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How to be an outstanding student?

How a college would view a high school student who started lazy but proved to be a strong student later?

  • Theoretically... (I am not admitting that this is supposed to represent me ;P ) How would a university look at someone with the following credentials? I'll add as many details as I'm asked to. -Was always a strong, straight A (mostly perfect scores) student all the way until freshman year of high school, participated in many different extracurricular activities and "gifted ed" programs, received almost twenty awards do to academics during middle school. -Hit hard by family and personal life after entering high school, lost motivation. Had difficulty completing homework, and received C's, D's, and even a rare F in classes, usually the ones with grading based primarily on assignments done on the student's own time. -Still had outstanding, often perfect, testing and in-class grades, every year "annoying" teachers by being among the most "gifted" students and also among the laziest. Excels in math and language courses. This trend continued all through freshman and sophomore year of high school, with very little extracurricular participation in school. -Never really got in trouble for anything, only bad grades. Then, towards junior year of high school, things start improving while trying to make up for previous mistakes (having to make up failed classes) First semester is rough while working to improve, but grades are much higher, A's, B's, and a few C's. Second semester, A's and B's. Senior year, the student scores near-perfect on most tests and exams such as the SAT, and struggles but pulls off all A's with a few B's in high level courses, and even works part time out of school. Shows an interest in college, particularly an interest in computer science or engineering, the fields capturing the student's dedication and talents. Gets all of his college application work to be done his senior year in on time and done well. Essentially, the student fits a sort of "lazy genius" stereotype... who overcame the lazy part. If you were a college admissions officer, and everything else, such as finances, looked good, what would be your opinion of this student? Again, low class grades due to homework after personal life issues, always high testing scores. Pulled together grades and still maintained great scores for the last three semesters of high school. I'm not really surprised at all by answers so far, I expected as much. Like one person said, hard work before talent. I forgot to mention that the student is nearly two years younger than everyone else in their grade, and the personal issues were pretty bad/excusable for someone of that age and maturity. Also, the emotional baggage being carried over into later years isn't really a possibility, it was more a question of growing up. The student is also only 16 when graduating, and does have recommendations to back them from teachers who see/have seen the student's potential.

  • Answer:

    Depending on the circumstances and if the student elaborated more on the personal reasons for the decline in grades AND the reasons were acceptable explanations, then considerations are taken when regarding the student's academic performance, but most schools would deny this person because they can get applicants who have at least had straight B's their entire high school career, and consistency is more highly regarded than emotional tumult and a volatile ride. Especially at top-notch schools, almost an automatic rejection for the huge disparity between grades and the problems associated with someone who may still suffer from the effects of the experiences. I actually know someone kind of like this if you don't make the drops so extreme and cut out the emotional part. He's a very smart kid, gifted in Math and Science, but just really didn't care about English or History for most of high school, so he wound up getting mostly mixes of A's in the classes he cared about and B's and C's in the ones he didn't. Although people would agree that he was close on the intelligence scale to people who pulled straight A's (just the effort was lacking), he got turned down from the majority of solid schools and will likely wind up going to a second-rate school compared to where he wanted and where you could have been accepted if he had worked harder. Lesson to be learned: it's great if you can pull up your grades, but colleges always prefer the kids who never let them fall in the first place and who don't bring potential baggage along with them.

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Depending on the circumstances and if the student elaborated more on the personal reasons for the decline in grades AND the reasons were acceptable explanations, then considerations are taken when regarding the student's academic performance, but most schools would deny this person because they can get applicants who have at least had straight B's their entire high school career, and consistency is more highly regarded than emotional tumult and a volatile ride. Especially at top-notch schools, almost an automatic rejection for the huge disparity between grades and the problems associated with someone who may still suffer from the effects of the experiences. I actually know someone kind of like this if you don't make the drops so extreme and cut out the emotional part. He's a very smart kid, gifted in Math and Science, but just really didn't care about English or History for most of high school, so he wound up getting mostly mixes of A's in the classes he cared about and B's and C's in the ones he didn't. Although people would agree that he was close on the intelligence scale to people who pulled straight A's (just the effort was lacking), he got turned down from the majority of solid schools and will likely wind up going to a second-rate school compared to where he wanted and where you could have been accepted if he had worked harder. Lesson to be learned: it's great if you can pull up your grades, but colleges always prefer the kids who never let them fall in the first place and who don't bring potential baggage along with them.

AlexPalm...

The improvement came too late for there to be a reason to admit this student, rather than one who had top grades all though high school.

ownpool

1) The awards you got in middle school don't matter when applying to college-- they will only be interested in your high school credentials. 2) With one C, my GPA really dropped from a 3.85 to a 3.71. I'm assuming with an F and a D it's a 2.0 at the least. With near perfect SATs, colleges aren't likely to give much slack. Depending on what school you go to and are applying too, there will be other students who have your scores except they worked harder. Frankly, personal issues only get a certain margin of forgiveness so to speak. My opinion frankly would know that this student is smart but it took an awful long time for them to get together. I would percieve it as a possible risk and depending on the competitive nature of the school it's very well you can not get accepted because of laziness. "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard."

Nox

School for me starts on the 30th. I'm still very dedicated to my work when school is in session. I spend my three hours after school(when I'm alone) writing and planning. That is, of course, when my school work is done. Sometimes I'll continue writing when I'm not alone. It depends on how urged I am to finish or continue what I've started. I can always make time for writing. :) Though, I don't write in school(I need to focus). I can't write in brightly lit rooms with loud chatter. Besides, I can't afford to miss anything during class for not paying attention and writing horror. Either way, I'm always dedicated to my work rather I have little or no time for it. I do find it frustrating when I have to miss a day of my personal work. It feels as if I'm wasting time. When the teachers aren't yelling at students to shut up and pay attention, I 'could' be working on my materials. If we subtracted all of the classroom disruptions and unneeded lessons, I can guarantee school would be no more than 3 to 4 hours long. If everyone zipped through the halls like me, instead of stopping to block the road and chat, that could make school days even shorter. Give me a personal teacher and 2 hours, I'll have learned everything a normal 7-8 hour school day will have taught. School is a big waste of time in certain points. Writing being my passion, it's hard to dedicate only 3 hours to it when homeschooling would give me an entire day. That would be the life. Darn public and crowded schools!!! :)

Gwendolyn

1) The awards you got in middle school don't matter when applying to college-- they will only be interested in your high school credentials. 2) With one C, my GPA really dropped from a 3.85 to a 3.71. I'm assuming with an F and a D it's a 2.0 at the least. With near perfect SATs, colleges aren't likely to give much slack. Depending on what school you go to and are applying too, there will be other students who have your scores except they worked harder. Frankly, personal issues only get a certain margin of forgiveness so to speak. My opinion frankly would know that this student is smart but it took an awful long time for them to get together. I would percieve it as a possible risk and depending on the competitive nature of the school it's very well you can not get accepted because of laziness. "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard."

Nox

The improvement came too late for there to be a reason to admit this student, rather than one who had top grades all though high school.

ownpool

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