# Not doing well in school, can't see a good future



## Poko

I'm a junior in high school at the moment with below average grades, 2.6ish to 3.0. School has been uninteresting for me so I slacked off my third year of junior high and first year and half way through second year of high school. I never really had a motivation to do well, there was nothing I wanted more than to simply read books. School was boring, unappealing, and annoying. I took easy classes and put in minimum work efforts to get just a passing grade. I have never failed a class, I did get close a few times. 

However, I met someone during second semester during the second year of high school who got me motivated to do well in school. Because of this person, I got interested in psychology. I decided to take more challenging classes, taking several AP classes and getting volunteering hours in. I am currently depending on this person to carry me through high school, but that's besides the point. I am now motivated to do well in school and get into a certain univ., Michigan. 

While I am motivated to do well in school, my interest is in psychology... Not this.. other crap. I try to stay focused, to study, and to do well on tests and quizzes, but I can't keep interest long enough to understand. At most, I can understand a good 70% of whatever's being taught then I lose interest and I can't keep focus. 

Now I'm thinking that I have a good.... 1% chance of getting a degree in psychology and even less of a chance of getting into the college I want. Even if I do get my grades up to above a 3.0, I don't think my overall average will reach high enough to get accepted into any university. 

I will do my best to get as high as I can, but I don't see a bright future. What am I to do with my life from now on? I want my life to be based around psychology since it's the only thing interesting to me but I don't see it working out. 

Basically, I want advice. 

TL DR; I suck at school but want to attend a top univ and/or study psychology. What do?


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## dagnytaggart

SATs. Get a perfect score. Upward grade trends help, too. So if you can get no less than an A from now on, you'll have a better shot.

Failing that (pun not intended), just go to a community college, kick ass there, and then transfer to a 4 year.


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## Bast

Yep, I agree with the "go to a community college and then transfer" approach. Even if you didn't do well in highschool, once you have a transfer degree with an awesome transcript from a community college, highschool doesn't matter at all.


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## Niccolo Machiavelli

I agree with the others. High school isn't NEARLY as important as they make it out to be. You can drop out of school, get a GED, go to a community college, and then transfer to a better college. You'll be in the exact same position as the people who tried really hard and did very well in high school, except you'll have a lot less debt than them because community colleges cost a small fraction as much as most "real colleges." 

In short, don't sweat it. It isn't the end of the world.


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## timeless

I don't remember my high school GPA but it was definitely not great. I slacked off all the time, and I slacked off hard. But everything turned out fine for me afterwards, probably because I did extremely well on the SAT and had submitted a good personal statement. I told my university that they should accept me because I'll end up bringing a good reputation to the institution and they would regret it if they turned down my application.


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## HappyHours

*I am going to be straight with you here as someone who has went through almost the exact same experience.* *NOW PLEASE correct me if I am wrong but I am going to assume that by Michigan you mean the University of Michigan?*

Hate to be a pessimist and as someone who has been in your shoes before and had a 3.0 GPA during his junior year, made straight A's his junior year, and straight A's his senior year, making a 1950 (around 1300 for Math + Reading) on the SAT, I want to say you are being unrealistic here. I could not even get into my state flagship university and it is easier to get into than the university of michigan. 

Will you make it into the University of Michigan?

Sure if you go to community college, work hard there, get a really high gpa, and then try to transfer.

Will you make it in right out of high school?

No.

There are students who have 3.7 GPAs and respectable SAT scores that get rejected by the University of Michigan so there isn't much hope in terms of you getting accepted out of high school.

*What should you do?

*Ride high school out. If you have to take time off after high school, work or do something to occupy your time if that is what is needed. When you go to community college or any college in general, you will have to take pre-requisite courses your first two years and they will cover sciences, maths, and all those courses. In order to get accepted into a decent university like Michigan as a transfer, you need to ACE those courses.

*And for everyone in here saying high school doesn't matter?

I wish. Thing is a lot of colleges, especially the top ones like Harvard and Princeton do not even take transfers and if they do those transfers need to have great high school grades. High school matters a lot, I wish I myself had worked harder so I would not be in the situation I am in right now. 

In life, you are going to have to do many things you do not want to do. In college, you will take science courses and you may have to mess with chemicals in lab or mess with dead animals and deal with the smell just so you can have a decent grade. Suck it up, focus on your goal, put forth 100 percent of your effort, GET INTERESTED (and as I said, if you have to take a break before you go to college, like take a gap year or start working before you go to college so you can see how terrible life can be) and ace those courses. 

Get involved wherever you go so you can transfer to the university if your choice. Learn from my mistakes bro.....

learn from my mistakes..............
*


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## funcoolname

There are a lot of great undergrad schools you can do well at, even if they're not your top choice. Just put in all your effort starting now and get ready for SATs. Also doing well your last year and pulling your GPA up and getting at least 1350 on your SATs will help you at least get into honors undergrad programs at other schools. Do well at undergrad and you can either transfer or go on to your top tier school for graduate studies, because you will have to go for higher education to do well with psych. Also make sure you get a psych research position at some point during or after undergrad - grad schools like that even if you want to do clinical


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