Hey,

I'm the person that asked if a 30 on the ACT would be a possibility, and I do appreciate your help. You really did
give me an overabundance of insight, and I truly appreciate it. I doubt you remember the specifics of what was said
during our brief conversation, but I mentioned that I was a little intimidated posting on CC, a site so riddled with
hyper-advanced geniuses. This sort of explains how overboard I went with the melodramatic, over-eloquently worded
rambling, etc.

Just out of curiosity, I went on your page and glanced over a few of the posts you've made on this website. Surely
enough, you do appear to fit that bill, that elite tier of students that is honestly a major source of that
intimidation I feel, that inferiority I feel. It's nothing against you; I can't drag you down for doing so well in
high school. One post mentioned you enjoyed high school and were now in need of extracurricular advice. I honestly
wonder what it feels like.. what kind of experience it must be to get through high school and perform excellently
and pass everything with flying colors and get SUPER high standardized test scores, and just really have everything
in the bag academically. To perform in all areas with such an immense amount of proficiency. This is all foreign to
me. It's unattainable.

I've stumbled upon plenty of kids on this website who make me feel this way. It's understandable that enough time
spent on CC would result in this self-doubt. Really talented, hard-working students are common here. The majority of
high school students probably aren't even aware of this site's existence. It seems to be a forum exclusively for those who
are concerned with maximizing their already terrifyingly strong academic potential. A place where the best of the
best congregate. Again, I don't mean to disparage or mock you for being part of that group. There certainly isn't
anything wrong with that. If anything, I wish I were like that, believe me. Sigh.. You have no idea what I would
give to have just been born with that inherent precociousness that you possess.

High school was absolutely horrendous for me. It started going downhill as soon as freshman year approached its end.
I was completely oblivious to anything college-related. Anything related to the urgency of asserting yourself in
school. I kind of just moseyed on by in grade school. I'm not a genius, but I was intelligent enough to get high
grades with very minimal effort. I never studied. Transitioning from eighth grade to high school, I suppose I
figured that ability to trudge through without any cramming or effort would remain constant throughout my entire
academic career. It was definitely immature of me to think this way. Absolute disgrace, high school has been. Total
flip-flop in regard to my success, my ability to cope with the social aspects. Everything really just fell apart.

This was the time where three mental illnesses that I'm still dealing with culminated and blew up in my face. It's
when I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety and OCD. I know it's sudden and out of place for me to divulge this
super-personal information, but it's difficult to truly express how hard of a time I've been having with school
without providing those details. I'd think your knowing that I'm struggling as much as I am makes it a bit easier to
comprehend my sentiments.

I've always wanted to get personal and in-depth with one of the intellectually superior class-toppers. I really
wanted to pick one out from this website and obtain some personal insight from them, see how they interpret my high
school experience. I'm willing to bet hearing about these experiences from another high school student in such great
detail isn't a very common occurrence. I can't fathom how anyone in my age group could do as well as you've done
(along with the majority of CC frequenters) with even the most innocuous personal issue or disorder of any kind.
Maybe you just have this insane sense of drive that I've never had? Nonetheless, I wanted to open up to you. I
wanted to talk to you about school.

Let's try to summarize how high school has treated me up to the present:

9th grade: I did okay. I did try a bit to focus on my grades. With gym and health forcing me to socialize and
athleticize (is that a word?) with other kids, it became really difficult for me to stay in the
most positive of moods. I nearly failed gym. My teacher had me do alternative projects to salvage a passing grade.
This put a slight hurting on my GPA. My weighted GPA at the end of the year was 3.88. Not excellent, but still
nothing to scoff at. It may have even been a 4 had I not butchered the gym and health grades.

10th grade: Really when things started to crash and burn. The depression, anxiety, and OCD came to a head around the
beginning of the year. This was even further exacerbated by my enrollment in AP Chem (Still have no idea why I
decided to do that to myself... although, a former classmate of mine managed to get through it and he only scored a
1400 on the SAT, so I'd like to believe I'd have survived it too if the mental stuff hadn't been an issue. I missed
nearly a month of school, and staff allowed me to shorten my roster to a subset of the original in hopes that it'd
allow me to attend regularly. I got to the end of 10th grade by the skin of my teeth. Three credits behind, as a
result of the roster shortening, but I still got through. GPA went from 3.88 to 3.77.

11th grade (attempt #1): Going into junior year, I really wanted to promise myself that this would be my year of
redemption. The year where I'd brush the past off my shoulders. "I'm stronger now! I got through 9th and 10th grade,
let's do this. Back to a full roster. Let's try to learn as much as we can, as this is the most important year." The
first marking period was a substantial improvement from the preceding year (shipwreck year). Aside from a D in
English (I didn't read a thing, not sure why I just blew this class off but whatever), I achieved honor roll-worthy
grades. Didn't experience many problems. I missed about five days of school by December, which was a hell of a lot
better than the ~80 I missed in sophomore year. However, as soon as winter break rolled by, everything completely
collapsed again. By the end of this year I'd missed 110 days. That was not a typo. I missed 61% of my junior year.
By March, I'd basically stopped going. In short, the school wasn't having this, and I had to repeat the year. Five
F's. They all went into my GPA which brought it from 3.77 to 3.2. Keep in mind this is WEIGHTED. Unweighted was well
below 3. So much for even an okay grade point average.

My 504 plan "team members" tried to accommodate me as much as they could... or so they say. The only way I would've
been able to reap any of the accommodations was by getting to school. My main problem was attending school, so all of
their efforts were pretty much pointless. I had the option to repeat at the same school, but I wasn't particularly
fond of the idea of being disconnected from my former peers while still in the same building, only to occasionally
run into them in the halls and hear about their 12th grade/graduation agendas. Plus, it was already bordering on
impossible for me to get to school. How would I be able to just magically get up and go, especially in tandem with
now being a year behind? I deemed that an absolute impossibility. I went with online school as it seemed
like the most feasible option, considering I wouldn't have to leave my house. This was probably the biggest mistake
of my life. Online school is hell. You have to teach yourself everything on a laptop through extremely tedious
schooling platforms. You barely learn anything. Almost zero human interaction. Everything takes way longer than it
should. As a result of all of these unfortunate factors, you get lower grades than you really deserve, you know?
There are no AP classes and, even if they did offer them, I wouldn't bother taking them online, good lord.

So right now it's the end of August. Although I should be starting college, I'm preparing for senior year. My family
and I are in the process of finding other schools to enroll in, not only because I'm at the end of my rope with
online school, but also because I believe returning to a brick-and-mortal academic environment would be the absolute
best decision for me. It'd benefit me socially and I'd be able to bolster my GPA a bit more before sending in
college apps. A year ago I'd never have dared considering a return to my original school, so I recognize this new
willingness as an improvement in and of itself. Leave it to the school, though, to completely refuse to readmit me,
despite multiple emails and phone calls from myself, my grandmother, and my therapist. They feel that, judging from
my performance while enrolled, their school isn't the right place for me. Being a magnet school, they have it within
their jurisdiction to control who enters their student body, so any legal action would more than likely be futile.

They're not even a prestigious school. Sure, they identify as a "magnet school," but come on. I was already a
student there for two years and I scored higher on the SAT than 91% of test takers in the nation, hundreds of points
above the school's average (Yeah, I lamented the hell out of the 1950 in my post, but, objectively speaking, it is
well above the norm). Isn't that all indicative of my worthiness of a second chance? They don't see it, and they're
completely steadfast in their banishment of me. Alas, we're left to explore other options. There are three nearby
magnet schools with which we plan to get in touch in the near future, and I'm hoping at least one of them will take
my struggles into account and take me in.

Coupled with my current weighted GPA of 3.3 (UW 2.7), my SAT score isn't quite extraordinary enough to win the
hearts of any good universities. Now you could probably understand why I was so disappointed. I needed to get an
over-the-top score to compensate for my mouth-breather GPA. This didn't happen. I'm immeasurably disheartened for -
not until just recently - realizing how important it is to get out of bed everyday and bust my ass in high school. I
wish I wouldn't have let everything snowball into an absolute disaster leaving me totally ostracized from quality
education.

Could I ask you something? How is school enjoyable to you? How did you make the most of school and do so
exceptionally in the process? I just don't get how you guys pull it off. Was your cognizance of post-secondary
education and the necessary means to better your chances of accessing top schools instilled in you by your parents?
Could it be a matter of genetics? Are some just born with a gene entitled "WILL make it through high school
unscathed"?

I, for one, have stupid parents. Neither my mother nor my father went to college. As a matter of fact, both of my
parents live with their parents. They're both ultimately losers and I feel no hesitancy to admit that. It sucks. I'm
intelligent, they're the opposite. The ultimate tragedy. It seems children get most of their "cognitive head start"
from their upbringing. They imbibe as much as they can of what their parents have to offer. I really didn't have a
lot to take away from and I'm consequently stuck. Man... how could I have been so naive to think I could just waltz
through high school and achieve the results I wanted? I wish more than anything that, at the beginning of freshman
year, I'd had somebody in my corner who knew about all the college stuff and told me everything I needed to know. I
wish I'd been told early on how college admissions work and how your GPA and test scores determine what sorts of
schools you can expect to be able to choose from. I would've prepared so much more intensely. I really didn't know
exactly what the SAT was until four months before I took the damn thing.

I'm going to be a senior at 19, without a single completed AP class under my belt and a 2.7 unweighted. Most
admissions staffs would eye a transcript like this and figure, "Yeah, this is a special ed student." But I'm not,
I'm the opposite. I'd like to believe I'm very advanced. Not in terms of documented scholastic performance, but
rather innate intelligence. Granted, I haven't been doing what I can to build on that intelligence, to nurture it..
Though, can you really blame me, what with such an educational disconnect to which I've succumbed? Clearly I have no
room to toot my own horn, but I can't lie to myself and say I'm not exceptional in any way. My IQ was tested to be
about 130 (Not that IQ is a direct indicator of success or SAT/ACT/general performance in school, as so luridly shown by my predicament, but I felt it noteworthy).

I guess my goal with this message isn't to make one distinct point. I really wanted to open up to you and, boy, has
it been cathartic to spill out every last detail I could exhume from the depths of my memory. I want to hear what
you can make of all of this. If you somehow take this as harassment, feel free to block me or whatever, although I
hope that isn't the case. You're a smart cookie, right? I'm sure you can kick your reading comprehension skills into
high gear and give me some feedback.

Do with this what you will,
Joe

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Hi Joe,

I'm so sorry for everything you've been through. I can't imagine the grief you must be feeling. I don't know you, but for some reason I really care about you now. You brought me to tears.

Ever since I was little, I really cared about school. I have two older siblings. One gets pretty good grades and she was a dancer and singer. Another didn't do terrible in school (definitely not his best), but he has this amazing gift with computers and programming since he was 8. He also has this interesting gift with foreign languages. He is literally the smartest person I know, he just refused to work hard in school.

I think I felt left out... I wasn't good at sports, I couldn't dance, I couldn't program or anything else, so school was where I could shine. I just really cared about my grades. I remember in third grade one of my teachers called me up and said she was surprised about one of the grades I had received. She said it was unusual. I had gotten an F on a reading test and I immediately burst into tears. I really cared.

I also used to have a lot of social anxiety because of a speech impedement that never got professionally fixed. I learned how to talk normal, but sometimes I slip.

I will be honest with you. I have enjoyed high school. I made so many friends in my classes and through my church. I'm excited to see what life has instore for them. It hasn't been perfect though. We have problems from time to time, but we care about each other. They also push me to be fearless. I am seriously so awkward naturally! But we go scootering down these giant hills and go climbing on top of an elementary school or a water tower. I've had a lot of fun, even if I literally think I'm going to die sometimes.

My parents only put pressure on me because I already made the decision to get good grades. They want to see what I can achieve because I'm their only child with both work ethic and decent intelligence. But they never tell me I have to study or do my homework. They know I will do it on my own, in my own time. My dad is a college professor and my mom is a licensed school counselor and now she is running for school board. So yeah, they care about education. They expect a lot from me, but that's okay. I'm willing to try my best.

Junior year was really rough for me. My classes strained my whole life. I remember bursting into tears and yelling at my mom because I was so stressed out. I still got good grades, but the work load just about killed me. I was taking 3 AP, 2 IB, and a French 3 class. I got a B+ in my Calculus class first semester, but managed all As besides that. I love math, but they really push us at our school. They don't expect a lot of us to get As.

All of this really seemed insignificant in the end. In March, I thought my whole world was ending... I found out my older sister and best friend had been abused by her boyfriend. And for awhile I thought it was my fault. Around Christmas, I had convinced her to break up with him because he was so cruel and I hated him. She did it and thought everything was going to be fine. This will sound crazy if you aren't religious, but I believed God gave me this inspiration to talk to her. My sister had been so cold and distant and God provided me a way to get inside her and make her realize that the guy wasn't meant for her. But she had this submissive, emotional attachment to him (I think a result from his emotional manipulation for the last several months). She couldn't stay away, but he was mad. He took her into his house and told her he was going to hurt her just as much as she hurt him. I won't go into details.

After a few months of violence and threats, my dad woke up in the morning in a panic. Another miracle from God. He called my sister, thinking she was in danger, but had no idea she wa seeing abused. She didn't answer. He called my sister's old high school best friend and told her to go find my sister and that she was in trouble. When she found her...my sister confessed to the situation and her friend took her to counseling. A counsellor is required to intervene for violence.

Well, I ended up being very involved. My sister's boyfriend told her for months that my parents were racists and controllling. And I'm sure she didn't think that, but there was so much psychological damage going on that my sis treated them very poorly. She called them manipulative like HIM. But despite all that, she trusted me. I was always her best friend and sister and I left school to go help her. Because school will never ever be as important as family.

It was awful. I saw my completely unemotional sister tell her story of abuse several times to her attorney, the police, and ultimately the judge. It gave me hope when she broke down exactly two times on that trip. At sixteen years old, I know I would not be strong enough to handle it all. So I know Christ gave me the strength I needed to get through it.

I never had a major psychological regression. My sister was depressed, but I was not. I was able to be calm and think clearly and I'm so grateful for that.

I need to tell you something and it's so important. Your worth is not defined by a grade or test score or the school you attend. You can and will do great things. You are a person and we are all equally important. You try your best and if you fall short, it doesn't matter. Think of a Plan B. Go to community college for 2 years and transfer to a 4-year institution. You have to be motivated. You have to work hard. But I believe you can do anything you want to. Just get to college, any college. Education is so important and will give you opportunities for the future. Remember: there is always open enrollment colleges. But don't sell yourself short, you can always transfer to your dream school if you work hard enough.

I wish you the best of luck! Do not get down on yourself. Be happy and live your life. Honestly, message me anytime you feel down because I promise you that I care. If you want, keep me updated on your dreams.

Life is hard, but we can get through it, I promise.

Best,

Anna

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Hello Anna!

I hope you'll be willing to excuse how long it took for me to write back to you. I did read your message very shortly after you sent it but I didn't really know how to respond. I'm sort of surprised that what I wrote had the ability to invoke such sorrow in you. Part of me wants to apologize for bringing you down, but maybe your emotions show that I succeeded in getting my point across. Would you believe that message was by far the longest piece of text I've ever written? I actually copied and pasted it into Google Docs and sure enough it surpassed my longest school paper in length, which was written in sophomore year. I'm sure you could understand why my writing stamina halted from then on, given what has been said about my experience with high school. As facetious as that may be, lol.

I approached the message in a way I'd never approached writing. I recorded myself narrating the message verbally, as if I were sitting across from you and speaking to you directly. The conversation between me and my phone lasted a good 25 minutes. I then played it back, paraphrased and edited some parts so that it would flow better. It was improvisation for the most part. It must have been a pretty auspicious method considering the length of the text it yielded and the brief amount of time it took to do so. Maybe I could do something similar for future school papers and essays...

It makes sense that your drive for school from early on has allowed you to perform so well in recent past. I've observed that most people's strengths and fortes stem from their early childhood. I just happened to breeze through grade school without realizing I'd have to assert myself later on. We've been over this though.... About your brother, why is it that extra gifted kids always seem to gravitate toward computers and programming? I've built a couple computers but it's honestly just a slightly more complicated version of legos. Every single extremely successful technology entrepreneur seems to have attended an elite university for some time. They all just have that precocious knack for science and mathematics. That realization alone has had me feeling sort of down recently, even though it's probably something almost nobody cares about. Before I tell somebody to Google something in casual conversation, I think "Google. Larry Page was a Stanford student. Maybe I shouldn't specify which search engine to use so as not to advertise the creation of this superior being in the process" I'm weird.

What are AP classes like? By the time I graduate, I won't have completed a single one.

Also, do you happen to attend a private school? I've been browsing the website Niche a lot lately, looking at the educational outcome statistics of dozens of schools. There's a very conspicuous trend in which private schools have the highest SAT and ACT averages by a landslide. In fact, my cousin, who went to a private high school, happened to best me by 50 points and goes to Georgetown. I used to be convinced that inherent reasoning ability was the key to acing standardized tests, but it seems that academic rigor has a much greater effect. Remember the school I was ousted from and wished I could go back to? It turns out their average score is 1460. I'm not sure if this is due to the large percentage of kids of bottom-of-the-barrel socioeconomic status weighing down the average, but regardless... I know that I deserved a better high school than that. After some research - that I really should've done in eighth grade during the high school application era - I found that there really are only two magnet ("special" public) schools deserving of such a title in Philadelphia. These two schools are Central Philadelphia High school and Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School. Central is good, with an average SAT of about 1700, and Masterman is even better, with an average around where I scored. I actually got into Central and turned it down in favor of the school I attended because it was closer and some people I knew had chosen that school. Big mistake.

I'm happy I did as well as I did running on such an insufficient level of education, but to this day I'm still irked that I was so close to that big, bad 2000. Fortunately, I do have the ACT to look forward to. As a matter of fact, it's looking like the ACT is more of "my test" than the SAT was! I started taking practice tests earlier this week, using the section-by-section approach. I've taken four English sections and scored 31, 33, 35, and 33, in that order. I'm seriously shocked at the amount of success I've been having with ACT English. I haven't had to do much studying other than the tests themselves to achieve those scores. I'm aware that this section must just come naturally to me, and I don't expect the other three sections to (especially Math) so I will most likely have to actually practice very soon. Four practice tests of the same section may be a bit overkill, but I want to see if I can land a perfect 36 just for fun. If I can somehow achieve a composite of 31 or 32 on test day, I can forget about my SAT forever. I'm starting to believe this will be the case.

Have you always had such a close relationship with God? A few people have told me not to worry and that one day my bond with him will just form out of thin air. I'm sort of skeptical of that. I was raised Catholic and made my sacraments, but after that point the religious part of me ultimately ceased to exist. I've never really perused the bible and I wonder if I should in the near future. There are too many bible jokes and memes that I just don't understand because I never read the book! But yeah, I want to believe that he's there and that he cares about me, but I never really felt enough of a presence to know for sure. I haven't been as concerned about the whole thing in recent years, because obviously there are other issues to be prioritized.

What happened to your sister is horrible and I can't imagine how painful it must have been for you to experience it progress the way it did. Really must've been harsh. But you seem to have been incredibly strong during that time and it is admirable that you were able to get through it with the help of God. How are things now with her? It's a good thing she sought counseling. Too many people convince themselves they don't need it and never recover.

Your encouraging words mean so much to me. It's not often someone addresses me the way you are. Not that it doesn't happen at all, but as far as people in my age group go, yeah. I guess it takes wearing your heart on your sleeve to get that kind of feedback. I really do hope I find success someday. I've never been interested and proficient in something I could exploit after high school in the form of a major. I'm not doubting that that "thing" could still eventually present itself, but with the way things are going it's difficult to be hopeful or optimistic about anything. As for your Plan B recommendation, it turns out that I will most likely be taking dual enrollment courses at community college as substitutes for AP classes. I'm looking forward to that experience. I'm also looking forward to receiving my ACT score and diving into the college application ordeal. It's going to be stressful but I'm sure it will be worth it. I visited my friend's campus last week and boy... I suddenly can't wait to go to college. Maybe once I'm there I'll partake in extracurricular activity for once.

Thank you for keeping me in your thoughts and caring enough about my words to reciprocate. It's not often that you get that much of a response out of someone, especially someone who you don't know. You shocked me.. in a wonderful way. :)

Joe