Through the first quarter of my Junior year of Highschool, I have gotten an A and A- in Honor classes, but straight Bs in my three AP classes. Does this look alright to top colleges (Boston College, USC, Wake Forest)? I am stressing out over that my weighted GPA is good but my unweighted might not meet their standards.
Competitive schools expect you to have great grades in rigorous classes. Many colleges will look at your UW GPA only or use their own calculations.
The simple answer is “Get the best grades in the most rigorous courses you can.” Both GPA and rigor can be important to top schools. For most, GPA is probably more important than rigor, but both will matter.
A college won’t care about 1st Q Jr. grades; They will look at the end of the year grades in academic courses and mid-year grades if you have 1/2 year courses. And, of course, most look at freshman through mid-year senior grades, and also check on your final Sr. year grades even after you’ve been accepted. So what you did last year, and even the year before can affect your application as well.
Most colleges don’t have a “hard” cut-off for GPA, but most students who get into competitive colleges have relatively high UW GPAs, take a rigorous course load (and/or have exceptional ECs) as well as strong board scores.
That said, there is no use “stressing” unless you use that stress to help you raise the grades as much as possible.
You have 3Qs of the year to bring up your grades. Do the best you can without making the rest of your HS career an exercise in stressing about grades. A student who gets B’s and A’s in a rigorous honors/AP curriculum and has standardized test scores to match that level of achievement will find a great college situation. It might not be the exact 3 colleges you list (though it could be, depending on the rest of your application and stats), but the higher your GPA the more choices you will have.
At the end of the day, an A/A- is always better than a B/B+. If you feel you can raise one or two of those AP classes scores to A-, I’d focus on that (without crashing your other grades or missing your high school experience completely.). Often there are small, specific things a student can do to help nudge their grades up a bit. Does your school have a tutoring center? Are your teachers available to talk to? Are there private resources you can use?
If I were you I would go talk to your AP teachers if you can, make a plan to make sure you are studying the material as effectively and efficiently as possible. Look at the grading rubric, see where you think you can be most effective in raising your grade.
The only other thing you can do to mitigate “lower” GPA (assuming it’s too late to switch out of the AP courses) is get the best grades you can get and score as well as possible on the AP tests. While schools tend not to put nearly as much weight on an AP score as a course grade, it certainly can’t hurt your case if you get a B in your AP but a 5 on the test. (But it’s better to get an A and a 3 in most cases.)
But if you keep B’s and A’s in your rigorous academic courses, rest assured you will find a great collge that is right for you. Many students would be thrilled with those grades. But the higher the GPA, the more college options you will have.
Hope this helps.