Average Freshman/Sophomore Year, Very Good Junior Year...Chances?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hello all,

I’m a rising senior and hope to attend a school in the realm of WashU, Vanderbilt, Tufts, etc. My school weighs GPAs on a 5-point scale, with Honors and AP classes both counting for an extra 0.67 points. I’ve always taken the most difficult version of each course I was taking (most difficult courseload, basically), and this past year I took four APs: Biology, USH, Lang, and Calc AB. I achieved As in all of these except for a B+ in APUSH and finished the year with a 4.47 GPA. Unfortunately, my Freshman Year and Sophomore Year GPAs were 3.61 and 3.79, respectively; thus my cumulative GPA is a 3.96, which is on the lower side. Do any of you know how much colleges will consider my first two years compared to my Junior Year performance? I’ve also received thus far 5s on all of my AP exams, 800 on Math II, and 1570 on the SAT (Essay: 6/5/6). I’ve also won in multiple statewide/national videography contests. I intend on majoring in Biology and will be taking that subject test in August.

For those who would rather not piece together my puzzle and inform me of my chances/ability to be accepted into colleges like those aforementioned, it is no problem. However, if you can still answer my question about the Junior Year vs first two years, I’d much appreciate it. I assume my situation is better than achieving a consistent 3.96 in each of my past three years, but I’m not exactly sure how colleges will view my transcript. If I had performed like this all throughout high school, I’m sure I’d be applying to all of the top colleges (Ivies), but I’d still like to know if I should even try to get into colleges who want 4.2-4.4 GPAs if mine is in the 3.9 range despite my stellar Junior Year. This past year indicates my college-readiness taking difficult courses, but I guess my first two years will hinder my ability to shoot for those top schools.

2

The answer will depend upon whether you have “hooks”, such as being URM or a great athlete. Since you didn’t mention any “hook” I will assume that you don’t have one, but my answer will be too pessimistic if you do have a big hook.

My guess is that the top Ivy’s and equivalent (MIT, Stanford, Chicago) are quite unlikely. WashU, Vanderbilt, Tufts are also high reaches as would be any “top 30” schools, but might be possible.

However, there are a LOT of very good universities in the US. You should be a match for a very good school (perhaps “top 50 or 60”) such as your state flagship for undergrad. You can do very well at a state flagship. This will open up pretty much any school as a real possibility if you want to go on to graduate school.

You might also want to think about some top LACs, and definitely think hard about what you want in a school since you will have many choices. Also make sure that you spend time thinking about “very good safeties”.

3

just got into Princeton lol