Can someone explain High School and getting into College/University?

Question

I am in 10th grade (I got pushed up into a grade higher) and I am planning to go back to do 10th grade again because I am going to Public High School instead of my alternative school which does Online classes. My sister tells me different things about SAT, AP Tests, and volunteering for things because it looks good and transcripts, and all this stuff is confusing me. How do I get through High School, make my transcripts look good, and go to a top college/university? And will I be able to go back to do 10th grade again cause wouldn't that look bad on my transcripts and will there be any way to erase it?

Answer 1

hahaha, I'm a senior in high school, and all this information really is confusing and hard to acquire. I'll tell you what I know so far.

In high school, your number one priority is the courses you take. It's best to take up to three AP/IB courses a year. It's great for college and provides valuable experience. At the end of each year, you should take a test for every AP course you took. If you don't, then the whole point of taking AP courses is moot. Remember, you also need good grades, but that's a given.

In your Junior year, you should take the SAT or ACT test. Earlier, you can take Practice SATs and SAT prep courses if you want. All colleges require you to take one of these tests. Personally, I think they're very stupid and don't reflect your real intelligence, but...you have no choice... The maximum score in the SAT is 2400. The max for ACT is 36. The maximum score is difficult to achieve, nearly impossible. Most people take the SAT becuase it's more famous, but more and more people are taking the ACT becuase it tests you on what you learned in school. If you want to go to a University of California, you also have to take two SAT II tests. They are smaller, one hour tests that test you on a certain subject.

Colleges want students who are well rounded and do many extracurricular activities.
You should do a lot of volunteer work. I volunteer at the public library and a hospital every week. There are usually clubs on schools that do volunteer work, such as Key Club and Interact Club.
Speaking of clubs, you should join many of them. Join a volunteer club. Join a model U.N. club. Join a Newspaper club. There are some clubs that colleges hold in high regard, like National Honors Society. Join clubs for fun, also.
You need leadership skills, too. So run for a position in a couple clubs.
You should join a sport or two if you can, and stick with it for a couple years.

The amount of stuff you do depends on how hard it is to get into the college you want to go to. If you want to go to an Ivy league college, you will need to take tons of AP courses, get 4s and 5s on the AP tests, do hundreds of hours of volunteer work, be president of a couple clubs and other positions in other clubs, be on a varsity sport, get extremely high SAT and ACT scores, and get As in just about every, single class. Yep, it's hard, and not worth it for me.

As for your 10th grade dilemma, you need to ask your school counsellor. Every school has a different policy and/or method to go about fixing it.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

You have asked a very complicated series of questions that you should really talk with a school counselor about. Here is a really brief answer to your question. High School uses credits to determine your class standing. You may have attended classes for 10 years but that doesn't make you a sophomore. Having completed 1/4 of the total number of required credits makes you a sophomore. This means that you may not actually be repeating the 10th grade. To repeat a couple of classes is not that bad as long as you can show a positive progression and score well on your SATs or ACTs. You should take the PSAT (Pre SAT) and the PLAN (Pre ACT) this year. This will help you see areas you need to study before you take the real SAT or ACT in your Junior and/or Senior year. To take rigorous classes like advanced math, English, Foreign Language is a must if you wish to get into a top college or university. In other words, don't just keep taking weights because it is an easy A. It may inflate your GPA but it looks bad on your transcripts. If your transcripts are not the best now, showing a constant improvement from here is very important. Many of my students are admitted to prestigious universities even though they don't have a perfect GPA. They usually submit a letter explaining that they started off slow, matured and then explain how much better they did in their junior and senior years. Your sister is also right about getting things like volunteer/service hours logged so that you can put them on your college application. It shows a well rounded student.
As I said, this is really a discussion you should have with your school counselor but this should get you started in the right direction.

Answer 3

Because people bored with their pathetic lives. They somehow think that being vulgar and disrespectful to you will make them better or cooler people, when in reality it just shows how desperate they are to make their lives seem more fulfilling. They're sad human beings when they have to be terrible people in order to feel awesome about themselves. There really isn't a solution to this. If you ignore them, they'll try to bug you more. If you end up in a fight with them, the consequences won't be pretty. I go to a university myself and I know if any teachers saw that kind of b.s. going down, they'd get in a lot of trouble for that. I guess not all universities are like that though.

Answer 4

well, for starters don't go to a public school. do well on everything. graduate in the top ten and join some sort of school related event so it looks good on your resume in the future.