That little bit of information (your state) is extremely important. If you had mentioned that in one of your other 41 threads or 79 posts it would have saved you a lot of time.
Your NJ public (Rutgers/New Brunswick) offers a Classics major. They use weighted GPA (but on a 4.5 scale). It doesn’t say what classes they use to calculate GPA (you’d have to call to ask them).
“From https://admissions.newbrunswick.rutgers.edu/applying/admissions-profile: The charts below indicate the approximate SAT and ACT score ranges and grade-point averages for the middle 50% of students regularly admitted to Rutgers for fall 2020. Please note: “Middle 50%” means that 25% of regularly admitted students exceeded these ranges and 25% of regularly admitted students had scores and grade-point averages below these ranges.”
The mid-50% weighted for New Brunswick’s Liberal Arts and Sciences is 3.6-4.1. The ACT mid-50% is 27-33. If you can get your 3.1 weighted up to a 3.6 you may have a chance at Rutgers/New Brunswick. BUT, the 3.6 would have to be calculated using only the courses they use in their calculations. And even a 3.6 weighted GPA would put you on the low end of their scale. I think that makes it a reach.
I’m not sure about the role of Italian in studying classics as an undergrad. Scholars will tell you Italian is a modern language. What’s required for classics is the ancient. No way DH (a classics and medieval scholar) would have let D1 use Italian instead of Latin. No way adcoms will see the two studies as par. Not at colleges where they care about your prep and ability to keep up, in real classes with learned peers. All this chat about starting Latin in college misses that you have to get admitted. You have to be ready. DH picked up Italian in grad school, for the ability to read original scholarly works written in Italian. Not the other way around.
GPA. In rawest terms, a 3.1/5 weighted would be a 2.5 weighted out of 4. Weighted. Not good enough. But OP is throwing in courses like drivers ed and business.
And OP has to specify freaking what history, English, et al, courses, by name. We don’t know if history, eg, was some easy, generalist version or on a more serious level.
Sheesh.
Bad decision to go for CS and APES before the humanities cores. Bad decision to assume this in any way makes up for holes in the core curriculum.
Numerous times, OP said he’d complete all cores. None of us see that coming. He is NOT citing the courses that satisfy expectations.
All those B grades (not to mention real Cs and the D) won’t cut it. Look, they view the transcript for several reasons. One is the overall courses experienced and mastery (grades represent learning level, like it or not.) And the attention you pay to your studies, week by week.
Another is your thinking in the selections made. Oops. Then there’s the more specific issue of, are you prepared for the college course of study you “claim” interest in?
I don’t see how anyone thinks they jump from Italian 2 to AP, just with the idea of “self study” and the AP test. Let’s be real. The first years of lang study are about the basics, structure, proper usage, facility, etc. AP tends to be a higher level of reading, interpretation, and expression. And much more precision.
“If I can show colleges I’m capable and asking if a have a chance of admission if I do raise my grades.” It’s not about being “capable.” It’s about your actual record, the performance, the choices made and what it all shows about your energy, commitment, and thinking. All along.
@lookingforward is so accurate on so many points. Italian is not preparation for classics, nor is it realistic to think you can just self study for the AP exam. My kiddo was a Classics major at a top school and it was still very intense, time consuming and difficult. This was after has HS preparation of Latin 1, 2 and 3, both AP Latins and IB Latin. To think you are going to step into Classics with a couple of years of Italian is simply not realistic.
Why Classics? Is there something else you are interested in?
Edit: I think there may have been only one Latin AP exam, it’s been awhile. Even with that she still had 5 years of Latin in HS as preparation for a Classics major.
There’s one now. The second was discontinued in 2009 along with CSAB, French Literature, and Italian. I was amongst the first group taking the revived Italian exam in 2012.
Thanks, I looked it up and it said only the one, thats why I did the edit but I thought I remembered kiddo taking 2. I remember one was Vergil, what was the other @skieurope?
Do you live near a college (CC or 4-year) that a HS student can enroll in?
If so, take freshman-level classes in Philosophy and Ancient History. Add Latin 1 from High School and Honors English.
YOU CANNOT TAKE AP ITALIAN AFTER ITALIAN 2. It’s like trying to take precalculus after grade school. You are lacking huge building blocks. You won’t demonstrate anything except hubris and that you don’t understand how language learning works. It will not look good to colleges. Taking Dual Enrollment Italian 2 and 3 (equivalent to HS Italian 3 and 4 on steroids) can show your interest in Languages.
So, to summarize, your schedule should look like this:
JUNIOR YEAR
Algebra2
APES
Latin 1
Honors English
Dual Enrollment Ancient History (Semester 1)/Dual Enrollment Philosophy (Semester 2)
Dual Enrollment Italian 3 (Semester 1)/Dual Enrollment Italian 4 (Semester 2)
Summer:
Dual enrollment Latin 1 (hardcore Latin course)
SENIOR YEAR
APUSH (if you’ve not taken US history before) OR Dual Enrollment US History semester 1&2 Or US History Honors or another history course
Precalculus or Statistics
Conceptual Physics
AP Lit or Honors English or Dual Enrollment English/Composition
Latin 3 honors
Dual Enrollment History, Art History, Philosophy, Ancient Greek 1
This will allow you to have a shot at Rutgers and Montclair as a classics major.
Fill out the “request info” form from the following universities (all
Seton Hall
Siena
Duquesne
Loyola Maryland
St Michael’s (Vermont)
Hobard&William Smith
Drew
Canisius
Temple
UScranton
MYOS’s plan would be nicely ambitious. It remains to be seen if the new hs allows for that- and OP commits to that path. It requires a lot of energy and focus, on top of comprehending WHY we’re advocating a less dreamy approach.
But, you have the option of starting to fill these serious blanks asap, then starting freshman year at a comm college or less competitive college, continuing to make up for lost time…and then trying for a transfer to Rutgers or one of those MYOS just listed.
Note that MYOS’s list still includes schools with a rough average gpa of 3.5+. OP has miles to go.
Lol, @CottonTales, some of us do take Latin rather seriously. And can laugh at ourselves for it. Fwiw, my kiddo also had the right Latin background plus a thrill for history, plus a Dad who worked in it, and still struggled through AP Latin. For program reasons, she switched to Ancient Greek, in college.
OP, it requires focus and dedication, which is well beyond dreams. A solid plan, underway, beats speculating.
@collegefreak9488, Have your parents given you a budget? It’s important to know how much they can pay per year without borrowing. Fordham is ~$70k/year. Can they pay that? If not, then budget is going to be your first hurdle.
I think you should spend more time focusing on actual learning and less looking for impressive sounding courses and weighted classes. You seem to be assuming that if the name sounds impressive (AP this or DE that) then adcoms will ignore the gaps in your transcript. You also seem to think that if you can use AP and DE courses outside the core to boost your overall GPA then you’ll be competitive at the college’s you want. Neither of those is true.
Adcoms are first going to look for a solid foundation of courses. In order to be successful in college (and for your own general knowledge) you need 4 years of English, plus algebra, geometry, precalculus or statistics, US history, world history, American government and economics, biology, chemistry, earth science, and 2-3 years of the same foreign language. Make sure you’re picking courses with your education, not college admissions, in mind.