Bad Freshman Grades; Will it hurt my chances of getting into higher ranked colleges?

<p>I'm normally a straight A student, but my freshman year I messed up fairly badly. Out of seven classes first semester I had to B's (Concert Band and Latin I) second semester I had two A's the rest were B's (Honors English 89%, Honors Science 86%, Geomety 89%, Latin I 80%, Global Perspectives/Social Studies 89%) How will this impose on my chances to get into a more "prestigous" if I get higher grades the next three years?</p>

<p>I've heard, although it's not a school I'd attend, Stanford does not look at freshman grades. Does anyone know the factuality of this and if any other colleges do the same thing?</p>

<p>Colleges usually place heavier weight on junior year, first semester senior year, and sophomore year grades than freshman year grades.</p>

<p>Ivey League not an option at this point I'm guessing right?</p>

<p>(It wasn't the class work or anything school related that caught me up this year. I'm come from a challenging home life just as an add in.)</p>

<p>Note:
Social Studies at my school are required. I'm taking Honors Algebra II, and continuing on to Honors Pre-Calculus AP Calculus or AP Stats senior year. My foreign language is Latin, although I'm deciding if Sophomore year will be my last year of that or not, and this year I'll be taking Honors Biology then AP Biology with Junior or Senior year. So I have those covered. </p>

<p>So, will my grades this past year make a large impact or do I still have a chance at a higher prestige of a school?</p>

<p>Ok. Good. :)
That made my day.</p>

<p>(Sorry about any spelling errors. My computer is responding to my typing slowly today so it's leaving out letters.)</p>

<p>Oh ok. That's really convient for me I guess then. Thanks.</p>

<p>mhm don't worry about it... one of my friends who just graduated received two Cs his freshman year, and he got into Cornell... you should be fine</p>

<p>i also know that Princeton, Yale, and USC could care less about freshman grades</p>

<p>Johns Hopkins admission department told me a couple of years ago that they 'look' at your 9th grade scores, but don't use them in calculating your GPA.</p>

<p>Also, isn't seeing 'an upward trend' in an applicant's grades desirable to admissions committee? That means you have to start off not so great in order to show improvement. So that 'bad' 9th grade year could work to your benefit!</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Your grades aren't that bad</p></li>
<li><p>It won't hurt</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Schools that don't care that I know of:
Princeton
Yale
USC</p>

<p>Schools that don't really care all that much:
Johns Hopkins
Some LACs</p>

<p>That is what i've heard though.</p>

<p>Hmm, though the only problem here is ranking.
Don't all those ivys and highly selective schools care about rank?
Even though you might get Straight A's throughout Soph, Junior, and Senior year, your class ranking would be lower than it should be, and wouldn't that put you at a disadvantage?</p>

<p>I'm in a similar boat because my freshman grades from overseas weren't transfered properly, and they didn't even transfer my second semester (so not only do I have a bunch of B's that should be A's; I'm also missing 3.5 credits and hence have a low ranking even though I've had straight A's in every class since then.)</p>

<p>Oh yay. Rank. I was avoiding bring that one up. </p>

<p>My school in and of itself isn't overly competitive. The kids who are admired for high grades and what not don't really have the high grades that everyone believes. It's just the other students that no one pays attention to I'm nervous about now.</p>

<p>UCs "look" at your freshman grades, but they do not put those grades into GPA calculation.</p>

<p>Oh ok. :)
Thanks again and again to all who have posted so far.</p>

<p>Stanford does not care about your freshman year grades.</p>

<p>^ Glad to have the question clarified. Thank you.</p>

<p>Wait, so colleges calculate GPA by themselves, so they don't just follow what your school dishes out?
If so, then I'll have a 4.0 XD
But yeah, do they also calculate rank by themselves?</p>

<p>Sorry to steal your thread for a second, but could anyone tell me the relative value of sophomore year grades? haha.</p>

<p>I've got really awesome extracurriculars, test scores, and junior year courseload, but I went through some heady problems sophomore year, giving me about an A- average. I'm doing everything I can to get myself to an A or A+ next (junior) year, with 5 AP's, including BC Calc. </p>

<p>So, just curious. It just seems that colleges won't be admitting the sophomore me, so they shouldn't care much, right?</p>

<p>No. How could they possibly calculate rank by themselves?</p>

<p>SaveD: How is an A- average by any means "bad"?</p>

<p>Go out and enjoy the summer ^^. And yes, colleges pay attention to sophomore and junior year the most, as well as your senior year mid-term.</p>

<p>Well, it's bad for HYPSM, isn't it?</p>