So... college? (Help a lazy fuck)

[rayword45]

EDIT: For clarification purposes, main question I suppose is "what are some good ideas for college?" I plan to major in Econ/Political Science, I just don't know where to go from high school with my current stats and middle class status.

Yup, I'm in that underachiever rut in my life. I need help with college, beyond what my guidance counselor can offer me. I need help from people of college age.

I made a similar thread to this before but now I'm just looking for general life tips and recommendations overall. Beyond "get off your slacker ass".

-If I put in a fair amount of effort towards finals, my weighted GPA is going to be a 2.55 after junior year. (Yes I know I'm a lazy piece of shit I don't need to hear it again). This may be SLIGHTLY alleviated by the fact that I attend an exam school but I am absolutely not relying on that, at all. Senior year, I obviously have no idea how that will go, but the absolute best it could go with given course is up to a 2.83 midyear and a 3.1 end of year. That's not gonna happen BTW, unless I sacrifice all social life which I know I lack the willpower to do.
-2160 first SAT (740 CR, 730 Math, 670 Writing), may or may not take it again, deciding on subject tests as well.
-Contemplating the benefits of taking extra AP tests next year. I'm taking 3 classes and 4 AP tests by default (Gov, Macro and Microecon, Stats) but I wanna take AB Calc and Psych tests.
-I still got pretty good extracurriculars tho, better than 99% of people in my situation. I work for the school district, help with State and City policies on environment, etc; plus music lol nobody cares.

I regret AP Biology so hard. I also resent Latin. But anyways, past the self-loathing, give me tips. Gap year? No early applications? What do?

[DossarLX ODI]

As you already mentioned, that GPA is probably going to hurt your applications but that SAT score is really good. Mine was only around 1800 but I got accepted into my university's honors program and frequently proved to be a reliable teammate in group projects and just a good student in general (I even negotiate with professors to postpone due dates!). From my experience if you really want to succeed, you need the work ethic and a way to remind yourself to be consistent in your effort. For every week, I make a text file for each day planning on what should be done that day and I also have an excel spreadsheet which lists how much time I've spent on certain activities throughout the day for each course and/or other important events -- this will also show if you didn't invest as much time as you planned into something for a particular day and need to catch up.

Also remember to keep a level head. Be pleasant to your professors and don't be afraid to see them during office hours. Become comfortable with admitting you don't know something well and also find other classmates that you can have study sessions with -- this becomes a lot more useful in higher level courses. Knowing other students who have taken certain courses with a certain professor could also make your experience substantially better.

[Deadlyx39]

I'm not quite at the spot that you're at, but I'd say at the least to take your SAT again. It can't hurt you if you do worse so you'd be better off if you just took it as many times as possible. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be in the same boat you're in pretty soon, but I'm not gonna worry about it quite yet.

EDIT: Yeah your SAT score is pretty good right now but it's not like it could hurt to improve it.

[DossarLX ODI]

Also please don't be that student who thinks he or she has learned something by reading a lecture slide. Actually learning something requires slowing down and practicing it (whether it be homework problems or whatever) to see the key ideas. If you're just trying to memorize material, you'll miss the ideas that the class is trying to illustrate and it will make the course harder to do well in. While this may not apply to every course, it's important to not be arrogant.

[rayword45]

Also, I may as well mention that my current goals in life are Econ/Political Science major.

[Trumpet63]

Make friends with people that are more successful than you. Nobody makes it through life alone.

[PhantomPuppy]

lol you're like virtually all my friends. 2000+ SAT scores with a 2.5-3.0 GPA. one of em made it into berklee college of music, which is like one of the hardest music colleges in the country to get into, so i honestly think if you have an outstanding talent or something that sets you apart from others, then you should be okay getting into college for whatever major you want. colleges don't look entirely at GPA is definitely a key thing to remember.

edit: another option is going to community college for general education, then transferring into a school to finish your major. GPA doesn't matter in that case because you can make it into community just off passing highschool, and it will save you money as well.

[DotKritic]

Originally Posted by PhantomPuppy

another option is going to community college for general education, then transferring into a school to finish your major. GPA doesn't matter in that case because you can make it into community just off passing highschool, and it will save you money as well.

Do this. You will save thousands of dollars just by getting your Associates degree first.

[VisD]

The extracircs don't really matter too much unless you're applying to really selective schools or programs, or have something really distinctive/unique. If you ever need essay advice or comments, hit me up (just went through the entire cycle this year )

edit to add: that SAT is fantastic, in any case, so if you can at least get that upward trend on your GPA you're in good stead

[Arch0wl]

major in whatever you think about in the shower a lot

[hi19hi19]

Originally Posted by Arch0wl

major in whatever you think about in the shower a lot

That's probably the best way I've heard it put yet.
Gonna remember that one.

[rayword45]

okay so I'll major in sex and steaks

[Guest15937]

Originally Posted by VisD

The extracircs don't really matter too much

...I beg to differ, I had 4.75 GPA, 7th class rank, and 2270 SAT, but very limited extracurriculars, and every single school I applied to rejected me. Except the state school, but it was literally illegal for them to reject me because of my class rank.

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by rayword45

okay so I'll major in sex and steaks

go a bit higher-level here and the academic thing covering most of this is "something to do with biology/chemistry"

[MarioNintendo]

Originally Posted by Trumpet63

Make friends with people that are more successful than you. Nobody makes it through life alone.

^

Not a good advice if you seek guidance, but I can definitely say that the only reason I managed to get through my bachelor's degree was because I had friends who weren't lazy fat asses like me.

[IamMe90]

Your HS score/gpa are pretty similar to what mine were when i applied for college so my rejections and acceptances should give you some idea of what to expect

To clarify: I had a 3.1 gpa (which was only above 3 because I got above a 4 in both junior and senior years via AP classes; i absolutely didn't do shit in the first half of high school) and 2200 SAT score (700 CR, 710 math, 790 writing).

I got into my top two picks: UW-Madison and U Wash-Seattle. I got rejected from UI Urbana/Champaign and UT Austin, and got into everything else i applied to (U Iowa, U Arizona, U Indiana-bloomington and a few others i can't remember).

Of course, I only applied to state schools (DC residents receive grants toward any state university in the country), but the one I ended up attending (UW Madison) is pretty comparable to a lot of top tier private schools anyway.

I guess to give more advice you should tell us more about what your'e looking for. What kind of college do you want to go? Small/liberal arts? Private/ivy league? State university?

State universities tend to be more lenient in their admissions (aside from the really tough ones eg UC Berkeley, UVA, and UNC Chapel Hill) and also more affordable. You can really get by with a high test score for a lot of them (if you can also write a good personal statement).

Oh yeah, that's another important thing: make sure your personal statement is really good. You seem the like intelligent-but-supez-lazy type that tends to dominate that kind of challenge, so use that to your advantage.

edit: also, latin is awesome in university dude. I took it in HS and didn't try at all and thought it was dumb as fuck, when I took it in university it was a much more structured approach and I ended up getting above 100 for each semester of latin grammar. it can provide a pretty interesting insight into the context and psychology behind a fair amount of etymology in english.

[IamMe90]

Originally Posted by Guest15937

...I beg to differ, I had 4.75 GPA, 7th class rank, and 2270 SAT, but very limited extracurriculars, and every single school I applied to rejected me. Except the state school, but it was literally illegal for them to reject me because of my class rank.

I know literally over a dozen people that were accepted into multiple ivy league schools with both less impressive on-paper stats than yours and no significant extracurriculars. it seems to me that you're either unlucky or extremely uncharismatic if you literally didn't get accepted to any school you applied to that wasn't a state university. Or you only applied to Yale and Harvard.

[Reincarnate]

Yeah, a 4.75 GPA / rank of 7 / 2270 is plenty competitive for top schools.

The problem is that you have a shitload of people with similar stats applying for the same spots. It's not uncommon to see people with stellar stats still get rejected everywhere. The competition is rough and so you have to make yourself stand out.

This is why I always kinda shook my head at the people who spent a lot of time joining bullshit EC's to pad their resumes. Nobody is going to care about any of that. Admissions officers care a lot more if you are passionate / interesting. If you really want to boost your chances, focus on writing good essays.

Little known fact: A lot of admissions officers actually compress your scores into general categories anyway. Much of the granularity goes away, as it should. Even a top student who gets a 2300 one sitting might get a 2360 another sitting, and then a 2280 on yet another sitting. The variance is kinda all over the place, so admissions officers tend to smooth stuff out by just aggregating everything and assigning their own scores. As long as you're clocking a respectable 700+ in each category, consider it a done deal unless you're applying to selective schools (where you'll probably want to hit 2250+ or so).

Also, I can't emphasize this enough: Visit your schools if you can. Personal fit is super important. You're going to be spending a few years there, after all. And choose something affordable. You aren't going to want to be paying out the nose in student loans by the time you're out.

[VisD]

fun fact i wrote a couple of lines about FFR/rhythm games in my apps

[MinaciousGrace]

you could spend 4 years in college earning a piece of paper with some scribbles on it

or you could spend 4 years actually learning things and doing things with your life

the moral of the story is college is a waste of time