Will my freshman grades(posted below) completely eliminate my chances of getting into Dartmouth?

Answered

Context is everything with regards to college admissions. So given the little information you have shared about your frosh year, it's hard to know what your academic narrative is going to look like 5 more semesters or when you are going to apply to colleges.

If you are an Dartmouth ALDC (recruited athlete, legacy, development candidate or faculty brat) you will always have better chances regardless of your not so perfect GPA. And if you are Black, LatinA, Indigenous, or from a marginalized background that would give your application a boost as well.

If you want to change your academic narrative, you have to change your whole perspective with regards to going to school. It's good that after a less than perfect first year of high school you realize that the results weren't ideal. But worrying about it will not change anything right? You are going to have somehow transform yourself into a better student.

Therefore, I would do an inventory of everything you did right this past year and everything that you did wrong. You need to involve your parents/guardians in on this make a concerted effort to change the outcome for the next 3 years. If you're not the strongest Math student, then this summer you should be in Mathnasium or some math tutoring program so you don't repeat what happens next year. If you got 2 Bs in humanities like English or History, then you know you need to either take less rigorous classes and get an A in them or again, find some time this summer to catch up on the material you didn't master last year.

You might have to get your eyes checked and get better glasses/contact lens and make an effort to sit closer in class so you can follow along better and take better notes. You might have to work on your note taking and be more diligent with going to office hours so you don't get behind with concepts or to clarify things you do not understand. And your parents need to be aware that if you want to go to Dartmouth, they need to support you with their time, either to help you more with your scheduling, keeping track of your other commitments and not distracting you with things that are of the 2nd or 3rd order in priority. If you have siblings, you might have to learn to manage your time better so you don't waste time.

Being a great student is a full-time job from the time you wake up to the time you close your eyes. You need to be 100% focused and keep on track as if you are an Olympic athlete. Time management is one of keys to success and if you don't have every 15 or 30 minutes accounted for during the school week, you need to start keeping an active scheduler on your smart phone.

Unless you are a certifiable genius, most high achieving students make a task list every morning. It doesn't matter if it's mental, or written in ink or on your phone. Most great students know that they can't waste time during the week or afford to miss a class or an assignment.

Your HS transcript is a forensic roadmap for HS counselors to understand how strong of a student you are. There are no do-overs, unless you literally repeat the class and have the lower grade redacted and replaced from your official transcript. Sometimes High schools try very hard to help someone do that, other times it's not allowed.

If you don't actively physically change the way you treat school, then the most likely result is that you will have the same spotty results as before? Why? As humans we always revert back to what feels most comfortable to us. But comfort is not gong to get you in Dartmouth or any other top school.

This past year I went to Deerfield Academy which is top Private Boarding school. What I learned the first day is that in order to sustain a high level of productivity as a high achieving student you need to be on a very structured schedule. From the time I got up, showered, ate breakfast, got ready for school, ever 30 minutes was scheduled until lights out. Not only did I know what classes to attend, I knew what study groups to be in, what office hours to go to, what study halls to attend, and every night I knew that a 12AM until 6AM there was no WIFI so I wasn't going to play on my phone and watch tiktoks or youtubes. It was very hard to be live like a WestPoint cadet but in all seriousness, those cadets have it even harder because they have to dress immaculately and walk and talk a certain way and complete lose their personal identity in order to survive.

So if you are left to you own comfort zone or if you have parents that don't support this goal of yours, it's going to be very difficult to become Dartmouth bound by osmosis. You actually have to make a plan and stick to it. And if it's not working, you have to adjust the plan and push forward until its clicking.

See, I think Dartmouth admits rarely have 150+ IQs, they just works their butts off. I just think that if you are not naturally gifted to absorb difficult concepts and retain them for testing, then you have to be more persistent and diligent about your work habits and have a practical work/play balance. You may have to sacrifice some things but it's up to you how bad you want to get in right.

So good luck. And do some trial runs this summer by setting some goals like reading a certain amount of books or re-visiting a subject you struggled with and see if you can see any changes in your output and ability to stay focused and on track.

I'm not going to tell you to settle for 2nd or 3rd tier school. I'm going to tell you to dig in and step up okay! You need to buy a huge Dartmouth Poster and stick it on your ceiling above your bed and look at that big green D every time you wake up and every night you go to bed. Do it.

In your corner, CameronBameron