Bad Semester

[krysinski61]

Hello all, I had the worst semester of my life this year, and was wondering how possible it is for the academy to overlook that, my GPA was still around a 3.7 weighted due to a large amount of AP classes. I'm also a 3 year letter winner in hockey, and got a 26 on ACT (taking again) and a 1400 on PSAT (still have to take). Thanks!

 

[valtroid]

Depends on the context. If the Academy feels that you have strong leadership potential (lots of extracurriculars and leadership positions), but need to develop more academically, they might offer you prep school. You can also "self-prep" at either a military prep school or just community college to prove to admissions that you can get good grades in college. I can say I had a pretty poor grades my sophomore year of high school, but I worked my butt off to make sure I got near-perfect grades my junior and senior year. I'm assuming you have one more year of high school left based on your post. All you can do now is be as involved as possible with the time you have left and work very hard next year to make up for poorer grades this year.

Also a 26 ACT is not great, but a 1400 PSAT is pretty good. If I were you I'd just focus on taking the SAT. If you can get a 1400+ score on the full test, that's above average for the Academy and will look pretty good. That's how I was; I did way better on the SAT the first time I took it vs the ACT, so I just focused on studying and improving my SAT score after that.

 

[MrFiggs]

Hello all, I had the worst semester of my life this year, and was wondering how possible it is for the academy to overlook that, my GPA was still around a 3.7 weighted due to a large amount of AP classes. I'm also a 3 year letter winner in hockey, and got a 26 on ACT (taking again) and a 1400 on PSAT (still have to take). Thanks!

Hey! So I think I can speak on this issue with some confidence. I applied to the Coast Guard Academy last year as a Senior with a 1240 SAT, 26 ACT, and a 3.89 unweighted 4.2 weighted GPA. Unfortunately, I got denied, however, after speaking with CAPT Fredie it seemed that he was more concerned with the lack of STEM courses that I took in high school than my test scores.

I decided to prep at MMI this year and reapply; I took College Chemistry, College Physics, Pre-calculus, Freshman Composition and finished Semester 1 with a 3.25 GPA. Keep in mind, college GPA is something that is MUCH more valued than a high school GPA. I solely focused on academics this year and invested little into retaking the SAT/ACT thus my scores didn't change. Even though my app to CGA for this year had the same SAT and ACT as I did last year, I got waitlisted instead of denied. I know that my outcome still is not ideal, however, it goes to show that the academy truly does look holistically at your application. This year I was selected to be the Battalion Chaplain of MMI and I gained a lot of leadership experience which strongly contributed to my application. On top of that, I was selected to be the Battalion Executive Officer for next year at MMI and if I don't get off the waitlist this year, I'll be reapplying again next year and gaining even more leadership and strengthening my application for next year along with completing my Associate's degree.

That being said, don't let a single semester define how the academy looks at you. What has happened in the past can no longer be changed. Work as hard as you can in the situation you are given. Speaking from experience, I can tell you that it's not easy getting told "no" by the academy the first time around, and getting told "maybe" the second time around; but if CGA is truly your dream, then don't quit, try again, and focus as hard as you can on what you can control.