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College help


Dominatus

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First off, I'm going to mention that I'm not sure if this is the right part of KSP forums to be posting this. If not, no hate, okay?

I'm a junior in a high school located in Michigan. First semester grades came back, and after looking at my GPA I'm more than a little freaked out. It shows a 2.87, and that is really bad for someone with big plans such as myself. In addition to this, I have only been involved in one extracurricular activity my entire time in high school, and have yet to take an honors or AP course.

I'm not stupid, though. My teachers in the past have remarked that I'm too smart and charming; I learned to do just enough to get by, and to charm my way into passing classes. Middle school changed that behavior some- I was learning to be responsible, to raise my grades, and the medicine for ADD really helped. I left the study skills classes halfway through my sophomore year, and haven't needed one since.

And when I mentioned that I'm smart, I mean it. I always test well, have great ideas and the ability to pass my inspiration on to those around me. My personality type is ENFP, and I impress friends, parents, and teachers alike. Every year so far my class was given a practice ACT, which predicts your score for the real thing while also placing you in a percentile of the students who took it. Last year my projected score was 28-32, I was above average in all classes, and in English I scored in the 99th percentile, though I don't remember my other classes.

This year I am going to study for the ACT. I've also decided to man up, and acheive the A letter grades I know I could get with a little bit of effort. I will enroll in a couple of AP and Honors courses, join Debate and the archery team, in addition to DECA (which I'm going to states in)... And try to get a nice letter of recommendation from the teachers I've gotten close to. With the ACT approaching, I'm going to start studying, and plan on taking the SAT soon. I also need to make a portfolio...

What else can I do? I know that if I get straight A's in normal classes next year I can only raise my grade to a 3.21 or so. Any suggestions as to how I can improve would be welcome.

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Depends on what you want to do in the future. For me, I knew I wanted to be an aerospace engineer for as long as I can remember. I also didn't get involved with too many extracurricular activities, but I made up for that with a lot of engineering classes. Fortunately, my school was part of a project that inteded to provide more engineering classes to students so I took as many as I could. I like to think that this really helped me get into my current school(Now a 4th year junior at Drexel University in Philadelphia).

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You sound exactly like me in High school (except that I don't have ADD.) May I suggest community college? They are much cheaper and allow you to get your gen ed. course work out of the way for a fraction of the price. If you can build up a high GPA on your college transcript there, you should be able to transfer to a four year school to complete your degree without problem. Community college is no longer seen as a "cop out" to universities. Where I'm going to school, the Community College of Baltimore County, because I'm in the honors program there, I've got guaranteed admission to several Maryland schools once I graduate.

Community college will let you build your GPA back up, get you credits, save your money, may qualify you for scholarships, and makes it easy to work part time. Never mind the fact that you are almost guaranteed admission to a community college. Another advantage is that it will make the transition process to college easier. Your classes will be smaller than most university classes. My high school GPA was 2.8 unweighted, 3.2 weighted. Now that I'm in college, my GPA is 3.3 unweighted. Trust me, it will help you out.

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Community colleges are under-rated. You can get a lot done there, for a fraction of the cost. And people make jokes about the quality of instructors, but a lot of them are retirees who are doing it because they like it and are good at it. My first-year physics was taught by an honest-to-goodness NASA engineer, and it was actually a much more rigorous class than the year 2 I took at a university. So yeah, Dominatus, community college would be a good way to get your GPA up before moving on to a university.

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I'd recommend that you start looking around at the colleges that interest you, community colleges can be really good choices as already mentioned, in addition though, as you do your search, get into contact with the faculty there, because making that contact before your application even gets in can really put you ahead, I wound up going to LTU on scholarships likely in part because I was a familiar face to the faculty, including the deans.

As towards high school, the engineering classes can really help you out, they may not go for credits, but they provide some pretty valuable experience.

When you start to look at AP courses, check with the colleges you're looking at see, what courses they'll except and where you need to score to get the credits, based off of what I've seen for engineering, AP Chemistry, AP Lit and/or Composition (some schools will only take one, others both), and AP Econ can get you out of some of the more sluggish freshman classes, and save you a good chunk of change. AP Calc, normally split between AB Calc (First college semester calculus) and BC Calc (First and second semester calc) Can be a bit of two edged sword, depending on your math skills. If you do well in math and can study on your own, go for it, however, transition wise, both classes can be difficult, in that if you get college credit for them, your taking the next calc class in college, normally calc 2 or 3, both of which build off of the prior courses, you have a couple months in the summer between classes, so you'd need to really study up before your classes start to keep up.

Additionally, look for and apply for any scholarships you can, there's a lot of money out there, I myself for example applied for an essay scholarship run by the Michigan chapter of UNAA (United Nations Association of America), the essay was actually a paragraph about what the UN meant to me, only one other person from my school applied, and in the entire state, less than 50 applied, I took first got a check for $75, easy. Some scholarships aren't so easy, but if you look and try, go for it, because even if your classes are cheap, the textbooks, even rented/used can be expensive.

In regards to extra curriculars, debate and archery are an interesting mix, I'd recommend trying to get some volunteering in as well, if not to put on your applications, (though volunteering looks very good on them), then to help others, which trust me, leaves you feeling like a million bucks sometimes.

If you can, this spring or next look into something called the Global Trade Mission, see if you can't get your school and/or yourself involved, it throws you into a scenario where the focus is on team building and networking I unfortunately haven't been involved in it since 2010, so it may have changed since then, but quick break down is that it's a kind of two day simulation in which you are placed into a random group with three other people, told to pick a field (electronics, robotics, communications, software, etc.), pick a regional market, come up with a product, figure out how to market the product and some basic logistics, and then pitch that to experts in that field. It's crazy, but it can do a lot of good, I wound up having lunch with a NASA engineer from JPL, he was going to write my letter of recommendation, but was pulled a way by curiosity.... The point being, if you can network, get to know people in the field as they can really help you in the future.

My final recommendation is to pick what you feel you can afford and what fits you best, that is to say look for a balance between financial security and your happiness.

Good luck

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