Bad first semester of 10th grade...

I’m finishing up my first semester of sophomore year and I had good grades in the first quarter with all A’s except a B in AP Bio and and A- in Honors Pre Calc. My weighted GPA was a 4.35. But the second quarter I have an A in AP Psych, Spanish, and World Civ and everything else (Hon Chem, Hon English, AP Bio, and Hon Pre Calc) I have some form of a B, so therefore my semester grades aren’t super good. Will I get rejected by good schools because of a bad semester?

Honestly no, as long as those grades don’t have a substantial impact on your GPA. Colleges are also understanding of a rigorous course load. Furthermore even if your school has a semester grading system, your final transcript may only include your final grades (average of both semesters) Overall you are on track.

I had 2 B’s in my junior yr and still made it to top 20 schools. 10th grade doesn’t weigh that much anyway. focus on junior year lol. I know from a person who works at brown’s admissions that 1 B in junior yr is ok, but any more than that is bad at any ivy league or top schools. (just for future reference) anyways, he also said that junior year weigh twice as much as sophomore, and they don’t care much about freshman. chill and do better next time.

@blueblue8787 I had a b+ (a 92) and an 83 C my junior year, but my other grades looked like this: 98/98/97/100/98 (the 100, one 98, and one 97 are AP classes, too)

Do you think that would make me uncompetitive for top schools?

@sumuzu I’m no expert at this to be honest. But it seems that a C may raise a red flag. Try to do better on other parts of the common app though.

You are fine… Relax… You are a sophomore, you are taking a decently rigorous schedule and have done quite well! Be proud of what you have accomplished, there will be a college for you, take into account that people get lower grades than what you have gotten and attend fantastic schools! Remember grades are not all that they take into consideration, especially sophomore year, improvement, extra curricular activities and simply diversity will help win you over.