Hi! I'm Eli. I'm a first year Freshman at the University of Kentucky. I'm currently a physics and math double major.
I went from a small school that was easy for me to dominate without trying to a state school. At said state school, I have had a little trouble. I've always been used to not studying/spending little time in the books and making decent grades (A's/B's on tests but I only got one B in high school, no C's) and because of this, I became lazy/cocky about my grades. This ego obviously didn't hold up in college and my GPA for my first semester was BAD. Ended up with a 2.73 GPA. My final grades were:
B in Physics (3 credits)
B in Writing (3 credits)
A in Physics lab(1 credit)
C in Calc 1 (4 credits)
As you can see, the C in calc really brought me down, especially being a math major, and usually good at math, I was disappointed with myself. This next semester, I plan to work hard and get all A's.
That being said, I'm really not liking the state college scene. When I was first applied to college, I applied to private schools much smaller than UK. My first choice was Vanderbilt. I applied early decision to Vandy and unfortunately, was rejected. I kind of was expecting to get in, to be honest. But anyways, that is behind me. I chose UK because of the proximity to home. But as I am further away now, I can start to see myself going further away.
I don't really know where to apply to. I would like to say that besides my GPA, I have a good application. I have started to build good relations with professors. I am in a STEM dorm for STEM students, I have initiated a project for research for Physics students in this dorm that will count for college credit, I have joined the Society of Physics Students, which is a part of the American Physics Association. ( I ran for leadership in SPS, but as a freshman, did not win, understandable)
I have also joined the chess club and plan on getting a job with work study and maybe working for the student radio station.
The rest of my application should go well, in high school, I did really well. 31 on the ACT, president of NHS and Beta as well as the founder of a film club, started a small initiative of the Kiva club donations. I had my sister help me with my essays, and she said that they turned out really good.(She is a national award winning writer and is currently a 4th year English major at Vanderbilt.)
I would love to transfer to Vanderbilt, but I am afraid that my GPA is too low to allow for that. I feel like I could always pull the card that "my school was not a good fit and that is why my GPA was so low," card (without whining and sounding like I'm just complaining about the school) which would possibly help my application.
What are some more things currently to do to help my application before March 15th? Where are some schools(preferably close to Kentucky) that I could go to, that I can get in, and that I could be happy at? What can I do about my application that would be beneficial to me?
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