And get those applications in – you’re late in the game right now if you’re a Senior!!

You might just have to go to a community college and prove yourself there before you can get into a good college.Small private colleges are usually pretty selective, and even state schools generally look for better grades than you have. I’m assuming you took the old SAT (otherwise, 1300 is a TERRIBLE score – out of 2400!) – in which case, it’s probably been too long and you’ll need to take it again.

Starting out with two years at a community college isn’t the end of the world.

You want to be prepared. A lot of students don’t make it past the first year. You need to get disclipined enough to study and learn to ask questions on what you don’t understand. Take full responsibility for your learning. I don’t know what state you live in. I know in MA the schools are very competitive here. I went to the University of Alabama. It was cheaper and I got a great education. You may want to consider colleges outside your area.

You may need to take classes at a community college for a year to prove that you can handle college work. There’s no shame in doing that. The classes are smaller and are taught by instructors with PhDs. In large colleges and universities, you’re usually in big classes, at least for the 100 level courses. That adds onto the difficulty factor. It can be hard to hear the instructor over all of those students. At Harvard, I’ve heard there are a lot of foreign instructors that are difficult to understand.

Bottom line: Get to work on your studies. Make sure that you are not overcommitting yourself. The other stuff is great but it shouldn’t interfere with your academics. It’s a great way to learn more about yourself and how you work with others, among other things. But academics first.