Stellar ACT but lower grades gets hit with the steamroller by colleges

Stats first since that is what everyone looks for.

Academics
ACT: 36 composite
GPA: ~87.4/100 (school does not weight much)
Curriculum: IB program with HL Physics, HL Chem, HL Math AA
School: fairly competitive private school

Context
My GPA is definitely the weak point of my application. Freshman year I honestly did not take school that seriously. I barely studied and could coast through classes, but still ended with a decent average (90.2).

In 10th grade I started taking school much more seriously and worked a lot harder, which led to my grades improving significantly (93.8). However, that year also came with its own challenges. Because of the sudden improvement in my grades, some people at my school accused me of cheating. Those accusations took a toll on my mental health and made that year far more stressful than it should have been.

Unfortunately, my school only counts 11th grade for GPA calculations.

During junior year I also dealt with some mood issues that made it harder to stay consistent academically. Around the same time, my grandmother was hospitalized due to complications with cancer, and that situation continued into my senior year as well. Spending time in hospitals and dealing with family stress made it harder to stay fully focused on school.

On top of that, I later realized that I had been dealing with undiagnosed ADHD throughout high school, which made things like organization, focus, and consistency much harder than I initially understood. It is not meant to be an excuse, but it definitely affected my academic consistency. I still pushed through the IB workload, but my grades were not as strong as they could have been.

Another challenge was navigating the college application process itself. My family and I worked with private college counselors outside of school and ended up spending thousands of dollars on advising. In the end it honestly did not feel very helpful, and much of the process still felt like something I had to figure out largely on my own. Looking back, most of the useful information I found about admissions actually came from my own research.

Testing
Standardized testing turned out to be my strongest area. I got a 36 on the ACT, which honestly surprised me a little, especially coming from someone who scored a 1500 with a 1520 superscore on the SAT. Testing always felt more straightforward than juggling multiple IB classes, labs, and internal assessments.

Extracurriculars (brief)
Research internships (bioinformatics / cancer data)
STEM projects and engineering builds
Tutoring (SAT)
Art awards and painting (National Scholastic Silver Medal)
Some volunteering

Nothing insanely crazy compared to some people here, but things I genuinely enjoyed.

Results (so far)

Accepted:
SMU — 32.5k per year
Baylor — 120k total scholarship
Purdue — none

Northern Arizona University (15k a year)

Ithaca College (35k a year)

Waitlist / alternate programs:
Texas A&M waitlist
UT CAP / waitlist
UW waitlist

Other outcomes:
Rice ED reject
UVA reject
UIUC reject

Still waiting on some schools.
Emory
Georgetown
University of Michigan
Vanderbilt
Carnegie Mellon
University of Chicago
Northwestern
Washington University in St. Louis
Duke
MIT
UC schools (applied to 5 total)
RPI
UW–Madison
Brandeis
Bowdoin
Ithaca College
Pomona College
Wesleyan
University of Maryland
Saint Louis University
Trinity University
University of Tulsa

Reflection
Getting a 36 on the ACT made me think that testing might compensate for GPA more than it actually does. It helps, but it definitely does not erase weaker grades.

Looking back, consistency in high school matters a lot more than a single test score.

Still grateful for the options I have and trying to keep perspective. If anyone else is in the “high test score but imperfect GPA” situation, you are definitely not alone, and there are always options.

Despite these unfavorable results, I have remained steadfast in my belief that hard work and persistence will eventually pay off.

At the end of the day, I applied to 40 or so colleges. Wish I could have applied to more.