exactly like what I want to doā¦ LSE, wow, thatās my DREAM school.</p>
<p>Iām not a success story yet, but hope to be one. I graduated High School in 2002 with about a 2.3GPA and a 27 on my ACT. Now Iām at a CC, and hope to go to Berkeley, CMC, or Northwesternā¦</p>
<p>Hey, I belong in this thread! Graduated HS w/a GPA that was ~2.5. Made everything from As to Fs. I thought - and still think - that most of it was a silly waste of time. I wasnāt Beavis & Butthead - I could discuss current events very well for a teenager, give anyone my age a run for their money in āquiz bowlā events, would work my tail off at a part-time job, good scores on standardized tests, etc.</p>
<p>After HS I began at a local CC and eventually graduated with honors from a state flagship U. Now 22 yrs. out of HS and number of jobs later Iāve finished Ph.D coursework with a 3.8 GPA.</p>
<p>It is really just a matter of making the effort.</p>
<p>3.1 UW GPA at public high school-----> 3.91 cumulative college GPA at a top 10 public university. (Actually, I transfered from University of Iowa, where I had a 3.87 cumulative, to U Wisconsin, where I got a 4.0 last semester). Also excelling in a number of ECs. I had almost none in high school. The 3.1 high school GPA included a 2.6 semester in soph. year where I had 2 Ds in Geometry and Biology.</p>
<p>ACT: 29 comp, 12 writing.</p>
<p>I have a friend who had several Fās and Dās on his HS transcript. His overall GPA was hardly a āBā average, and he went to Florida State University. After getting his act together, he transferred to the highly regarded University of Florida, and now has a Masters in Business from there. He also started his own company.</p>
<p>Im kind of interested in this, and was wondering how much your SAT scores count when transferring. I got into a pretty good college (Emory), but my SATs (1360/2080) arenāt that great and my ECs arenāt too good. If I do really well in college, will that stuff still count at all? Will I be able to transfer somewhere really good? How do employers look at transfers, et cetera?</p>
<p>Iām not a success story yet but hope to be.</p>
<p>I didnāt think all too much about college during high school. No one in my family ever went to college so I didnāt know how I was supposed to prepare.
The only thing that would help me in the long run would be my natural competitive personality. If i didnāt have it, I would have done horrible in school.
Freshman year of high school the only honors class I was in was Algebra II. Then I got into American History and Biology honors sophomore year. Junior year I got kicked out of History Honors for my low grades but continued with honors science courses. I also never knew how important ECās were for college so I didnāt join that any clubs or do anything until my junior year.</p>
<p>I started to sleep during class at the beginning of my sophomore year and before you know it, Iām sleeping in all my classes and getting yelled at for it. I didnāt care, I would naturally get Bās so i didnāt see the point. </p>
<p>During all this I planned on becoming a Bio Engineer or a theology major. At the end of Junior year I changed my mind to Film.</p>
<p>Senior year I joined a film club that no one knew even existed and ended up creating my classā senior video. I loved it. I went so far as to get the John Ondrasik from Five for Fighting to send in a Congratulations video for my class since 100 years would be our class song. I loved it.</p>
<p>I applied to BU, NYU, Ithaca, Emerson, and Ohio Universsity (Athens). No one told me about USC. I asked my GC later on why she didnāt tell me about it. She said I had a 0% shot so she didnāt bother. I guess she was right since my teachers were constantly complaining to her that I was sleeping in their class.</p>
<p>I wasted a lot of my parents money for SAT prep classes and tutoring because I slept or didnāt study.</p>
<p>I graduated High School with a 3.2 weighted GPA, 1280 SAT (without writing) and got accepted to Ithaca for T.V, and Emerson College for Film production. This is all while sleeping and not paying attention in class. I believe I could have done so much better and achieved so much more if I had put my mind to it. It is the difference between where I am now and where I wish to be.</p>
<p>Right now I have a 3.6 GPA at Emerson as a freshman and trying to transfer to USC after sophomore year. Emerson isnāt a bad school but I want to do better for my parents. Theyāve done a whole lot for me and I want to do something for them.</p>
<p>This isnāt a crazy success story. I just want people to know that they can always to better. Donāt settle for less.</p>
<p>āNever, never, never give upā - Winston Churchill</p>
<p>I love this thread - itās all about hope. Itās so wrong when people, especially young ones, think in such narrow terms about what is and isnāt possible. Reading some of the posts on CC, you would think your life is OVER if you fail to get that 4.0 in high school. The real world is more forgiving than that. I would venture that the restrictive, anxious thinking which accompanies such a frightened view of the future could do more harm than the academic achievement could help. </p>
<p>Opportunities should not be squandered, but there are second and third chances down the road (especially in this great country of ours). There are some things a person could do which could really mess up a future, but those sorts of things usually have to do with matters of law, health, and ethics. Grades and test scores just arenāt in that category. </p>
<p>Kudos to those who shared their great turnarounds.</p>
<p>HS GPA: 3.1 UW, declining trend with the lowest GPA in the 8th semester; demanding courseload (4 out of 7 APs taken); non-competitive HS.
ACT: 26 (11 writing)
HS ECs: Independent history research, newspaper, Amnesty International outside of school
Awards: 5th place in the nation, History Channel competition; ā30 Under 30ā for greatest impact on Chicagoās LGBT community; praise from nationally prominent LGBT scholar; talk televised on citywide TV network; front page on 2 suburban newspapers, photo article in Chicago Sun-Times</p>
<p>College: 3.8 GPA (3.5, 3.8, 4.0 summer, 3.96), Loyola U. Chicago
Recs: didnāt see but probably strongā¦5 sent in total: 1 from director of prominent history research organization whoās known me since HS and whose colleagues have known me since 6th grade, 2 professors, college adviser, and HS guidance counselor (the latter two sent letters even though they were optional)
Essays: Simple, straightforward, heartfelt (some people thought the main one was funny, but it was not meant that wayā¦ could be offensive depending on the reader). btw, I broke the word limit with a long essay of 1,300 words in addition to the short ones.
ECs: Citywide leadership position for Amnesty International, VP Amnesty International Loyola, starter of āCoffeeshop Hopping in Chicagoā (I started this on a whim, and it grew to 60+ members within like 2 weeks)</p>
<p>Applied: WashU, Northwestern, Rice, Cornell ILR, Emory
Accepted: WashU, Northwestern, Rice, Emory
Denied: Cornell
Attending: NORTHWESTERN! yay</p>
<p>Donāt give up guys. I didnāt think Iād end up where I am now. Also, Iām doing really wellā¦all As so far and all my classes are 300-level (I average of 9 hours of sleep every night). I also took on dancing just randomly, and I was put on a lead role already!</p>
<p>Congratulations to everyone who did well in college after a mediocre high school performance. Did anyone get offered merit aid from the colleges that accepted their transfer applications?</p>
<p>I am quite a bit older than the average college student, so I have some age-related wisdom to impart. Please donāt stress out too much about WHERE you go to college. What matters much more in life is what you do with the education you receive, whether itās at a public university or an Ivy League school. I do quite a bit of hiring for a Fortune 500 company and I donāt care one bit about the college someone attended; itās work experience, personality and drive that ultimately matter the mostā¦</p>
<p>On the grammar front, if you are a high school or college graduate, you should NOT be using the phrase: āgraduated high school/graduated college.ā That sounds illiterate. You should say: āgraduated FROMā¦ā I cringe every time I hear that expression, and so should everyone else!</p>
<p>please donāt let grades prevent you from applying to the dream college of your choice. i had a 2.71 GPA overall, 1750/2400 SAT and was still able to get into a top 50 ranked school. if you have good recommendations, good ECās, a good essay, passion, and a lot of hope in your selfāsometimes colleges will see it in your application. iām now getting 4.0ās in college.</p>