Bad High School GPA and Aspergers and getting into college

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BigDoubleK
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13 Feb 2010, 8:27 pm

Okay I am 16 and I'm in my Junior Year of High School and I just had my annual IEP meeting. I have a bad GPA because of my Aspergers in my Freshman and Sophmore Years Grades I failed some classes but i retook and passed all of the required classes and i'm at the right amount of credits to graduate high school. But My GPA is 1.49 and My class rank is 340 out of 476 and my Percentile is 28.57%, and they told me that the college (university) I want to go to requires a Percentile of 60% and they told me that I will not be able to go to college (university) in my freshman and maybe sophmore year of college, so inseted i have to go to my city's technical/community college and get my GPA up to 2.0-2.5 and then I can transfer after my freshman or sophmore year of college to the college (university) that i want to go to. But the good news is that my Quarter GPA was 2.5 but the bad news is because of my freshman and sophmore years bad grades my offical GPA is still 1.49. Also I have no idea what I want to major in for college what should I do?



swansong
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19 Feb 2010, 1:14 am

We'll you're certainly not going to get into a good school, even if you are Aspergers.
The best thing you can do is just try and pass high school and use the time wisely to prepare for the future.
When you begin college, your GPA starts on a clean slate.



Cyanide
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19 Feb 2010, 11:21 am

Colleges will also look at "improvement" over your time in high school. So even if you have a 1.49 now, you can get a really good GPA your senior year and they'll like that.
Also, they tend to make standardized tests more important than anything. If you get a 26 or higher on the ACT, you're pretty much guaranteed for most public universities.



theLilAsimov
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19 Feb 2010, 12:29 pm

I can completely relate to you. I did atrocious in high school, I failed about 3 years. But! Community College is always an option, and then you can try to transfer to a 4-year university. That is what I am doing. :D


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ottorocketforever
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19 Feb 2010, 6:14 pm

Just keep improving the way you are doing, and colleges will definitely look at that. Keep your head up, and I'm proud of you! :-)



RockDrummer616
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20 Feb 2010, 7:14 pm

Just wondering, how much can one year or one semester of bad grades affect my chance at a good college? I got 2 Ds the second semester of last year (my sophomore year), but now I'm doing WAY better at my new school. Are those Ds gonna hurt me severely, or is it just a small problem?


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Nan
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21 Feb 2010, 3:03 am

My experience is that a couple of bad quarters or semesters early on in high school is not going to torpedo you at most general ed universities - IF your subsequent grades are good and you can show that you are taking a rigorous course of studies. (You can't sub a grade of "A" in intro to dance for a "F" or a "D" in algebra or an english lit class, though. You need to be taking some serious courses.) If the bad grades were the result of a family upheaval or an illness, they'll matter even less (as long as you address that when you apply to a university). Sorry to say, unless you can write one hell of an "overcoming obstacles" essay, the very top tier schools will not look at you if you don't have a very good overall GPA or a very good application portfolio otherwise. Or if daddy can donate a building.... :wink:

To the OP - how about taking a year off from school and working? Sort out your priorities, what you want to do with your life a little bit. Then, since you're not going to get into even a lower-tier university with a GPA under 2.0, take courses at the community college and make sure you do well in them. Choose them carefully, don't overload yourself - the grades are more important than how quickly you finish your first two years, really. Alternately, study a trade. It will give you something with which you can earn money if you decide to go back to uni later on. Good luck!



TheCaityCat
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22 Feb 2010, 4:13 pm

You're going to have to bring your GPA and ranking up during your last two years of school. Improvement counts! If your overall GPA is still low, the admissions committees will still see how your grades progressed from low to high.



genedig65
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24 Feb 2010, 1:34 pm

Community college is still college. Ask former Space Shuttle Commander Eileen Collins. Go to the community college, do well, transfer to a 4 year school.



BigDoubleK
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18 Mar 2010, 8:20 pm

Well today in my Bio 2 class I checked on my grades online and my Bio 2 Grade is horrible it is a D 60.21% And I am trying as hard as I can in that class and I am always attending class i never skip ever. Here is how my grades are in catagorys in that class:
Lab Work Totals Points Possible 310 Score 178 57.42%, Homework Totals Points Possible 150 Score 112 74.67%, Test Totals Points Possible 108 Score 52 48.15%
And I was asking my mom what I should do, and she said to talk to the teacher and explain the problem and tell the teacher about My aspergers, and tell the teacher that I have tryed your hardest and I just don't know what I can do to get my grade up. And I said to my mom that I feel that my school has screwed me over and screwed away my chance of going to a four year college by not giving me the proper help I need to succeed in high school, and she said if your doing this bad in high school what makes you think you would be able to do any better in college, and that I should just go to my city's community college, and she said she did not think i could survive at a four year university living by myself and being independent and passing the classes, and that's why she thinks I should go to my city's community college/tech college. What do you guys think?



Athenacapella
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18 Mar 2010, 8:23 pm

What do you have against community college? It probably actually might be better for an Aspie because the campus will be smaller (trust me, getting lost can be an issue), classes will be smaller, etc. And the classes are the same level as the intro courses at any major college. PLUS it is waaaaaaaaay cheaper, and you can get an associate degree and then transfer all those credits.



BigDoubleK
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18 Mar 2010, 8:30 pm

Athenacapella wrote:
What do you have against community college? It probably actually might be better for an Aspie because the campus will be smaller (trust me, getting lost can be an issue), classes will be smaller, etc. And the classes are the same level as the intro courses at any major college. PLUS it is waaaaaaaaay cheaper, and you can get an associate degree and then transfer all those credits.

I don't have anything against community college, infact that's where I want to go to college when I graduate in 2011. It's just that I feel very jealous/depressed of other kids in my school getting into school's like UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee Etc, when knowing I will never have the same opportunities that they have.



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18 Mar 2010, 9:49 pm

Community college is a better option for a student that has a bad high school situation than regular college.(at least in terms of getting in) It is cheaper, and it is not selective, so I agree with the movement to do this.

The biggest issue I see here is with what is hurting your grades so heavily. In biology, it seems to be your tests and your labs, but your homework still seems rather terrible.

The reason I ask is because the reason behind this isn't just "aspergers" as your teacher can't know your thought processes, only what your output is (and I also think that people with AS also show high variation in the kinds of grades they get as well with some of them being solid students and many doing terribly despite ability, so AS often explains very little as some of these better students are probably better partially because of their cognitive style). The reason I ask though is because these problems are going to be things that you are going to have to deal with even in college, and possibly even after that, and because of that you are going to have to learn how to deal with this issue. (know what strategies to use and when and all of that to cope with weaknesses and capitalize on strengths)

So, I am just curious, as until you know how to stop failing, then even the college thing might just be a matter of beating your head against a wall. (and I am not telling you not to go, there's just a major issue that could prevent it from being overly useful to try unless you know how to succeed, and what this will require for you)

As for major(which was something around the end of your OP), I would think about that somewhat, especially in terms of what college can do for you and what will help you deal with your strengths and weaknesses the most. It is not essential given that in high school you likely won't take as much of a pre-college approach given your problems with GPA and some failed classes, as those will likely prevent you from specializing as much as you'd want. I'd advise that you look at your strengths, weaknesses, interests, and so on and see how college can improve your ability to have a stable career in relationship to those. After all, college may or may not be the most useful path, and it is hard for me to know what is best for you. Really though, science/engineering and business are the degree options that will likely really make you more broadly employable.(I am not saying that other fields don't help at all either) If you don't have a reason to go to college and a lot of reason to think that it might not pan out well, then learning a trade can be the better option.



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18 Mar 2010, 9:54 pm

RockDrummer616 wrote:
Just wondering, how much can one year or one semester of bad grades affect my chance at a good college? I got 2 Ds the second semester of last year (my sophomore year), but now I'm doing WAY better at my new school. Are those Ds gonna hurt me severely, or is it just a small problem?

Colleges will look at your overall GPA, test scores, extra-curriculars, and what classes you take that you didn't have to. If you have great test scores and do things that they can recognize as important outside of class, then your Ds might not matter as much. They'll prevent you from getting into Harvard maybe, but a lot of schools will likely forgive mistakes if you are a solid candidate on other measures. You could even explain these mistakes yourself in any writing you submit to the school, and use this to show "how you overcome obstacles/why you are the most outstanding person ever".

I don't think you should worry about this *too* much, as a lot of the impact will likely already exist in your GPA, so just pick a set of colleges around what seems to be good given what all of the hard factors indicate, explain the issue away as best you can, and possibly also try to compensate for this issue if you can by trying to do extra-curriculars, or picking classes over free time junior and senior year, or focusing on hitting a home-run on your standardized tests. (I know, extra-currics can be difficult to get into for people with social people, but sometimes you can find a niche. It is easier in college to do club stuff anyway.)



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19 Mar 2010, 11:01 am

Don't make a big deal out of this. Failure to do well at standard academic classes is not going to lead you to a horrible life with wasted potential.

My older brother did very poorly in school, and wound up getting in the 24% percentile for his ACTs. Combined with his C average for high school, you might think he did poorly. But what he did was go to community college, and get an associates degree in industrial robotics. He now works as a robotics programmer setting up the automated robots in assembly lines. His job pays him about 50k per year, which is more then enough to live comfortably.

There are plenty of good community college programs which will give you an associates degree in a good trade. You can easily get a good career and live on a comfortable salary even if you don't get good grades in high school.



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20 Mar 2010, 8:33 pm

I was in your same situation in high school. I'm 17 as of now, and in my second semester of college. Here's what I did. I took a high school proficiency exam at age 16 (not GED, you have to be 18 for that), and then I waited for the results. After I had passed, I enrolled into community college. Community college is an excellent choice because it is more affordable, especially in the long run if you want to go to some type of graduate school. It is not "less of a college," it is just a different path. Even after my horrible high school experience, I will be transferring next year (in-state student) to a very good university. Now, my GPA in high school was literally 0.00_ _.

If you start at a community college, you really do get a clean slate. Universities won't care at all about your high school records, just make sure to do what you can at CC. Check out the transfer agreements with the in state universities. Usually the community college students are given the highest priority for admissions (even above freshman apps), or at least here in California they do (because they have shown that they can handle college level coursework). Hope this info helped, have a great day. :)