<p>I’m currently a Junior, but take a course in grade 11 comsci. As a web developer and entrepreneur, I’ve founded numerous projects and is to be named “Top 20 under 20” on Profit magazine. At the beginning of the year I had the mindset to get straight As, but in the past few months have skipped almost every day of school working on projects from home.I’ve went from 94% (which I consider mediocre), to a 75% average.</p>
<p>That said, I have a trend of B-C grades. I always start the year with a 95%, then my grades drop signifigantly as I become completely emersed with the business I’m running. I constantly weigh the value of going to school and studying academia, versus developing the next big thing for the web. Usually, coding wins over. I don’t see achieving success by balancing my studies possible.</p>
<p>If I put time and dedication into school, I’m able to achieve reasonably high grades. I feel that the time and dedication is better put in the focus of achieving success in my projects. Let’s assume in grade 11/ 12 I achieve a 93% average – which is a major upward trend from my current average, will admission officers overlook the horrendous Junior/ Freshman year? I know Stanford looks for people with passion, dedication and achievement. But how flexible are they with low-academia achievement?</p>
<p>will admission officers overlook the horrendous Junior year?.
in a word- no. they may overlook a bad freshman year, but not JR year grades.
And this:
“but in the past few months have skipped almost every day of school coding projects at home.”
is not going to make it easy for your HS guidance counselor to write a strong letter of recommendation.
You need to get your priorities straight . fast.
There will be PLENTY of time for coding later on- for now- HS is your job if you want to have any chance of acceptance at ANY good university. </p>
<p>Thanks for the replies above. I’ve heard of many students with 3.5-3.6 GPAs get in. What I fail to see is how Junior years show relevance to a student’s future success – especially when I’ve shown achievement and (assuming I receive a major upwards trend in the next 2 years).</p>
<p>To Fluffy: when I apply, my grades will show dedication to my studies. If I hadn’t put so much persistence this year on personal projects, none would not have turned out to be remotely successful. Junior year is very disengaging and I’ve learned a lot more being autodidactic than sitting in the classroom.</p>
<p>“Many students with 3.5-3.6” ?? With a 5.1% acceptance rate, I highly doubt this… what are your SAT/ACT scores? I think you should seriously make sure you have other choices…Stanford is highly unlikely. Also, as a junior, how do you have “the next two years” ?</p>
<p>Last year someone on this forum started a similar thread asking if Stanford would overlook his weaker stats because of his amazing ECs, including starting a very successful internet business. He was admitted this year as an international applicant (likely more competitive than US applicants) with a ~2050 SAT and poor freshman year grades. Stanford values passions and what you do outside of the classroom and would love to have a web developer and entrepreneur who operates a very successful business. Several. other colleges have similar ideals. MIT once admitted a successful web entrepreneur who did not graduate from HS and whose application was mostly code he wrote. A more detailed summary is at <a href=“http://cdixon.org/2011/03/24/mit-is-a-national-treasure/”>http://cdixon.org/2011/03/24/mit-is-a-national-treasure/</a> (I wouldn’t count on this happening again.). However, colleges like Stanford also want admits who they are confident can handle the coursework. If you have poor junior year grades and a LOR from a teacher or GC talking about skipping classes, it won’t bode well for your application. Stanford is likely to overlook your freshman year. They re-calculate GPA without considering freshman year. Junior year is a different story and is quite important for admissions.</p>
<p>I also am a successful web developer and know how much it can absorb your time, especially if you code yourself. If your site is anything like mine, the income can change rapidly. I might be making several times more than I could working as an engineer one month, then the next month make a small fraction of that amount. Predicting income 5 or 10 years in the future is near impossible. If things don’t go well with the business 5 years from now, it’s good to have a degree and educational background to fall back on. Stanford would also allow you to improve your business and programming skills, get connections with lots of venture capitalists and amazing talented people, and put you in a great area of the country for anything related to software start ups. If you want to attend Stanford or other highly selective college, I’d suggest working with your teachers to try to see what can be done to bring up your current junior year grades. If you can’t keep up with the business, you can hire help an a low cost through one of the online project websites. One of the mistakes I made early on was trying to do everything myself. There are a lot of talented people out there who can not only help, but can likely introduce you to new ways of thinking, leading to a better finished product or more personal knowledge for the future.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply Data10, and you made an excellent reponse which I agree with entirely.</p>
<p>I’m currently in Sophmore year, taking a Junior comsci course. As I’ve been too occupied with personal projects, I was unable to finish assignments in school – which count for a signifigant portion of my mark. That said, would showing an extreme upwards trend in Senior year show that my academic studies can be very successful, hence overriding the previous year? With computer science as an example, the assignments we do in class are a lot different from what you’d use developing a startup. It’s mainly programming theory/ inventing the wheel, and stigmatizes creativity while holding standardization as the basis of success.</p>
<p>As for jobs, I’ve been accepted a position as a front-end UX developer and inbound marketer at one of the largest inbound marketing companies in Canada. As a side thought, does Stanford value corporate achievement? For instance, providing a 35% conversion increase for a large client, or achieving 1st page results on Google for a 500, 000 searches keyword.</p>
<p>You may want to check out JHS’s post from April 4th in the Stanford accepts 5.1% thread.
He talks about a potential backlash to people who are focused on the entrepreneurial culture.</p>
<p>Secondly, about 8% of admits have less than a 3.75 unweighted GPA, so it is of course possible.
But remember, you are competing with people whose GPA may be low since they miss a lot of study time since they are a national level athlete or pianist or have a compelling personal story.</p>
<p>As mentioned earlier, talk to your GC to make sure that your skipping classes is described well.</p>
<p>If you are a Canadian applicant be aware that international admits are more difficult than US applicants (lot of competition, even more limit on slots).</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with being an unconventional applicant. But understand that there are others who code a lot and also have great GPAs.</p>
<p>Remember that your application will be read by at least 1 reader. That reader is not necessarily a CS or a business person and so they may not have the context of the difference or have a viewpoint. They are looking for students for Stanford, not for a specific department.</p>
<p>The above can be rephrased with “Drove $100, 000 revenue to a large client at one of Ontario’s most successful internet marketing firms through innovative marketing and design”. Surely, this means more than “Received 100% in grade 11 marketing”?</p>
<p>"colleges like Stanford also want admits who they are confident can handle the coursework. If you have poor year grades and a LOR from a teacher or GC talking about skipping classes, it won’t bode well for your application. "
OP, read this again and listen! YES, doing well in classes at this point IS more important than “Drove $100,000 revenue to a large client at one of Ontario’s most successful internet marketing firms through innovative
marketing and design”. You are NOT applying for a JOB and a IT company, where your CV would be most impressive!. You will be applying to the most competitive colleges in the world. And that competition will only get fiercer in the next 2 years.
Perhaps College might NOT right for you at this point. Perhaps instead you need to look at Peter Thiel Fellowship program.
<a href=“http://www.thielfellowship.org/”>http://www.thielfellowship.org/</a> </p>
<p>Nobody here can tell you what Stanford will think about your grades vs. your accomplishments but your explanations to this point are not going to fly at a school like Stanford…when you say “I was unable to finish assignments in school”, you really are saying you chose not to do these assignments even while knowing they counted for a significant portion of your grade. This shows poor judgment and time management. That being said, if you put your priorities in order…grades…for the next two years, I believe you may have an intriguing application, but maybe not better than the 95% that get rejected each year…</p>