My High school is very weak in academics will this affect my college acceptance?
I'm a worrier by nature and I just thought of this while browsing online. My highschool is in the middle of no where Alabama and it is a good school but it isn't too strong in academics. I have a 3.83 unweighted GPA (4.33 weighted) a 26 on the ACT and am very active in volunteer work and extracurricular activities. The classes I have takin are hard ones and I'm sure they are at the average level of difficulty, but the school as a whole has a bad reputation for strong academics. I'm a good student, I work hard and I have demanding classes but I'm worried that colleges won't be able to see this. I'm looking at private colleges in the San Francisco Bay area like St. Mary's, Dominican, Santa Ana University, Stanford. And I'm also looking at UCDavis, UCBerkeley, and UCSanta Cruz. I'm really worried that although I have great scores I will be denied because of my alabama public school's reputation. Any help?
Higher Education (University +) - 4 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
Get the best possible grades you can and sign up for the most demanding classes available. Join clubs, and get involved in student government, sports, music, and community activities. All of this will factor into your qualifications. Ask the smartest most demanding teacher you have to write your recommendation. I think you are well qualified to gain acceptance to any of those schools with the possible exception of Stanford, which is very sought after. Don't let that stop you from applying, though.
2 :
No. Colleges only look for what YOU do not what the school does. True they look at some things about the HS where you came in but not really. They are mostly concerned with YOU.
3 :
Don't worry I don't think they will deny you based on the school you attend, it seems to me that you have been very involved. I should know, I got accepted to UCLA, UC Berkely, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Merced (they were the only ones I applied to) and I wasn't involved in school, I got a 1010 on my SAT, and my weighted GPA was 4.2. However, I do believe that they look for someone who shows determination and really tries in school. And chances are that you are one of the many students under a program that allows for students to be admitted to at least one University when applying.
4 :
I was valedictorian of a small high school of 250 students in Illinois. My 30 ACT and 1240 SAT (20 years ago, I have no idea how it compares to today) were somewhere in the top ten percent. When I took the tests, I allowed them to send my scores to schools that might be interested. I was inundated with small liberal arts schools' flyers from all over the Midwest and beyond. I went to Illinois. Admission was pretty painless - a good class rank and test scores will go a long way, as they won't look too deeply into your individual school. If you are taking the best college prep program available, that's all you can do. My high school had no AP courses, didn't have calculus, only one year of chemistry, physics was offered only every other year. My high school counselor was so lazy he looked at me when I was a sophmore looking to schedule my junior classes and commented that "You might want to go to college." He then suggested the local community college. I looked at him and went, "What do you think about Northwestern?" He looked at me like why do you want to make me work? And I then proceeded to torture him by teasing all those small liberal arts schools sending flyers by requesting more info - heck a bunch of them sent recruiters just to see me, so the counselor had to deal with setting up all these visits. It really irritated him because he knew I was going to either Northwestern or Illinois. And your wanting to go to the Bay area will probably help you. Schools like diversity, and being from small town Alabama will be a plus - whereas it might be a negative if you were looking at 'Bama or Auburn. Nobody will know much about your school in the Bay area. And when I got to Illinois it wasn't long before I realized that the kids from the monster academic suburban schools might have had harder classes in high school, but they weren't any smarter than I was. Most of them because they went to big schools could not be involved in many activities, and had no clue how to do time management. And they had never experienced failure; when you play sports and do drama and band and chorus and whatever at a small school, you've dealt with failure at some point. They would get a C on a paper or something and just freak out - rather than analyze what went wrong. You should have no further problems getting into school than anyone else. Berkeley and Stanford are hard to get into period, but you should have a good chance of getting in.
I'm a worrier by nature and I just thought of this while browsing online. My highschool is in the middle of no where Alabama and it is a good school but it isn't too strong in academics. I have a 3.83 unweighted GPA (4.33 weighted) a 26 on the ACT and am very active in volunteer work and extracurricular activities. The classes I have takin are hard ones and I'm sure they are at the average level of difficulty, but the school as a whole has a bad reputation for strong academics. I'm a good student, I work hard and I have demanding classes but I'm worried that colleges won't be able to see this. I'm looking at private colleges in the San Francisco Bay area like St. Mary's, Dominican, Santa Ana University, Stanford. And I'm also looking at UCDavis, UCBerkeley, and UCSanta Cruz. I'm really worried that although I have great scores I will be denied because of my alabama public school's reputation. Any help?
Higher Education (University +) - 4 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
Get the best possible grades you can and sign up for the most demanding classes available. Join clubs, and get involved in student government, sports, music, and community activities. All of this will factor into your qualifications. Ask the smartest most demanding teacher you have to write your recommendation. I think you are well qualified to gain acceptance to any of those schools with the possible exception of Stanford, which is very sought after. Don't let that stop you from applying, though.
2 :
No. Colleges only look for what YOU do not what the school does. True they look at some things about the HS where you came in but not really. They are mostly concerned with YOU.
3 :
Don't worry I don't think they will deny you based on the school you attend, it seems to me that you have been very involved. I should know, I got accepted to UCLA, UC Berkely, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Merced (they were the only ones I applied to) and I wasn't involved in school, I got a 1010 on my SAT, and my weighted GPA was 4.2. However, I do believe that they look for someone who shows determination and really tries in school. And chances are that you are one of the many students under a program that allows for students to be admitted to at least one University when applying.
4 :
I was valedictorian of a small high school of 250 students in Illinois. My 30 ACT and 1240 SAT (20 years ago, I have no idea how it compares to today) were somewhere in the top ten percent. When I took the tests, I allowed them to send my scores to schools that might be interested. I was inundated with small liberal arts schools' flyers from all over the Midwest and beyond. I went to Illinois. Admission was pretty painless - a good class rank and test scores will go a long way, as they won't look too deeply into your individual school. If you are taking the best college prep program available, that's all you can do. My high school had no AP courses, didn't have calculus, only one year of chemistry, physics was offered only every other year. My high school counselor was so lazy he looked at me when I was a sophmore looking to schedule my junior classes and commented that "You might want to go to college." He then suggested the local community college. I looked at him and went, "What do you think about Northwestern?" He looked at me like why do you want to make me work? And I then proceeded to torture him by teasing all those small liberal arts schools sending flyers by requesting more info - heck a bunch of them sent recruiters just to see me, so the counselor had to deal with setting up all these visits. It really irritated him because he knew I was going to either Northwestern or Illinois. And your wanting to go to the Bay area will probably help you. Schools like diversity, and being from small town Alabama will be a plus - whereas it might be a negative if you were looking at 'Bama or Auburn. Nobody will know much about your school in the Bay area. And when I got to Illinois it wasn't long before I realized that the kids from the monster academic suburban schools might have had harder classes in high school, but they weren't any smarter than I was. Most of them because they went to big schools could not be involved in many activities, and had no clue how to do time management. And they had never experienced failure; when you play sports and do drama and band and chorus and whatever at a small school, you've dealt with failure at some point. They would get a C on a paper or something and just freak out - rather than analyze what went wrong. You should have no further problems getting into school than anyone else. Berkeley and Stanford are hard to get into period, but you should have a good chance of getting in.
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