How I got into a 4 year university with an acceptance rate of 44% with a 2.38 GPA and 27 ACT

I am currently a high school senior who applied to several colleges with a 2.38 unweighted GPA, and a 2.75 weighted. My highest ACT score was a 27. I have been awarded around $15,000 in academic scholarships from my private university that I will be attending in the Fall of 2015. I figured I would make a post explaining how I got into a fairly selective college (44% rate) after having horrendous grades and attitude my freshmen and sophomore years. It seems like everyone on this subreddit screams community college every chance they get and I just wanted to offer some insight into my situation and how I avoided going to community college when I clearly should have.

My junior year I decided I would get my stuff together and worked towards raising my GPA from the 2.0 it was at. I worked my ass off however at the end of junior year I realized that it is really fucking hard to increase your GPA. I refused to go to community college and during my senior year I applied and enrolled in a local state university. I took college level classes in the classroom for duel credit while also attending to my senior year classes part time. Many colleges have programs for non-degree seeking high school students to take duel credit classes on campus, the trick is just finding one locally and getting accepted. I loaded up on 10 credit hours and again, did anything I had to do in order to be successfully in these classes. I finished with a 3.6 college GPA. Not only did this prove that I could be successful at the collegiate level, but I was also able to get incredible recommendations from my professors who were blown away at having a high school student in their classroom. These duel credit classes also were calculated into my high school GPA and were weighted as AP classes, helping to inflate my GPA because I was taking more classes than a standard student would in a semester.

The college GPA and recc. were fundamental aspects of my application and the sole reason I got accepted and among the toughest freshmen class in terms of admissions in the history of the school. Of course, there is the reality that I got denied from many other schools that I applied to but you only have to find one.

One thing to remember is that your entire application will need to be focused around your transitional period, take responsibility and explain yourself and your mistakes. Then show your college GPA and present it as the ethos to back up your claim. Work to get the best recc. you can get from people you know, and make sure you have plenty of interesting EC's. Also, don't be afraid to file a letter of appeal, these letters usually give you unlimited or much more space to tell your story and explain yourself. Plus, if a college has a deadline that is before your Fall semester of your senior year classes are over with, you should be allowed to include it in your appeal since admission decisions are usually released well after December.

If you want to go to a four year university straight out of high school you have to realize you will have to work your ass off. If you don't think you could handle the college classes then yes go to CC and learn those skills. I was able to get about 1/4th of my tuition paid for through scholarships because of the initiative I took and most importantly the incredible networking I did with my professors. Perhaps you might even get lucky enough to have one of your professors be an alumni of a school you want to attend... You'll never know if you don't try.

I am now about to take my last final at this university and will have completed 3 semesters of coursework. Reflecting back now, there are several things I would have done differently that probably would have made my life easier and application even better.

• Go to class, I got knocked down from a A to an A- in my intro Psychology class simply because I missed class about 4 times. When you are counting your GPA so closely, this can make a big difference, especially when you don't have a full 15 credit hour semester.

• Get connected with your field and participate in activities and events that your college offers. I regret not going to job fairs and mock interviews put on by the department. Even though you are a high schooler, this will do nothing but impress professors. Employers will practically beg you to work with them since very few high schoolers that show this level of initiative.

• Do an internship. Yes you are in high school and no you might not have all the qualifications for the internship, but it shouldn't matter in your case. Send a letter to the HR director or see if your Career center/professors know anyone in your field that have a job and would be willing to let you job shadow for a week or do an unofficial internship. If you do a job shadow, even for just a week, you can earn recommendations that will be priceless in the future. The whole purpose of this is to network in your field, you might not even contribute to the company, but asking questions, attending meetings, and simply observing will impress nearly everybody.

• Be stubborn (or persistent) The summer following my sophomore year was when I realized that attending a 4 year university straight out of high school was a unlikely possibility for me. I felt like a failure and a looser who had wasted their life, it was without a doubt the lowest moment of my life. Balancing college classes with your normal senior and junior year coursework is no joke. You have to be completely dedicated to this. You also have to realize that any mistakes you make with your college classes will be on your permanent record. So don't fail. You will need to be stubborn when applying to colleges as well because trust me, you will get denied from a lot of places.

• Don't give up, seriously. Not many students even know that they can take college classes on campus while in high school (unless your state has a Running Start program), use this to your advantage. Keep reminding the admissions office in your application how you have demonstrated your ability for success at the collegiate level. Lastly, expect to be denied and plan accordingly. Your application is going to be viewed as "nonstandard" by the admissions board and may subsequently be thrown out just based on your GPA, without consideration given to the rest of your application. The university I am attending next year denied me, however I petitioned for an appeal and won. Don't rely on an appeal though, the odds for my university were about 1 in 20 for a successful appeal. I even wrote letters to professors in my major at the university expressing my interest for the program at the university in hopes that they would put in a good word with the appeal committee.

One last thing, make sure you spend the time researching the college you want to take your duel credit classes at. It is perfectly acceptable for it to be a community college. Look for satellite campuses of big state schools, generally satellite campuses have higher acceptance rates than the main campus. Make sure you contact the admissions office and see if they have a special application for non-degree seeking high school students and of course get it approved with your high school's administration/counselor.