College Bound

"There is no way you can get into college unless you get your grades up." Chances are you have heard this from an adult in your life. Growing up, all kids hear is they have to get good grades, do extracuriculars, keep a certain GPA, and live basically a perfect life to get into a college when they grow up. This story all seems to change once one starts applying for schools though. After hearing their whole lives about how unless they get straight A's their whole lives there is no way for them to get into college, when teenagers begin their college search they automatically assume they will never get in anywhere because that is all they have ever been told.

Looking for colleges is stressful enough without it being in your head you can never get in anywhere. Much like Madie Thomson, a junior from Norton High, most people start looking at schools and going on tours their junior year in high school.

I am not saying that you can get into Harvard with all C's or anything but colleges will accept people with less than perfect grades. This process of telling children early on how they must strive for perfection if they want to have a future and attend college makes those who cannot acheive that perfection (most of us!) give up finding a college often and settle for a comunity school or sometimes even nothing.

Thomson thinks she will have "no trouble" since she has all A's and high B's which she has been told is all she needs. I am here to say I do not have anything close to perfect grades, with a 2.9 GPA and failing grade in AP Calculus I was convinced that I had no chance of getting into any college and was destined to stay at home for the rest of my life based on what I had always heard from my parents growing up and guidence councilors. The second I started actually looking at schools they changed and said I would be able to get in at least one place, after years of being told otherwise I did not believe them. Months later I have applied to 7 very different schools and have indeed gotten into every single one of them.

Moral: Try your best and then take a chance and try to forget what everyone has said before because no matter what there is still hope for a good school.