Should I apply to the ivy league if I had one really bad trimester that brought my overall GPA down?Answered
Basically my school is trimester based instead of semester based, freshman year I had like a 3.86 GPA average(unweighted) and sophmore 1st tri I did good but then I did HORRIBLE the next tri, I got a 2.8 and it still haunts my GPA. My course load has been increasing and increasing though(I took AP chem as a junior and its a senior class) and I maintained a consistent 3.8 - 3.9GPA. The problem though is that I know you need a good GPA for ivy leagues, because of me getting a 2.8 my GPA is a 3.7 when it should be higher(its a 4.0 weighted though). I also don't know if my extracurriculars are good enough, heres the list:
Involved in politics with the senate(spoken to both senators and involved with them) on a local and state wide level, also involved nationally when I did a report on collins vs virginia supported by multiple judges and I've spoken to political figures on the uyghur genocide
Pre-med club
NHS
100+ Hours of separate community service from salvation army(been doing it since ive been in 6th grade)
I would have also done some sort of internship over the summer but covid happened, so my extracurriculars arent insane which makes me question if i should even apply
I know this sounds like a "chance me" question but the question is if i should even bother applying to an ivy league, the reason why I ask this is because it shows my chances but I don't know if I should bother applying. And if I should bother applying does it matter which one I apply to? I seem to have the same chances at each ivy league university I can't really differentiate which one has a better chance of me getting accepted from the chance me simulator.
For the which Ivy you should apply too …. That is up to you. You need to consider things like location are of interest (each school will have a specialty something they put a lot of money into). You should also look into other too 20 schools that aren’t ivy legue because sometimes they outrank ivy legue schools ! From the websites try to get a sense of what values that school has and what the community is like there. You can use the livestreams on collegevine to ask alumni of the ivy leagues
You’re interested in to help you make up your mind !
@AmandaMay I actually did do sports, varsity track for a year(couldnt do it for more because of covid) and football but I ended up quitting both in order to focus on my political extracurricular and classes, would they still count?
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2 answers
Hi,
Firstly regardless of your grades the Ivy Leagues are always very difficult to get into even top candidates are often overlooked. That being said there is no reason you shouldn’t at least try ! A 3.7 is still a good gpa and when weighted it is even better ! What I would recommend is writing a very good essay for the additional information section to explain why you did badly that one trimester. Show them what went wrong and how you overcame it. What did you do to make sure that didn’t happen again? How have you grown from the situation ?
I mean, don't take my word for it, but based on what clubs you are in, and assuming that you did great on your exams, those test scores will greatly help.
Your chance of acceptance
Your chancing factors
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As for the Extracurriculars, it seems like you are very involved in politics and that is great you have an area of interest and you have pursued it outside of the classroom ! One thing I would say is that it might be good to diversify your Extracurriculars if you still have time. Maybe take up a sport or a musical instrument. Ivy legues do like to see diverse skills.